graph-o-mat 1.0

Logo Courtesy of Timothy Leborgne.

While at a press conference at fmx/08 in Stuttgart, Germany, I learned about a new initiative funded by the MEDIA Programme of the EU and named „Animation Sans Frontières, the Animation Production Workshop“ (ASF in short; web site will be available soon), whose goal will be to provide students with the necessary knowledge about the business side of animation, multimedia, visual fx, and related fields.

On the next day, I had the chance to speak with Eric Riewer and Timothy Leborgne at the Speaker’s Lounge of fmx. Eric Riewer is a member of the board of fmx. In addition, he is responsible for International Relations at Gobelins, L’Ecole De L’Image, a school located in Paris. Timothy Leborgne is Director of Professional Training at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark, and he is the coordinator of the consortium of four schools involved with this program. (The remaining two schools are the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg – Institute of Animation, Germany, and the Moholy Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME), Hungary.)

This initiative will, in the course of one year, make students from the four schools familiar with issues such as project development, etc.. Another important goal of ASF will be to help build a European wide network of animation talent. The students who want to apply for ASF have to pitch one project to be developed during the course. Finally, four students from each of the four schools will be selected. While participating to ASF, they will visit each of the schools for a total of 2 weeks in each.

Quote:

„A group of 16 students, 4 from each school, will travel to every school to follow 4 separate parts of an overview of the entire animation film production process, from concept development through financing to actual production management. Television and feature films, games and interactive media, traditional and cross platform production processes will all be covered at various stages along the way. Each [of the] modules will run over 14 days“.

The first ASF Master Class will start in October, 2008.

Here are once again the links to the web sites of the four participating schools:

• The Animation Workshop
• Gobelins, L’Ecole De L’Image
• Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
• Moholy Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME)