'Animation Nights New York Best Of Fest' Panel Line-Up Revealed

Animation Nights New York presents the fourth annual Animation Nights New York Best Of Fest,  returning to 180 Maiden Lane Seaport District on October 5-6. The festival will feature screenings of 20 shorts selected from the past year's monthly ANNY screening events, as well as a range of other panels and screening events.

This will include panels from Diverse Toons, Titmouse and Women In Animation, plus screenings from Tommy Stathes' Cartoons On Film and Augenblick Studios.

The festival offers Industry badges and a free Enthusiast Package. Visit the website for more.

Highlighted Panels

Diverse Toons: Women Taking the Lead The Women Taking the Lead Panel is compromised of women from all avenues of the Animation industry; from filmmakers to entrepreneurs. This panel like all our DiverseToons panels will bring awareness to the need of diversity within studios worldwide. The audience will leave with knowledge about the industry as a whole and a sense of a greater purpose to promote change for this industry. 

Queer Animation Tristian Goik (ASIFA East) Not all animated films end with the cis-male-hero getting the girl! In fact, animation is a great creative medium for expressing all kinds of sexuality, across the Kinsey scale. Join us in discovering what "queer cinema" is, and learn more about the stories and struggles of LGBT+ animators.


"Queer Cinema" is generated from cinema studies and is a general term for really any story that is not heteronormative, and reclaims a word that was once used as an insult. 

KéexFrame: Realtime Project Demo "Media creators are in the constant seek for new ways to engage with their audience, creating products and experiences that get them closer is one of the main pillars of our current entertainment landscape. The creation of “digital avatars” is a growing trend in multimedia nowadays, their conceptualization and utilization for marketing and entertainment purposes is growing more as the big titans of entertainment converge: Media and Gaming. 

The creation of such tools for engagement has led the industry to push technology to be able to achieve believable humans created digitally. A major bi-national sports network requested Keexframe a POC (proof of concept) for the creation of a digital avatar for live TV. Such POC is with the overall idea of potentially producing one or more digital avatars for their daily programming. 

Such avatar was created in the shape of a human and was be performed by a live actor using motion capture technology. The avatar POC demonstrated how a graphic product like this can be conceptualized, produced and placed in a live TV studio environment to be integrated in a daily broadcast workflow." 

WIA: Professional Development - How to Make Your Work Stand Out 

Titmouse: How We Make Cartoons - Animation Production in TV For decades now, animated shows have made their way onto the small screen. In the 21st century, though, TV takes on a much more vague meaning than it did during the previous century. How do front runners for TV entertainment like Netflix and Hulu come into play? What exactly is the pipeline for a TV animated show? How is the process different for a short webisode vs. a long running series, or an adult cartoon vs. a children’s series? This panel will tackle such questions and more with several creatives from Titmouse discussing their perspectives. 

Growing & Managing an Animation Studio Sometimes it takes a village -- or in the animation world, a studio -- to get something done. Is making your own studio the right choice? How does one manage the logistics of running what is essentially their own company? Panelists in this session will discuss the ups and downs of creating a new animation studio. 

The Uncommon presents Animation & The New CX In this panel discussion, Neil Carty, founder and CEO of The Carty Group and The Uncommon will be leading a conversation around the evolving role animation can play in the new consumer experience. Luminaries working in the fields of AR, VR, Voice and AI will discuss how animation IP should now live across these channels to best engage fans 

Animation in Emerging Technology: The Role of the Animator Virtual Reality (VR) and Cross Reality (XR) are two emerging forms of animation designed to immerse an audience in the programmed world in a fun and seamless way. What are developers focusing on when it comes to VR and XR? What do the 2020s and beyond look like for this field? Is VR/XR imitating reality or emulating it? This panel will discuss these questions and more. 

Fireside Chat: Contracts for Artists 

The Uncommon presents Experiential From 2D > XD Animators are brilliant at creating immersive story worlds in two and even three dimensions, but what happens when the story needs to enter the real world? Join Neil Carty founder of The Carty Group and The Uncommon in a discussion with masters of experience as they discuss how to create immersive, authentic and engaging experiences designed to surround fans. 

The Importance of Story Much like live action film making, animation involves a delicate balance of visual cues, auditory references, and character scenes, among other things. All these components and more come into play when it comes to presenting a story in an animated medium. This panel will touch on how to best tell a story in short and long forms, how dialogue comes into play, how non-verbal storytelling is important in animation, the pros of using animation to tell a story over other means, and more. 

