2008 Character Animation Producers' Show!

Tonight was the big night! The grande finale! The final sign that the year has reached an end and that myself and my fellow classmates have made it! So yes, tonight was the big Producer's Show.

Every year the freshmen are in charge of setting up the show, however this has an advantage because we're the first ones there so we get first dibs on seats---absolutely got a seat across the aisle from the big guys. haha. So beginning at 10 in the morning, we were cleaning equipment, loading up everything into a big ol' truck and by 4pm everybody had reached the theater where they hold the Emmys every year! All of us set up the various displays before grabbing some Subway and hanging around before the gates opened at 7:30.

The theater itself was gorgeous! The picture above just doesn't encompass the atmosphere....the actual screen was huge! It was a real treat being in there. This picture was taken about a hour before this place was packed. Several of us walked up on that stage and looked out into the "audience." Very spacious and intimidating at the same time. beginning at 7:30 I and three other people had the duties of "Ticket People" so we sat outside and handed out RSVP tickets to companies, alumni, and friends of CalArts. Saw a lot of new faces and occasionally saw a famous face in the crowd as they made their way into the theater. Attending guests included Laika, Dreamworks, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Pixar, Disney, lots of alumni, faculty, James Baxter, Andreas Deja, etc. were all present at the theatre--roughly 600 seats packed to the limit! It was very surreal and exciting that these guys were all coming to see what CalArts had produced this year. Carlo Vogele won the Teacher's Pick award(otherwise known as the Woody Award) along with being a co-winner for Peer's Pick for his film, "For Sock's Sake". Fellow freshman, Mike Rianda was the other co-winner of the Peer's Pick award for his 1st year film, "Everybody Dies in 90 Seconds"---both of their films deserved it and I encourage everyone to keep an eye out for these two films. 30 other films entertained the audience and I enjoyed watching a couple of my favorite films again. After the big show it was mingling time. It was now 10:30 and freshmen had about 45 minutes before we had to pack the place up and head back to CalArts. I had the opportunity of meeting some great people and wish I could have stayed for the REAL after party held by Pixar at a place called "Castaways." Oh well, next year is right around the corner....every freshmen class goes through this--it's our official sign-off to our first year at ol' CalArts. Well it was a great night and I have a whole lot of memories of my very first Producers' Show! Once more I'm incredibly inspired to come back fighting and want to animate anything at this point. I just need to settle on a story idea and just draw---a whole lot more than I already am. Okay time for bed, just about ready to pass out...

There are about a dozen people missing from this picture(and sorry if you are in this picture cause you're now apart of the internets!). It was a spur of the moment photo and we gave everyone 10 minutes to gather before shooting this picture.