SVA Computer Art Department Chair, John McIntosh, served as the Festival Chair. The following essay is an excerpt from his introduction to the SIGGRAPH 2002 Computer Animation Festival catalogue. The essay gives an insight into the process and time involved in managing one of the largest computer animation festivals in the world.

SIGGRAPH 2002 COMPUTER ANIMATION FESTIVAL

Imagination, Innovation, Realization:
The Art and Science of Computer Animation

For over twenty-five years, SIGGRAPH has celebrated the achievements of artists, scientists, programmers and interactive designers. The Computer Animation Festival is the most prestigious event of its kind. It is an internationally recognized and a highly anticipated showcase documenting the significant advances in technology, interactive techniques and the seemingly infinite creative potential of computer graphics. Each year the featured animations, visualizations and visual effects are fascinating, delightful and sometimes terrifying.

Being There
The Computer Animation Festival is an affirmation of talent, vision, intelligence and creativity. Managing the festival is a process of planning, cajoling and hoping that it all works. For eighteen months there is no peace; you constantly have this nagging suspicion that you have forgotten to do something important. Fortunately for me, this is a job that requires more hard work than talent. The success of the Computer Animation Festival is and will always be directly proportional to the talent of the students, professionals, artists, filmmakers, scientists and innovators who submit their work each year.

I am happy to admit that I am in awe of the work that is created in this community. I love the energy, the compulsive dedication, the talent and intelligence that surrounds us in this event. I extend my congratulations to all of the participants and I offer my sincere thanks to everyone who supported our efforts and the Computer Animation Festival.

Selecting the Work
Nothing meaningful was ever created with a computer by the notorious “push of a button.” The achievements we celebrate are created through hours, days, weeks, months and even years of dedication and hard work. The Computer Animation Festival presents the work we accept in two venues:  the Electronic Theater and the Animation Theater. Both theaters play a vital role in our community. The Electronic Theater is an elite showcase. It is big, flashy and the featured work is, without qualification, exceptional. But, where a single piece in the Electronic Theater may represent an entire segment of the computer graphics community, the work presented in the Animation Theater reveals the breadth of the talent, richness of the ideas, as well as the dramatic technical achievements that alter our very perception of what we might still realize.

Selecting the work for the Computer Animation Festival is complicated by the tremendous diversity of submissions and the limited time to screen the work within the conference venues. Each year, exceptional efforts are taken to insure that jury process will be fair and inclusive. I have personally observed two jury meetings, and on both occasions I was impressed with the care and concern each jury member applied to their selections. The Computer Animation Festival Jury is comprised of prominent members of the computer graphics community. They are your colleagues and they have served as strong advocates for your work.

The Jury Meeting
This year the Computer Animation Festival received 640 submissions. Within days of the submission deadline, a team of jurors met to review the work. The work was juried in two rounds.  In the first round, four teams of two jurors each reviewed submissions in the categories selected by the submitter. The jurors could vote for ET (Electronic Theater), AT (Animation Theater) or NT (No Theater).
 
The criteria for selection was simple and clear – “ choose work that showed exceptional accomplishment in technique, innovation, design and/or aesthetics.” The jury was instructed to ignore the length of the submissions and not to give preference to shorter submissions. If a submission was longer then others, it had to be that much better. We did not request the editing of submissions for a shorter version upon acceptance. And, no submissions were edited for inclusion in either the Electronic Theater or the Animation Theater. I also asked the jury to select work that they would enjoy seeing more than once and in many instances the selected work was viewed three or more times at the request of the jury.

The first jury review began at 9 AM on Thursday and we stopped work that evening at 9 PM. We completed the first review at 1 PM Friday. During this round, the jury was required to view each submission for a minimum of two minutes before voting. However, the majority of pieces were viewed to completion regardless of their run-time. A total of 640 submissions were screened.
 
The final round began at 2:30 PM Friday afternoon. In this round the entire jury reviewed each submission. We began with the submissions that received the most ET votes during the first round and progressively moved down the list. At the completion of each tape the jury was asked for comments and their final votes. In the final round, over 200 submissions were reviewed by the full jury. This included every submission that received at least one ET vote or two AT votes in the first round. The final round was completed at 11 PM Saturday evening.
 
At 9 PM Sunday we began a final review of all the work selected for the ET and the AT. We established that if we used every submission that received four ET votes, we would have two hours of content for the Electronic Theater. With that in mind, the jurors reviewed work from the ET list that they wanted to see again. Approximately 24 submissions were reviewed and, after a full jury vote, five submissions were removed from the ET.
 
The jury then reviewed submissions currently on the AT list to consider for inclusion in the ET. Of the ten submissions requested, three were voted into the Electronic Theater. The ET was then locked at approximately two hours of content. Next, we repeated this process with the Animation Theater selections. The Animation Theater run-time was locked when we approached three hours and thirty minutes of content. At the end of the jury meeting we made the selections for two awards; Best Animated Short and, the Jury Award. At 3 PM the jury meeting was adjourned.
 
For four days, the jury was positive, proactive, generous and considerate with the work and with each other. The jury was serious and focused on their task from beginning to end. When there were discussions, opposing views were patiently and calmly expressed.  The members of this jury conducted themselves with intelligence, passion, and sincerity.  It was a pleasure to be there.

The Facts
Total number of submissions juried: 640    
Total number in the show: 101
Total in the Electronic Theater: 36
Total in the Animation Theaters: 65
Total number of international submissions: 281
International submissions  in ET: 19
International submissions  in AT: 36
Total number of student submissions: 338
Student submissions in ET: 12
Student submissions  in AT: 24

The Artists, the Innovators, the Scientists and the Studios
The SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival has arrived at a crossroads. The technological achievements and innovations featured in the past are now the essential tools and techniques used to create complex and beautifully executed stories. Along with our celebration of technological achievements this is now an exceptional festival of animated short films.

Today we see the results of a revolution that many of us have eagerly anticipated.  As the costs of professional caliber tools have become increasingly affordable, individual artists and smaller independent production teams are creating work that equals the largest and most renowned studios. As a result, we are seeing more and more serious work that deserves to be seen in its entirety. This is not a fluke or a novelty. This is a global phenomenon and as a result, remarkable work from thirteen different countries is represented in the 2002 Computer Animation Festival.
 
As the quality of submitted work continues to advance, the benchmark for selection in the Computer Animation Festival gets higher and higher. On average, only one in every six to seven submissions is accepted in the festival and less then one in twenty submissions is accepted in the Electronic Theater. Yet students are still bold enough to have their work juried next to the largest companies; scientists along-side artists, and dramatic narratives amongst the funniest gags. This is a great event and it becomes more diverse and impressive each year.

In some categories the benchmark is so high that even a basic submission requires elaborate shot breakdowns and complex productions. Submissions from feature film visual effects are great examples of how extensive the productions must be to effectively show the SIGGRAPH audience how the visual effects were achieved. It is wholly impressive work and the efforts are noted, appreciated and rewarded.

Today scientific and medical visualizations require good science, great animation and near broadcast-ready presentations. That is a rare blend of skills, indeed.  Experimental and fine art submissions, which are often less traditional in form, are presented in an event that is dominated by clear, defined subjects and polished narratives. Real-time graphics and video games are limited to linear tape presentations that make the accomplishments in real-time graphics difficult to elucidate or validate.  Due to the diversity and sheer volume of the competition, it seems as though every submission is a long shot. And yet, every year the long shots succeed! Student work is screened with the largest studios. The work of scientists and programmers is featured in the same venue as fine artists and, real-time graphics are shown with feature film visual effects!

The reaction of the great majority of individuals and companies when the jury selections are announced is very positive. Almost without exception the participants are appreciative when their work is accepted, and gracious when their work is not. Unfortunately, there are a few studios that will only allow their work to be screened if they are accepted in the Electronic Theater. Their behavior undermines the very community they seek to impress. Their actions diminish the achievement of every student, every individual and every other studio (both large and small) that were brave enough to put their work in front of a jury for review. Fortunately, the majority of studios and the growing number of independent artists are delighted to share their efforts with the Siggraph audience regardless of which theater their work appears.

The Production: the Electronic Theater and the Animation Theaters
This year, the Electronic Theater was produced in Los Angles by the legendary broadcast designer, Harry Marks. Harry is an extraordinary talent and is widely considered to be the father of broadcast design. Before Harry Marks, broadcast graphics were as static and boring as black print on paper. Harry gave broadcast graphics color and most importantly, he made them move. It is my great fortune to count Harry as both a friend and a mentor. Harry assembled a production team that includes the Emmy award-winning designer, Dale Herigstad along with Paul Sidlo, Bill Kovacs, Marc Leidy, Hoping Chen and Michelle McGinnis.

The Animation Theater was produced in New York City by Linda A. Walsh and Marie Poe. Linda is an award winning producer and art director.  She has directed a team of animators and digital artists that included 3D artist Kim Lee, and designer Jean-David Boujnah. Linda also produced the Animation Theater opening sequences created by Primal Screen in Atlanta, and Vinton Studios in Portland.
 
With production teams working independently in Los Angeles and New York, the continuity of the festival production fell squarely on the shoulders of Sarah Hirzel, the Festival Coordinator. Sarah worked from the SIGGRAPH office at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She phoned, emailed and sent a multitude of correspondence to every participant involved in this festival. The success of this event rests within Sarah’s patience, hard work and good humor. April Ramey, the Festival Administrator and Kathryn Griswold, the Data Base Director, were also invaluable.  April received every videotape and tracked every submission form. Kathryn developed a database on the fly to process all the information that was required to manage the productions, run the jury meeting and produce the catalog.

With Appreciation
There are dozens of individuals who deserve our thanks. We have done our best to include everyone on the following page. I am delighted to give special recognition to David Rhodes, the President of the School of Visual Arts. His generous support of both SIGGRAPH and my role in managing the Computer Animation Festival, is deeply appreciated.

My friends, family, SVA staff members and students have all supported my efforts by being patient and taking on more responsibilities throughout this year. Fortunately my bride, Katrin Eismann loves it when I am busy. She was very happy.

Finally, after the attack we witnessed in New York on September 11, there was little time and precious few reasons to laugh. A few weeks later, The ONION began distributing their tabloid freely, throughout New York City. Slowly but surely we started to laugh again. While we will not forget the tragedy, we thank The ONION for helping us heal.

John McIntosh, Chair
Computer Art, School of Visual Arts
Computer Animation Festival, SIGGRAPH 2002