Academy Award-winning motion-capture systems developer VICON announced today that it kick off the first ever VICON Film Festival: A Celebration of All Things Motion Capture and Animation at SIGGRAPH 2007. The fest will be hosted at booth #902 at the San Diego Convention Center during the computer graphics confab, which is being held August 7-9.
The VICON Film Festival is an international competition open to original short films (between two and five minutes) using stock motion-capture data provided via the VICON Film Festival website at www.vicon.com/filmfestival. The most creative and entertaining use of the series of captured movements will earn one filmmaker the grand prize of $10,000.
“We’re thrilled to be launching the first film festival ever to celebrate
motion-capture in animation,” says Robin Pengelly, VP of VICON’s Entertainment division. “With this contest we’re making motion capture accessible to many artists who may have never had the opportunity to work with capture data before, and we look forward to exposing the next generation of film and games creatives to the flexibility of animating with motion capture.”
Selected films will be posted on YouTube for public voting, and the top ten
entries will be submitted to an independent judging panel comprised of
industry experts including Mike Sanders from ILM, Eric Furie from USC School of
Cinematic Arts, Takashi Fukamoto of Links Digiworks, Gary Roberts of House of
Moves, award-winning writer/director Chris Mais (Smile) and
Darren Waters from BBC Technology. The winner will be announced in June of 2008.
