As part of the newly expanded format of the Computer Animation Festival, SIGGRAPH 2008 will feature three all-star Production Studio Nights hosted by industry powerhouses Pixar Animation Studios, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Lucasfilm.

In addition to the Festival's popular Competition and Invited Screenings, Festival Talks, and Production Sessions, each studio will host evening events at Los Angeles' famed Nokia Theatre. Highlights will include an exclusive advance screening of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," preceded by a conversation between Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll and Director David Filoni, discussions with some of the industry's most notable pioneers, such as John Lasseter and Frédéric Back, as well as a tribute to the late Stan Winston, renowned visual effects supervisor, makeup artist, and film director.

"We are absolutely thrilled to have these three production icons participate in this year's Festival," stated Jill Smolin, SIGGRAPH 2008 Conference Entertainment Director. "The programs presented by each of these studios not only highlight the some of the best animated works and creators in the world, but also provide an excellent education to the general public on the industry and just what it takes to make these animations come to life."

The Computer Animation Festival is open to the public, with day passes available for as low as $50.

Complete Computer Animation Festival schedule and registration information

The Computer Animation Festival Production Studio Nights include:

Pixar Animation Studios
Tuesday, 12 August, 8 - 11 pm
Screening of "The Man Who Planted Trees" Followed by a Conversation With Frédéric Back and John Lasseter
For more than 20 years, John Lasseter has redefined the animation industry, shaping the way we watch animation and showing us the sweetness, complexities, and hilarities in the simplest and most unlikely places.

Frédéric Back, a two-time Academy Award winner for "Crac" and "The Man Who Planted Trees," joins John Lasseter for a rare conversation about the passions to which he has committed his life: animation, art, and the environment.

Screening of "The Pixar Story" With Introduction and Q&A by Director Leslie Iwerks and Friends
An in-depth look behind the scenes of the ground-breaking company that pioneered a new generation of animation and forever changed the face of filmmaking. Using never-before-seen footage from the Pixar library, along with historic archival animation and first-hand accounts by animators, studio executives, directors, producers, and voice performers, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Leslie Iwerks tells the riveting story of the Bay Area start-up that revolutionized Hollywood.

Sony Pictures Imageworks
Wednesday, 13 August, 8 - 11 pm
Saying that Stan Winston helped transform visual effects into a legendary industry is just a start to recognizing his contribution and his legacy. He altered the course of movies when he transformed makeup effects from latex to animatronics. His credo, "I don't do effects, I do characters," provided the foundation for a veritable galaxy of interstellar aliens, menacing chrome robots, and predatory dinosaurs. His work blurred the lines between makeup, puppetry, and visual effects.

In films ranging from "Terminator" to "Edward Scissorhands" to "Iron Man," audiences could barely discern where the actor ended and the effects began. Winston inspired legions of directors, visual effects supervisors, and artists to stretch their abilities beyond what they knew to be possible. He challenged imagination, inspired creativity, and invented worlds we couldn't have conceived otherwise. His insatiable curiosity even moved beyond the film world into robotics and artificial intelligence, in innovations that found their way from the labs at MIT to the workshop in Van Nuys. Sony Pictures Imageworks, in conjunction with Stan Winston Studios, hosts an evening of tributes, celebrations, and memories of Stan Winston and his characters by family, friends, and peers.

A special clip reel created by Digital Domain, of which Winston used to be part owner, will be shown, and the evening will close with a screening of "Terminator 2."

Lucasfilm
Thursday, 14 August, 8 - 11 pm
Lucasfilm presents an advance screening of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," the much-anticipated animated feature film from director Dave Filoni and executive producer George Lucas that opens to the public on Friday, 15 August. This event, hosted by ILM Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll, begins with a discussion of the film's unique design and signature style. The intergalactic struggle between good and evil continues with a screening of the next "Star Wars" adventure to hit the silver screen.

ACM SIGGRAPH announced the selection of Irish artist and director Catherine Owens, best known for her staging and film work with the Irish rock band U2, as a featured speaker for SIGGRAPH 2008 to be held in Los Angeles this August. Owens will present "Giving Technology Emotion: From the Artist's Mind to 'U2 3D'," which details her co-directing and producing experiences during production of the film "U2 3D," the first digital 3D, multi-camera, real-time production.

"Catherine's ground-breaking work with 'U2 3D' is an excellent example of how the computer graphics industry continues to evolve and push the boundaries for the next generation," stated Jacquelyn Martino, SIGGRAPH 2008 Conference Chair from IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. "Even the most complex technologies and films begin with an idea and emotion. Catherine's work illustrates the artist's process perfectly - from imagination to fruition."

Owens also directed U2's spellbinding "Original of the Species" music video, which was nominated for two VH1 Music Video Awards in 2006. The video, which explored CG motion capture technology, was in many ways a precursor for her work on "U2 3D." Currently Owens is working on a new body of drawings in her studio, where she is also creating content for the next U2 album and tour campaign.

