On Sunday, May 17 2015, ASIFA-East held its 46th Annual ASIFA-East Animation Festival at The New School’s Tishman Auditorium. Hosted by the hilarious Tom Warburton, awards were given out across a variety of categories from Student, Commissioned, and Independent Films, to Excellence in Animation, Sound Design, and Education. Tom loves auctioning artwork and so we had bidding wars throughout the evening. Women in Animation joined us as well to recognize two women for excellence in animation filmmaking – Yangzi She for Eggplant (student film) and Mary Nittolo for Give Luci (independent film). Independent Filmmakers Ru Kuwahata & Max Porter won the top prize for their film Between Times and were awarded two passes to the Ottawa International Animation Festival. This year’s 2015 ASIFA-East Peggy Award went to Driving by Nate Theis. A full list of winners is online at https://asifaeast.com/46th-annual-asifa-east-animation-festival-award-winners/.
This year’s signal film was animated by Katie Cropper – Klein. Thanks to Christi Bertelsen and Susan Godfrey for animation help, and big thanks to Robert and Emmett Goodman for the music track.
https://vimeo.com/128222735
At our reception a whiteboard was set up with many colored markers for the animation artists in attendance to have some fun with. Robert Lyons documented that fun via time-lapse photography by setting up a Canon Rebel T3i digital still camera and connecting it to a lap top computer with Dragonframe software and shooting 1 frame every 5 seconds with a 1/2 sec exposure time for the 2 hours or so that the event lasted. Have fun trying to spot some of the animation celebrities as they briefly flash by in front of the camera. The music used is “Sweet Tea” by the Woggles.
We owe a heap of thanks to many people for helping to put this Festival, Awards Ceremony, and Reception together:
To all our amazing sponsors for your continued support of animation talent: Cartoon Network, Cartoon Brew, Sockeye Media, BatteryPop, CelAction, Ottawa International Animation Festival, The New School, The School of Visual Arts, Buzzco Associates, and The Productive Studios.
Thanks again to the New School’s Anezka Sebek and Caitlin Hickey for having us.
A special thank you to our entire Executive Board but most especially to our Festival Co-Chairs Masako Kanayama and Katie Cropper Klein. To Co-Presidents Linda Beck and Dayna Gonzalez, Ray Kosarin, Justin Simonich, Bill Lorenzo, David Langkamp, Patricia Burgess, Tristian Goik, John Lustig, Robert Lyons, and Emmett Goodman.
To Tom Warburton, for being such a terrific host.
William Hohauser edited our Festival Reel. Joe Elliott of Murphy and Taft did our photography. Dayna Gonzalez designed our branded backdrop.
Our projectionist for the Awards Ceremony was Johnny Walker and technical assistance was provided by Mark Fitzpatrick.
Our Awards Certificates were laid out by Katie Cropper Klein with designs from the signal film. She also designed our festival postcard.
To Isam Prado for sculpting our Best in Show Peggy Award.
School of Visual Arts provided our Festival Jury Screenings Venues.
Steve Zelin was our Festival CPA and tallied the votes.
Our after party was at Fiddlesticks Pub.
And last but not least:
Thanks to everyone who entered a film this year and to those who showed up to vote. Our voting members exclusively determine the award winners and therefore the program.
