The 24th Annual Society for Animation Studies Conference will be held June 25-27, 2012 at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. The Call for Papers notes:

The theme of this year’s conference, ‘The Animation Machine’, reflects the wide range of processes, technologies, histories and structures in animation. As movement is an essential aspect of animation, whatever creates that movement may constitute an animation machine and one could conceive that animation is itself a machine. The animation machine can be considered from both the production process and the end product. Therefore, it refers to the machines of animation presentation, be these pre-20th century animation devices, movie or video screens, or even automata. The animation machine also relates to the multitude of animation production processes – from animating technologies (animation stands, cameras, computers), through to the animator’s individual creative practice. Ultimately, the animation machine can be described quite broadly and we welcome your own interpretations.

With the centenary of Australian animation approaching, the 2012 conference will also provide an opportunity to highlight some of Australia’s animation heritage. The conference will coincide with the Melbourne International Animation Festival (MIAF) and a number of crossover events are planned.

Proposals, which will accepted through December 12th, are invited “on a wide range of animation topics on all aspects of animation history, theory and criticism.” (The Call for Papers can be found here.)

This year’s keynote speakers include: Thomas Lamarre, Professor of East Asian Studies, Art History and author most recently of The Anime Machine: a Media Theory of Animation (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) and Robogarage Co., Ltd. CEO and Research Associate Professor of The University of Tokyo Tomotaka Takahashi who, “creates, designs, and invents unique and original humanoids.”

While you’re at it, check out the Society for Animation Studies website here.

Forget the financial crisis in Greece, as the country prepares to not only host the 23rd Annual Society for Animation Studies Conference, March 18-20, 2011, but two animation festivals within a month of each other. The first , which is being held in collaboration with the SAS Conference, is the 6th edition of Animfest Athens, March 17-20, put on by the European Animation Center. The festival, which includes “retrospectives, tributes, master classes, speeches, exhibitions and installations,” is still soliciting entries of of short, student and commissioned films until December 31.

Then there’s the new BE THERE! Corfu Animation Festival, April 7-10, 2011, in Corfu. It is being held in collaboration with Ionian University’s Department of Audio & Visual Art. The festival is accepting entries (short films and graduation films) until January 10, 2011.

My friend and colleague Hal Miles and wife Nancy, through Hal Miles Imagimation Studios, are once again putting on the Savannah International Animation Festival, to be held February 4-5, 2011 at the Coastal Georgia Center, 305 Fahm Street, Savannah, GA  31401.  The festival is accepting entries until December 1st. The submission categories are: Stop Motion Animation, Computer Animation, Traditional Animation, Experimental Animation, Anime, Television Series Animation, Television Commercials Animation, Web Animation, Gaming Animation, and Student Film.

The Festival itself, in addition to screening films in competition, will also be putting on seven workshops and panel discussions featuring  professionals and historians from animation, visual effects and gaming. Films which win the jury and audience awards will be presented with the Reynaud trophy, named in honor of Charles-Émile Reynaud, creator of the Théâtre Optique and inventor of the Praxinoscope.

Two forthcoming animation events in Los Angeles caught my eye. The first  is the 2nd AniMazing Spotlight Animated Shorts Festival, which will be held Saturday and Sunday, September 4-5, at Woodbury University, Burbank, under the able direction of Tee Bosustow. (Tee is the son of UPA co-founder Stephen Bosustow; the festival website also hosts the all-important UPA Legacy Project website; I should also note that I am friends with Tee’s brother Nick.)

In addition to screening of films in competition, there is Tom Sito speaking on  “Animation & Politics: the Blacklist, the Mafia and beyond,”  a presentation by the UCLA Film Archive of the work of computer animation pioneer Robert Abel,  Teddy Newton giving a behind-the-scenes look at Pixar’s Day & Night, “The Legendary Fred Crippen” (UPA & Roger Ramjet to Sesame Street), “More Women than Ever” presented by Women in Animation, etc., etc.

Film Historian and Oskar Fischinger biographer William Moritz, Elfriede Fischinger and animation filmmaker and teacher Michael Scroggins, c.1986, in The Hague. Source: Center for Visual Music.

On September 23rd, at 7:00 p.m., the Center for Visual Music, in Los Angeles, will be putting on “A Fischinger Celebration — Benefit Art Exhibition and Reception,  Celebrating Elfriede Fischinger on her 100th Birthday.” Though not as well-known as her husband Oskar, the pioneer abstract animation filmmaker, Elfriede Fischinger was an important figure in animation not only for her tireless efforts to promote her husband’s films, but also for her support of filmmakers and a number of animation-related organizations. Thus, when the Society for Animation Studies held its first conference at UCLA in 1989, it was not a surprise that Elfriede showed up.  I got to know Elfriede in the last decade of her life and always found her an inspiration. In a very real way, her home was a salon for animators and filmmakers, and she is well-deserving of this tribute.

The Center notes,

The evening features an Exhibition of selected photographs, artifacts and Paintings by Oskar Fischinger, a Wine Reception, and a Screening of Home Movies and Videos of Elfriede. Highlights include Oskar’s first Stereo Painting (1949), The Lumigraph film (1970) made by Elfriede, and unshot animation drawings by Oskar. Proceeds from the evening, which includes a silent auction, will benefit the Fischinger preservation, conservation and digitization work being done by Center for Visual Music, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit Los Angeles archive.

The Savannah International Animation Festival (SIAF) is making its debut February 5-6, 2010 at the Coastal Georgia Center, 305 Fahm Street, Savannah GA 31401. The event will consist of “7 blocks of animation shorts, consisting of over 60 juried films from 15 different countries [including Joan Gratz’s latest excursion into clay painting, Puffer Gir (see above), as well as] 8 workshops and panels.” The workshops and panels include “Collecting the History of Animation and Film Piece by Piece,” “Reconciling Motion Capture & Animation” and “Getting My Work Out There/Working in the Business.”

The event is the brainchild of my SCAD colleague Hal Miles and is being put on by his Hal Miles Imagimation Studios and is certainly worth a visit. For more details, check out the festival’s website here.