Intel Backs Animation Initiative

SANTA CLARA, November 18:
Yair Landau, the former president of Sony Pictures Digital, is calling on
artists around the world to animate segments of a short film he is directing
and producing, in an initiative dubbed Mass Animation, backed by Intel and
housed on Facebook.

Beginning
today, artists worldwide are being invited to animate the shots of the
five-minute CGI film Live Music
through an application on Facebook that will be up and running till January 30.
Community voting begins November 24. Dell will award a Dell Studio XPS desktop
PC to animators whose creation is rated the best by the community on a weekly
basis. An international jury of animation experts will select the shots to be
considered for the film. Landau will have the final say as to which submissions
make the cut. Animators whose work makes it into the finished product will
receive on-screen credit and $500 in compensation.

Inspired
by Romeo and Juliet, the short is set
in a musical instrument store, following Riff, a rock guitar, who falls in love
with Vanessa, a classical violin. The instruments are brought to life through
original compositions and familiar rock tunes played principally by legendary
guitarist Steve Vai as Riff and acclaimed violinist Ann Marie Calhoun as
Vanessa.

The
tools and 3-D models that animators will need to collaborate on this project,
including Autodesk Maya 3D Animation software, are available for use on
Facebook.

"Mass
Animation's first project, Live Music,
is a great story that we are excited to tell through a breakthrough Facebook
application," Landau said. "This new method of creating films draws
upon a global community and social technology to allow people to come together
in a whole new type of creative collaboration. Animators around the world will
get a chance to showcase their talent and imagination in the film; animation
fans will have a say in which shots best convey the story and characters, and
therefore deserve to make the final cut."

—By
Mansha Daswani