Visual Effects Society of New York presents:
MADE IN NEW YORK: THE VISUAL EFFECTS BEHIND THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD Ranging from the glamour and grit of the early 1900’s to quintessential skyline action sequences, filmmakers from all over the world use the Big Apple as their production backlot. With modernization overtaking much of the city’s iconic palette comes increased collaboration with local visual effects talent who work to bring every era of NYC to life for series and film. 

Please join our panel for a discussion on the VFX techniques used to recreate authentic NYC period environments and the dynamic creative collaborations found within the concrete jungle 

Animation and NonFiction (Traditional & New Media) Animation is often thought of as a way to bring fantasy and stories of grandeur to life, but it can just as easily be used to convey real world narratives and humble facts. How can a creative in 

this industry work to incorporate the truth while also being entertaining? How many liberties can be taken when creating an animated documentary or scientifically accurate show? Most importantly, what does the use of animation in non-fiction now mean for animation as a medium in the future? This panel will address several questions and receive answers from four professionals with varying backgrounds. 

Augenblick 20th Anniversary Augenblick Studios celebrates 20 years of animation! Join us to commemorate this milestone with a screening of their very best animation from the past two decades, followed by a Q&A with CEO Aaron Augenblick and Creative Directors Katie Wendt and Jeremy Jusay. Augenblick Studios is an independent animation studio located in Brooklyn, NY. Notable productions include The Jellies (Adult Swim), Losers (Netflix), Ugly Americans (Comedy Central), Superjail! (Adult Swim), Golden Age (Comedy Central), and Wonder Showzen (MTV). Augenblick Studios is one of the leading animation companies in the world, renowned for their unique brand of adult cartoon comedy. 

Making an Animation Career on YouTube YouTube is an ever-evolving platform, but animation has had its stake in it since the very beginning. What's it like embarking on a career for animation on YouTube? How do you navigate being your own boss, figuring out the algorithm, and creating and maintaining a posting schedule? How is this platform different for short-form creators versus long-form creators? This panel will be facilitating a discussion between current Youtubers about these topics and more. 

XR is Revolutionary Much like a painting can depict a fantasy scene in a realistic manner, a computer program can blend the lines of what is real and what is a simulation. XR, sometimes referred to as "X Reality" or "Cross Reality", is a constantly evolving form of interactive entertainment being developed by hardware and software scientists around the world. X Reality encompasses VR, AR, MR, etc. in order to create an immersive experience like never before seen. This panel will discuss XR's potential in creating animated stories, games, and interactive marketing 

Collaborative Platforms for Creation Animation is truly a team effort. From audio to visuals to logistics, a lot comes into play for a TV show or web series or movie to come to life. How does one collaborate best with others to get a product made? This panel will discuss the advent of telecommuting and virtual working, the best ways to efficiently communicate with others, how to use your tools to improve your studio/team dynamics, and so on. 

Voiceover in Animation A lot goes into giving an animated work the right voice. Be it for a narration, a character (or characters), or even a song, a person's voice can truly impact the tone, pace, and even story of an animated work. Several topics from what goes into finding a good voice actor to where does one find a suitable voice to the best tools for getting the best audio will be discussed during this panel. 

Non-Linear Storytelling Talk Rachid El Guerrab (Stealth Startup)

Hiring & Recruiting So many talented people work in the creative industry. But how did they get there in the first place? More importantly, how can an aspiring animator, artist, writer, and so on work to make them stand out in a competitive industry? This panel on hiring and recruitment will touch on how to best make your resume, how to utilize social media to your advantage, what networking REALLY is, and more. 

IGDA NY Animation in Games Rotoscoping is an animation technique where fluid, life-like motion is created by tracing over individual frames of filmed footage. It has been used in Disney animated features, Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, and notably in video games like Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia, The Last Express, and Another World. While the process of digitizing film was once costly and time-consuming, it's now easier than ever to do so, even with limited resources. In this lecture, independent game developer Francisco Gonzalez will give a brief overview of the history of rotoscoping's use in video games, explain how he has incorporated rotoscoping into his own work, and provide a tutorial for animators interested in adopting the technique themselves. Although the focus of the talk will be on rotoscoping's use in video games, anyone interested in learning about the technique is encouraged to attend. 

RLab: Future Technologies for Animation and Media Production 

New Directions in Fine Art Ali Bono (Whitney Museum of American Art) How is technology changing the artworld landscape including accessibility to new art forms, practices and audiences? 

XR Workshop
HTC Vive: Cross Platform VR Development / Using the VIU Unity plugin. Dario Laverde (HTC)  This workshop is for project creators at ALL LEVELS. No coding experience is required!