The FLiP Annecy Survival Guide

Annecy - an ancient medieval town in the French Alps

The International Festival of Animation at Annecy is the world’s biggest animation festival. It can be a slightly overwhelming experience; there are so many things going on at once that it can be hard to feel like you really get to make the most of being there. Alongside the film festival is MIFA – the world’s biggest animation marketplace, a brain-boiling congress of industry types furiously buying and selling. But Annecy is an event that every animator should go to at least once – if only to get a feeling for the sheer size and diversity of the modern animation industry.

What Does It Take To Become a Successful Character Designer? - Luis Grane Explains

BoxTrolls - designs by Luis Grane

Luis Grane is an animator and character designer whose work can be seen on dozens of animated films including Prince of Eqypt,  Hotel Transylvania, Ratatouille, and Open Season. Most recently he did character design work for The Box Trolls, recently released worldwide in theatres. FLiP asked him to talk about the work of a character designer at a big studio - and how the heck you get there in the first place.

What Makes a Great Animator? A Personal View from Mike Nguyen

Korean Goshawk - animation by Mike Nguyen

Mike Nguyen is a veteran animator who has worked on many classic Hollywood feature films such as "Beauty and The Beast" and "Space Jam".  He was a lead animator on Brad Bird's classic "The Iron Giant" and also on "Osmosis Jones", and has been working for a number of years on his own independent animated feature film  "My Little World".  FLiP asked him to talk about what makes a great animator.

SONG OF THE SEA: Not Quite a Review - by Steve Burch

Song of The Sea premiered in London on Sunday Night

It is not often that you get a European animated feature released. It is not often that you get an animated movie, be it a short or feature length, that is an absolute delight to watch. Song of the Sea is both of these. Directed by Academy award-nominated filmmaker Tomm Moore and released by Cartoon Saloon, the movie Song of the Sea transports you into an astounding multi layered magical world, filled with a wonderful collection of Irish human and fairy folk lore characters, whose personalities both unfold and grow richer as the tale develops.

Submit your Indie Film Project now to Cartoon Movie

Cartoon Movie 2014

The Deadline to submit a feature film project to Cartoon Movie is 26 November 2014. Are you looking for co-producers, financing and distributors for your animated feature film project? If so, you should submit it to Cartoon Movie! If your film gets selected, you will be able to pitch it to almost 1,000 animation and industry professionals from forty countries. Present at Cartoon Movie are 200 buyers, including 120 distributors & sales agents.

Director Frank Gladstone talks about his new film "Hero of Color City"

Frank Gladstone is a producer, director, animation entrepreneur and the Executive Director of ASIFA Hollywood, the organisation that hosts the annual ANNIE awards - the "animation Oscars". Frank has just finished directing his first feature length animated film, The Hero of Color City, which will be released in cinemas in October. In a Skype interview (a first for FLiP!) we asked him to talk about the challenges of directing an indie animated film and bringing it to the screen.

Timo Vuorensola, Director of Iron Sky, explains Crowd Funding for Beginners

Timo Vuorensola, director of Iron Sky, gave a lecture at Closing The Gap, a European conference on film financing, explaining how to crowd fund an independent feature film. Iron Sky was initially funded through online sources, and later on secured more conventional funding on the back of the crowd-sourced contributions. Timo explained how he pulled off such an ambitious and successful project by starting an online fan base to help make his film.

British animation industry booms

Calamity Island. Shipwrecks... and penguins

According to an article in today's Guardian, the British cartooning industry is booming as never before, thanks in large part to the tax credits put in place by Chancellor George Osbourne in April 2013. CBeebies, the UK's most popular broadcaster of animated children's content, is apparently doubling its output, and it is largely local talent which will reap the rewards of this new boom in UK cartoon spending.

How do animation graduates find work in the animation industry?

How animation graduates find work in the animation industry? Now that I spend a lot of my time teaching, I get asked this question a great deal. There is no simple or straightforward answer. Jobs in the entertainment industry have always been highly competitive, and the supply of trained graduates competing for the best entry-level positions has never been greater. Official jobs postings, word of mouth, rumours in the pub, personal contacts, even cold-calling - all of these can be effective ways to find work in the business. Below are the twelve key rules that I think are vital for success.