Animation Guild

Summer 2020

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When it comes to submitting animated shorts to film festivals, it's easy for studios. They know the ropes. But just as indie filmmakers are responsible for every aspect of crafting their films, they're on their own when it comes to navigating film festivals. Without a streamlined system in place, it's a complex process, as the experiences of two distinctly different filmmakers show. An Emmy Award-winning animator, storyboard artist, writer, and producer, Mike Milo currently directs Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? for Warner Bros. Animation. He was already an industry veteran when he decided to submit his 2017 indie short Kit, Cat and Kapoodle to film festivals. From the start, he found it confusing. "I did it three times, and in each case, it was hard to find where to submit. There are literally hundreds of festivals around the world. I had to figure out, is this one worth it to me, is it not worth it to me, because they all cost money to enter. You can only pick so many." While storyboard artist and animator Nora Meek has worked for studios such as Cartoon Network and Titmouse, she was a newcomer to the industry when she submitted her indie short Sleep Awake to festivals in 2015. As it turned out, coming at it straight out of film school was an advantage. "Sleep Awake was my senior film," she says, "and luckily my school (Pratt Institute in Brooklyn) was film and fine art focused. We had a lot of instruction on how to submit to the festivals." She learned that it's important to approach the submission process with a surgical attitude. "Every film, no TWO ARTISTS SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES SUBMITTING ANIMATED SHORTS TO FILM FESTIVALS F E AT U R E 36 KEYFRAME

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