Contact: John Chandler or
Carmen Ramos Chandler ,
(818) 677-2130
carmen.chandler@csun.edu

Animation Artists from Around the World to Gather at CSUN

The second annual California SUN International Animation Festival, a daylong CSUN-student organized event, will take place on Saturday, April 10. Headlining the day will be a midday presentation by Seth MacFarlane, creator of Fox television's new animated series "Family Guy."

"We are now the biggest international animation festival on the West Coast," said Victor Solomon, a CSUN senior art major and president of the CSUN student group Vidimation Ink. Vidimation Ink is organizing the festival along with art professor Jack Reilly, the festival's director.

Last year's successful three-day event has been compressed into a single 12-hour series of sessions in the CSUN Campus Theatre.

Festival judges have picked about 50 entries to display from the more than 100 submitted by artists both local and as far away as Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, Finland and Canada, Solomon said. CSUN students Michael Laughlin and Aaron Yamasato are among those whose works will be shown.

Video screening sessions, grouped by animation category, will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday. MacFarlane's "Family Guy" session is scheduled from 11 a.m. to noon. The day will conclude with a 7 p.m. festival gala party and awards presentation, followed at 8 p.m. by "The Best of the Fest" highlights.

Three ticket options - a $18 package deal for all Saturday events, the $7.50 later pass for the evening festival gala and highlights screening, and a discounted $7.50 student pass (with current I.D.) for all Saturday events - are available through the CSUN Box Office at (818) 677-2488 or Ticketmaster.

"People will see world-class entertainment and a lot of creative artists," Solomon said. "This is their lives' work. The works are amusing and they're funny, they're intelligent and they're gripping."

The animation festival, which grew out of Reilly's annual "Video Jam" screenings of CSUN student videos, is co-sponsored by CSUN's Art Department and the university's Entertainment Industry Institute. The festival also is supported by the university's Marketing Department.

Additional event information is available at www.csun.edu/animate/.