TAAFI
Well, it's certainly becoming a hard to keep up with festival travel and writing blogs and making a respectable living working in the field of animation. As I write this, I am in a hotel in Melbourne, Australia getting ready to take part in MIFF. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. Last week, I traveled to Toronto to take part in the Toronto Animation Arts Festival International as a guest speaker on a funding panel with the likes of Bobby Chiu, Lillian Chan, Hector Herrera and Pazit Cahlon. The panel was eloquently moderated by Jason Della Rocka. Bobby spoke about his project Niko and the Sword of Light and how he successfully conducted his Kickstarter campaign. Lillian showed us her amazing pitch on IndieGogo for her so-cute-it-hurts project Ramen Party. And Hector and Pazit spoke about their independent animation projects that they funded off the backs of their commercial service works. I was there to speak about how I funded Requiem for Romance from public and private funding institutions, that include SODEC, Canada Arts Council, BravoFACT, Charles Street Video, NFB Filmmaker's Assistance Program and provincial tax credits.
I stressed the importance of the need for strong, visual and dynamic writing in the written proposals and compared advantages and disadvantages of verbal pitching versus written proposals. There were some good questions, mainly addressing how one goes about fulfilling the requirements and eligibilities of each and every financial contributor, which can be very challenging but totally possible with the right approach.
I also mentioned a strong component to my film financing plans involve selling the DVDs and limited prints from my film at screenings and events. I'm very pleased to say that the support in Toronto was huge, I made some great revenues from private sales of DVDs and my new prints throughout the festival that will help towards the funding of my next project.
If some of you missed out, I'm also happy to announce that my film's DVDs are now available for purchase on my website at http://jonjonphenomenon.com/2013/requiem-for-romance-dvds/.
The limited prints will be coming as soon as I figure out the best way to ship them.
Day of the Crows Screening
Some of you may or may not know that I worked on the French feature film The Day of the Crows. Here is a reel of all of the shots that I rough animated and tied down. It was pretty much a full-house and I'm super proud of the fact that the audience laughed at so many of my shots action shots. I had some important emotive scenes as well. I was able to hang out with the director Jean-Christophe Dessaint again, as he came all the way to Toronto from France.
Special Private Screenings
I also had the chance to present Requiem for Romance along with all of my past animated films at two private screenings organized by TIFF group. The first was part of a program called Reel Comfort, which brings independent filmmakers and their films to hospital patient groups as part of a community outreach program. The screening was held at the Toronto General hospital, it was a small and intimate group but they were extremely engaging. It proved to be very inspiring for myself and for the patients.
My second screening was held at an animation camp for kids at the TIFF Bell Lightbox facilities. I screened Asthma Tech, Floor Kids, which they had all seen before, as well as Requiem for Romance, and I watched some of the fun animation clips they were working on. The kids were so awesome. They were incredibly perceptive and curious about my work. They were equally shy as they were excited about animation, but as we got to talking they became much more outspoken about their likes and aspirations. The animation camp touches on all forms of animation, from hand drawn, to paper cut out, to stop motion.
