CLOSING AWARDS GALA PARTY!
w/ Rybotix & other guests!
with animation station by how-to-make-your-own-animation.com
SATURDAY NOV 8, 2008 at 11:00PM
@ Quickdraw Animation Society
FREE!

Join us for a night of animated madness and mayhem. There will be an opportunity for you to create your own animation with the inspired software from how-to-make-your-own-animation.com. We will be featuring Animated Installations by Rick Raxlen, Ordinary Volk, and Transition, by Lia Rogers and Katayoon Etermad. We will be partying it up with oldskewl kewl of Rybotix and other musical guests, culminating in the Jury’s presentation of the coveted GIRAF AWARDS!

Quickdraw Animation Society
#201, 351 11th AVENUE SW

The Plaza Theatre
1133 Kensignton Road NW

TICKETED EVENT PRICES:
General Advanced Admission / QAS Members: $8.00
General Admission @ Door: $10.00

GIRAF FESTIVAL PASS (Good for all screenings and GALA parties!)
GIRAF Festival Pass: $40
QAS Members Pass: $35
*Important note to passholders: please be at all screenings a minimum of 20 minutes early to ensure your seat for the event.

MEMBERSHIP RATES
QAS Associate Membership (1 YR): $25
QAS Producer Membership (1 YR): $50

GET YOURS NOW BEFORE WE SELL OUT!

FRIDAY, NOV 7, 2008 at 11:00PM
@ THE JUPITER LOUNGE
FREE Beverage with Friday Night Shorts Screening Ticket or Festival Pass

Sponsored by Steam Whistle Brewing

Join us after the screening Friday night at the Jupiter Lounge and enjoy a delicious Steam Whistle Pilsner on us. Featuring the funked-out mix mastering of local music maniac mark-was-here, hang out with some of the star animators from the festival.
Jupiter Lounge welcomes festival goers every night!

THURSDAY NOV 6, 2008 at 11:00PM
@ ROYAL CANADIAN LEGION No.1
$10 / $ 8 Quickdraw Members / Advanced

A Killer, Kick-Ass rockin’, rocket-show with headliner BLACK MOLD, the dance-o-tronic electro side of Chad Van Gaalen, one of this year’s featured artists. This man of many talents will shake up the floors with a night of funkadelic home-made master-craftery. Opening for Chad, In Order to Danse’s CHRISB, who will be spinning some whizzin’ frizzbee’s sure to move the bum of anyone around the dance floor. Come join us for a night of drinkin’ and dancin’ and movin’ to the music, and of course, ANIMATING!

SATURDAY NOV 8, 2008 at 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
@QUICKDRAW ANIMATION SOCIETY
FREE! Donations welcome.

Dennis Jackson will kick of Saturday at GIRAF4 with a stop-motion / claymation animation workshop! This is an excellent opportunity to learn from the master, award-winning creator of the “Wapos Bay” series! Sign up today to ensure your spot in the workshop!

WEDNESDAY NOV 5, 2008 at 6:30 PM
@QUICKDRAW ANIMATION SOCIETY
FREE! Donations welcome.

Join local artist and animator Chad Van Gaalen as he shares a few tips and tricks about morph animation and syncing motion to sound. Chad will offer his unique DIY perspective on creating a radical animated short in Toon Boom. Call (403) 261-5767 to sign up, limited spots available!

SATURDAY NOV 8, 2008 at 5:00 PM
@THE PLAZA THEATRE
FREE! Donations welcome.

Dennis Jackson began his career in elementary school watching 16mm prints of animation on aboriginal creation tales. Mr. Jackson remembers sitting at the back of the class with the projector as the teacher explained the process of animation with the individual frames. Since this introduction, Mr. Jackson had written and excelled in stories about his own people in the northern community of Sandy Bay, Saskatchewan with the help of his mother and grandparents.

