Seeking North America's best video animation

By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby Now assistant editor
Published Nov. 29, 2003


To describe Aaron Keogh as an ambitious young man would be an understatement.

The 24-year-old Burnaby resident is the guiding force behind a show he is billing as North America's Best Independent Animated Shorts, coming this weekend to the Pacific Cinematheque repertoire theatre.

The show - a one-and-a-half hour screening of 16 short animated films - was put together over the past year as part of Keogh's plan to cast light on some of the talented new players in the growing field of animated film.

"The project actually started two years ago when we were looking for ideas to promote our own recording company, Raider Productions," said Keogh. "We thought of a TV series and a feature film, but that wasn't doable, and a short film probably wouldn't get us the attention we wanted.

"That's when we came up with the idea of a short film festival that would allow us to put together a frame story to show off the voice-over, sound effects and talents of our own studio."

Keogh and business partner Bill McGowan of Magic Lantern studios sent out more than 9,000 e-mails to every animation studio and school they could find, hoping to generate some interest in their idea of an independent animation festival.

They received 1,200 responses, and of those, 117 animators sent in submissions that had to be screened and judged before whittling the nominees down to the final 22 selected films.

The final product runs the gamut from polished professional films to those with obvious amateur roots wrapped around a 'frame show' produced by Keogh and featuring the vocal talents of his younger brother and sister, Ryan and Alyssa, who are both well known actors in the local theatre scene.

"The point of all this is to try and get good stories out there," said Keogh. "You could say this is a venue for all those young people who are getting into animation with all the new Flash and 3- D programs."

And while the title of the show might sound a little grandiose for one of the first commercial ventures produce by his studio, Keogh said he had no hesitation describing the selected films as "North America's best" independent animated shorts.

"Most of these are pieces of note to begin with," he said. "For instance, Reaper, Sheeper, Treasure Seeker has already won seven different awards and the guy who produced Dark Day Afternoon previously won an award from MTV."

He was also reluctant to select a favourite.

"It's really hard to choose," Keogh said. "To answer that fairly, I think they're all works of significant achievement for the artists, most of which are not from large national corporations. The majority of these people are making their films from the heart and, beyond money, that's what counts."

While the mini-film festival is currently only scheduled for the two screenings in Vancouver this weekend, Keogh is hoping to generate enough interest to take the show on the road.

And he has visions of creating "the world's best" independent animated shot's festival, possibly as early as next year.

"I'd just like to see how well things go," he said. "We have a large e-mail data base now, so we're betting a lot of attention that way, and we're getting schools sending us material from all over. We're getting some material from overseas, too."

All of the films have been deemed suitable for family viewing by the the screening's organizers, however they have not been rated by the provincial film classification office.

North America's best independent Animated Shorts will be screened at Pacific Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St., Vancouver, at 1 and 3 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 29. Admission is only $5.
For more information, visit the project website at www.nabias.com.