excitement building for hot climates

Heading to Palm Springs tomorrow for waterslides, desert heat, and of course the Palm Springs Shortfest. And today the SIGGRAPH crew posted the screening schedule for New Orleans later this summer.

It's the same every night, just with a different order. So, to the Bit Films crew: Monday August 3rd seems like the night to celebrate our nomination. That's the evening when awards will be handed out, and even if we don't get one, it will be great to see the films and share some drinks with the other filmmakers on the first night of screenings. Anyone interested should start looking for a great venue to converge upon after the show and send me your ideas! We'll make an official choice and share the word here or elsewhere.

If you're near Palm Springs this week, come find us.

thanks, Humboldt!

Got a great prize package in the mail yesterday from the organizers of the Humboldt Film Festival (where we won Best Animation). And yes, in addition to a cool trophy, check, and certificate, it DID come with 400 feet of color 16mm stock!

I am currently entertaining what to do with the stock, since I've never shot 16mm in my life. Maybe I'll donate it to an animation student in the fall? Contact me if you're interested.

Palm Springs later this month

I'm happy to report our film's inclusion in the Palm Springs International Shortfest later this month. It will be hot and busy and exciting, and even though I'll be in town for neither of our screenings I will be there for many of the ones in between. If you're nearby and want to lounge by the pool or see some films, get in touch.

I would also like to report the creation of a bit films Twitter account (follow bitfilms) which I will also use to update people on the film's (and the studio's) progress.

It's internship start week

Our crew is growing this week with the arrival of the interns!

Two production updates of note: first, Bassam, Josiah and I got our first Blender renders through Helga! This is a big change, since it required adding support for multiple simultaneous versions of any renderer. So now, instead of Helga supporting one version of Maya, we now support multiple versions of multiple renderers. Here's a pic, which is a preview of one of the character's from Bassam's film, Tube:


Also, Evan and Chris showed a new animatic of their film's first act today. I begged them for an image from it and here's what I got, a shot of their protagonist racing through town on her bike:


I won't spoil any more than that, but suffice it to say we are all building momentum on our three projects and are quite excited to be welcoming the new team members this week.