In 1998 Mr. Jackson attained his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Film and Video Production at the University of Regina. Upon graduating, Mr. Jackson and his partner, Melanie Jackson, founded, Dark Thunder Productions (DTP). The company’s first project, “Journey Through Fear,” won the Telefilm Canada/TVNC Award, presented at the 1998 Banff Television Festival. This stop-motion animated short was about a trapper in the north who witnesses his environment being affected by outside forces. Mr. Jackson then went onto write, produce and direct a one hour special entitled, “Christmas at Wapos Bay”, which premiered as an Official Selection of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Drawing from this success, the company continued to produce stop-motion children’s animation with Wapos Bay – The Series. The pilot episode, “There’s No ‘I’ in Hockey”, won the 2006 Gemini Canada Award. The series also won the 2007 Gemini Award for Best Children’s or Youth Fiction Program or Series as well as the 2007 CAB Gold Ribbon Award for Best Aboriginal Program. Recently, Mr. Jackson has been nominated for a 2008 Gemini Award in Best Writing for Children’s or Youth Program or Series. The cast of Wapos Bay also received a 2008 Gemini nomination for Best Ensemble in an Animated Program or Series. Mr. Jackson continues to write stories drawing inspiration from his Mushom (grandfather), who had hunted and trapped for his own twenty-two children in the north. The company is currently producing seven more episodes of Wapos Bay as part of its commitment to an ever-changing world in which kids can inspire change.

THURSDAY NOV 6, 2008 at 7:00 PM
@THE PLAZA THEATRE
FREE! Donations welcome.

Chad VanGaalen is an internationally respected musician and visual artist. He graduated from the Alberta College of Art & Design in 2000 and immediately started an active arts practice. Chad has played to audiences across North America, and his animation and drawings have been shown across North America and in Europe.

Self-recording, and playing almost every instrument - including many hand-crafted ones - VanGaalen has established himself as one of Canada’s most diverse and unpredictable artists. The 2004 release of Infiniheart attracted legendary label Sub Pop to release the record worldwide. The 2006 follow-up Skelliconnection brought him further critical acclaim and earned many award nods, including 2007 Juno and Polaris Prize nominations.

He has done animated videos for Holy Fuck, Impossible Shapes, Love as Laughter and many for his own music. The 2005 release of a video for his own song “Clinically Dead” brought Chad to international attention as an animator, soliciting requests for illustration and animation work from widespread sources. In 2006 Chad produced a series of surreal vignettes for the children’s program Yo Gabba Gabba!. “Clinically Dead” went on to win best music video at the SXSWclick! Video awards, and was aired on MuchMusic and across the world on MTV. The 2006 video “Flower Gardens” became a phenomenon on YouTube; it and the follow-up, “Red Hot Drops”, were both nominated for MTV Subterranean “Best of 2006″.

Chad’s latest album, Soft Airplane, has already brought in early praise from around the globe, and the new animated video for “Molten Light” has again brought accolades to the reclusive artist.

Dennis Jackson (Saskatoon, SK), David Ratzlaff, Anne Koizumi (Calgary, AB)
Moderated by Bryson Montgomery, Co Host of “Artslink,” on CJSW 90.9 FM
SUNDAY NOV 9, 2008 at 3:00 pm
@QUICKDRAW ANIMATION SOCIETY - FREE!

Storytelling Frame by Frame: A Discussion on the Diverse and Divergent. Animators will join together in a dialogue surrounding the use and abuse of the conventions of the medium of animation, and of the diverse modes of storytelling, in their creative expression. Join us for a truly engaging dialogue to air on CJSW90.9 at a later date!

Anne Koizumi completed her undergraduate studies in Film Production at the University of British Columbia in 2004. Her student film, Patricia Grey, won the P.O.V. Outstanding 4th year film award and screened at Slamdance Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival and various film festivals throughout North America. In early 2006, Anne was invited by the National Film Board of Canada to participate in Hothouse 3, an animation intensive for emerging animators, where she completed her first professional film A Prairie Story, which went to screen at Annecy International Animation Festival, Animation Nation in Singapore and the Calgary International Film Festival. Shortly after her return she became involved with Quickdraw Animation Society’s Youth Animation Project where she is currently employed as the Project Producer. In 2008 she was awarded the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award and the Alberta Media Arts Alliance Film Commission Award for her screenplay adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper, which is currently in production.

Calgary based animator David Ratzlaff enjoys making animated films and writing and recording music. While David was finishing his BFA in Drawing at ACAD he got involved at Quickdraw Animation Society in Calgary in 1996 and started to make films and learn the art of animation.

For his first film ‘Other Details’ (2000) David developed the technique of printing animated drawings and time lapse photography directly onto clear film using a computer ink jet printer. David Continued exploring ‘experimental’ and ‘cameraless’ film making techniques with films ‘Dimensions of the screen’ (2005), and ‘Bubble and Scrape’ (2006). David’s most recent film ‘Evaporation’ uses a new animation technique where images are created on a special paper using nothing but a brush, water and the process of evaporating. ‘Evaporation’ won ‘Best of Alberta’ at the 2008 CSIF 16th Annual $100 Film Festival.