A few weeks ago, I announced a project that we’ve undertaken here at Canadian Animation Resources, the 30 Second Film Challenge. The Challenge involves a group of recent grads from Algonquin College’s animation program here in Ottawa setting out to make sophomore films. Our approach has been very specific: make the film you can make, not necessarily the film you’ve always wanted to make. These kids all have a film under their belts already, and this is a chance to use that experience and build on it.
At the beginning of the summer we all sat down and said, ok, we’ve got about X amount of hours a week we can dedicate to this, and we’ve got three months of X hours that we’ll commit to. That became the primary limitation that we set for ourselves. We meet every week, and go over each others’ work, providing constructive critique and suggestions. Last week, we were hitting a technological wall. Everyone’s ready to dive into animation at this point, with less than a month to go to get these things wrapped up. We found ourselves without adequate software. We began looking at plan B scenarios and some of the film-makers were starting to animate in Photoshop. Sadly, this is what happens when you’re working independently. No budget means no budget.
Good news came on Friday. The fine people at Toon Boom, via Sean Scourse, have agreed to provide us with ten 
temporary Animate Pro licenses! We’ve got software! This is huge for our little project. These guys just upped our chances at completing these films by about a billion per cent. BIG thanks to Toon Boom for their generosity and support.
So now, back to the films. Come check out our progress on our production blog. I’ve got bios up for most of the participants now,with a few more to come, and we’ve begun to post production art and animation tests for a few of the films, including some rough animation for the title card. I’m hoping to be updating regularly as we head into the home stretch. And please, your comments and support are welcome!
Cheers,
Mike
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