And the 2017 24 Hours begins...

In past month, students have been preparing for this year's 24 Hours Animation Contest and have formed into teams. Each team has 5 students, some team members have been through the process before, while others are doing this for the first. Everyone is up for the challenge.

Each year this contest increases in size due to its popularity. Last year's contest in 2016 there were 27 schools participating and 124 teams or 620 students in competition. This year, there are 44 schools schools participating with 183 Teams completing or 915 students all working to complete a :30 second animated film based on the theme in 24 hours.

 

The 2017 Woodbury University 24 Hours animation teams gathered in the Design Center's D105 at 3pm. Great hordes of excited Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors gathered as timid,but curious Freshman stayed to watch. The live streaming announcement came from Aubry Mintz in his top secret classroom, hidden somewhere in Long Beach, CA.

The goal of the 24 hours contest is to create a 30 second animation piece from a theme which is announced at the beginning by 24 Hours. Aubry Mintz, Associate Professor at CSULB welcomes all the school's participating, thanks the sponsors who have donated prizes to the final top five winners and finally announces the theme of this year's 24 Hours contest.

This year's theme was announced by Mintz on Friday, Oct 6th at 3:30pm PST and is as follows.

The 24 HOURS 2017 THEME:

Is based on the Sesame Street song, " One of these things is not like the others."

Let the Brain Storming begin! 
And off they go in a wild giggle of animation students to find an area to work. Some are on Macs, others are on PCs and a few have taken over the Stop Motion studio. Snacks appear along with laptops, pencils and pens. Dry erase boards are suddenly filling up with thumbnail sketches, words, images and ideas are starting to be born.

 

 

 

The Creative process is alive tonight and everyone is working on turning this year's theme into their own unique vision. There are a variety of animation projects being produced from Traditional, to Digital and even stop motion.

Team Deception from Toondini on Vimeo.

But with great brain power comes food for thought. At around 9pm, Several pizzas were delivered. 

 

All the students took a quick dinner break and returned to a long night of animation ahead.

And into the night they work.

Next Post: The final WU films

24 Hours has Begun...

Moments ago, from California State University_Long Beach, Aubry Mintz announced the theme of the 2014 24 Hour Animation Contest will be:
From Animal Farm...
"All Animals are Created Equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

The list of participating schools this year has grown and are CSUF (Fullerton, CA), CSULB (Long Beach, CA), CSUN (Northridge, CA), Kendall College of A/d (Michigan), MTSU (Tennessee), Seneca College (Canada), Sheridan College (Canada), SJSU (San Jose, CA), Queensland (Australia), Westwood (Anaheim, CA) and Woodbury University (Burbank, CA).

Within minutes, the students assembled into smaller groups to attempt to figure how to come up with a short, simple and effective idea. As the teams began to brainstorm to form a solid storyboard, the Faculty must sit on their hands and not help out in any way. They are only there to make sure the equipment is running correctly and that the students are working away.


Last year, I basically worked on my own stuff and occasionally overheard the students discussions and watched their progress. After the 24 Hours were over, 2 projects came out of Woodbury and one of them won first place. It was a real boost to the Seniors who had worked together and were able to make an animated short which tested all the learning from the past four years.

Last year's theme: What if you had 24 hours to live?  Ryan Tengel and her Woodbury University animation team answered the question with this winning short.

From Woodbury University located in Burbank, CA. 4 teams working away on a Friday night.

The next day, the teams are tried, but continue to work until the final deadline at 5pm.

The Freshmen team are hanging in there too...

 

 If you have any comments for the animators, please let us know...  And now, here are their films.

 The Pink Ladies, our Freshmen entry... Curious Rendezvous

Team Evil entry...  Angus and Arthur

Team Magma entry... Just Another Day

 

The Coffee Owls with: Painful Equality

Now that the results are in, take a moment and vote on your favorite. Any comments are welcomed and will be posted for the students to learn and improve from.