Xiya Lan’s film
You look scary received the first-ever
Vimeo Award for Outstanding Student Achievement in Animated Filmmaking at the 2016 Producers’ Show—CalArts Character Animation Program’s end-of-year showcase. Find new films by CalArts students on the 2016
Character Animation .
Festivals are not the only way to generate audiences for fledgling animators. CalArts Character Animation students post new films online and attract a worldwide following.
Since 2010, CalArts Character Animation channels have garnered 15 million combined views.
Honoring animation online, the inaugural Vimeo Award for Outstanding Student Achievement in Animated Filmmaking was presented at CalArts Character Animation Producer's Show.
May 16, Valencia, CA—CalArts Character Animation Program’s online channel scores its millionth viewer. The 2016 channel went live on April 24 and received one million views on Sunday, May 15. Since 2010, at the end of the academic year, undergraduates in the world-renowned Character Animation Program at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) post their new films to a channel on Vimeo. The first channel was posted in April 2010. Over the last six years, the annually produced channels have garnered 15 million combined views. Totals are quantified by views of each film.
CalArts students create an original animated film every year during the four-year Character Animation Program.
Click here to view the 2016 channel.
“There’s always a buzz at Vimeo headquarters when a new batch of films is shared through the CalArts Character Animation Channel,” said Jordan McGarry, Lead Curator at Vimeo. “We know there will be a ton of great work that we, the Vimeo staff, and our community will love. It’s no surprise that the channel has built up a strong following, and we count ourselves among the first and most passionate of its fans.”
This year, the inaugural Vimeo Award for Outstanding Student Achievement in Animated Filmmaking was announced at CalArts’ highly anticipated Character Animation Producers' Show. The award recognizes the consistent excellence of the students' films and their ability to entertain a world-wide audience.
Top student films are chosen by a faculty jury to appear in the Producers' Show. This year, the annual event took place on May 4 at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles. Alumnus Rich Moore, who directed Zootopia with Byron Howard, was the guest of honor. During the festivities, Moore announced the winner of the first annual Vimeo Award (juried by Vimeo's in house Curation Team) along with the recipients of the long-running Walter and Gracie Lantz Animation Prize (juried by Character Animation faculty), and Peers Pick Award (voted by the students).
Student Xiya Lan received the Vimeo Award for You look scary. The Walter and Gracie Lantz Animation Prize went to David Davis for his film Open Heart; and Ingo Raschka received the Peers' Pick Award for Video 69. These award-winning films can be viewed on the 2016 Character Animation Channel.
CalArts animation students have gone on to become the established masters and rising stars of the industry—with accumulated box office grosses through January 2015 for animated features directed by CalArts alumni totaling $35.4 billion. Recently, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out, directed by CalArts alumnus Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen, won the 2016 Oscar for Best Animated Feature—marking the 10th time a graduate of the CalArts Character Animation Program took home the award. Also in 2016, Sanjay’s Super Team, another Disney/Pixar film, directed and written by alumnus Sanjay Patel, was nominated for the Best Animated Short Oscar. Seth Boyden’s short film, An Object at Rest, received a 2015 Student Academy Award for Best Animation, and the filmmaker was recently named among Variety’s Ten Animators to Watch for 2016.