Based on overwhelming positive feedback provided after the switch from a single keynote speaker format to multiple featured speakers in 2007, SIGGRAPH will once again provide focused content by offering presentations from different prominent industry leaders and technology experts. Each featured speaker will provide key insights on the future of computer graphics and interactive techniques.

Photo credit: Kenny Morrison (fab DP)

ACM SIGGRAPH announced on May 8, 2008 the award nominees for the SIGGRAPH 2008 Computer Animation Festival to be held in Los Angeles this summer. Nominees were chosen from hundreds of submissions from around the globe, presented by both professional studios and students alike. An esteemed panel of jury members reviewed each submission to compile some of the greatest works submitted this year.

"With nearly 30 jurors from all corners of the globe, and two separate jury meetings, this year's Computer Animation Festival jury was one of the most comprehensive in the Festival's history," stated Samuel Lord Black, Computer Animation Festival Juried Co-chair. "The varied expertise we received from our jury ensures that this year's festival is well-balanced, exciting, and a great snapshot of the industry's finest material."

Since 1999, the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival has been an official qualifying festival for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "Best Animated Short Film" award.

New in 2008 is the addition of the Computer Animation Festival award presentations, where winners will be revealed during the event. This year's expanded Festival also offers attendees an array of activities over a five-day period, which includes competition and showcase screenings at Los Angeles' famed Nokia Theater.

Attendees interested in all aspects of animation can also participate in a variety of panels, talks, and presentations, including two full days that will focus on the world of 3D stereo cinematography. These events will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Complete details on this year's Computer Animation Festival

The nominees for this year's Computer Animation Festival Awards are as follows:

Best in Show Nominees

Bolides
Supinfocom, France
From Supinfocom, this imaginative student film treats us to a chaotic, hilarious, wheelchair race through an old age home.

Carbon Footprint
Jellyfish Pictures, UK
Using computer graphics, Jellyfish Pictures drives home the point of global responsibility, presenting the decomposition of a single soda can over half a century, in a single seamless shot.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
DreamWorks Animation, USA
Hilarity, peril, romance, and zoo animals; everything expected from DreamWorks Animation, this glimpse into their upcoming film provides a whole new perspective on flying with animals.

Oktapodi
Julien Bocabeille, François-Xavier Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier, Emud Mokhberi, GOBELINS l'ecole de lâ��image, France
GOBELINS' third-year students directed this animated short about two octopi in their comical escape from the grasps of a stubborn restaurant cook.

The Chemical Brothers "The Salmon Dance"
Framestore CFC, UK
Great music combines with hilarious animation to provide a new perspective on aquaria, as a tank filled with rapping, beatboxing, and dancing fish comes to life, featuring over 300 hand-animated fish.

Best Student Piece Nominees

893
Supinfocom, France
Once again, France's Supinfocom combines story and style in this tale of honor, tradition, and imagination.

Al Dente
Supinfocom, France
Combine opera, pasta, and a knife-wielding chef, and the result is another delicious animated short from this prolific school.

Bärenbraut
Derek Roczen - Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction, Germany
This tale of disproportionate love shows how relationships can change over time. This remarkable 2D animation illustrates a complicated subject and a complex relationship using the most limited of color palettes.

Blind Spot
Johanna Bessiere, Nicolas Chauvelot, Olivier Clert, Cecile Dubois Herry, Yvon Jardel, Simon Rouby, GOBELINS l'ecole de l'image, France
Peripheral vision is everything in this animation about a nearsighted grandmother, a clumsy robber, and a surveillance camera that doesn't quite tell the story of what's really going on in the convenience store.

Mauvais Rôle
Alan Barbier, Camille Campion, Dorian Fevrier, Frederic Fourier, Frederic Lafay, Min Ma, Jean-François Macem, Emanuel Reperant, Jeremie Rousseau, Olivier Sicot, École Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle, France
This little tale tells the story of getting whatever you want, as long as you know what it is. Watch as a monster constantly cast in games, finds his perfect job in a game you'd never choose for him.

Jury Award Nominees

Chump and Clump
Michael Herm, Stephan Sacher, Germany
This short shows us just how distracting your friends can be ... and just how they can lead you to miss your bus. Repeatedly.

Mauvais Rôle
(see above for description)

Oktapodi (see above for description)

Our Wonderful Nature
Tomer Eshed, HFF Potsdam, Germany
This documentary uses time stretching, film camera work, and creative sound design to tell the story of water shrews in the wild.

The Plush Life
Timothy Heath, USA
This film, rendered entirely with NVIDIA's Gelato, shows us what happens when you pick at something that just shouldn't be picked at: you might just imperil your trip to work.

ACM SIGGRAPH announces Ed Catmull, a pioneer in the entertainment and film industry and co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, as one of the featured speakers at SIGGRAPH 2008, the 35th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.

Catmull, President of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, has played a major role throughout the past 30 years in the invention of some of today's most fundamental computer graphics practices used widely across the motion picture industry. He is one of the original architects of the RenderMan rendering software system, which has been used to create blockbuster animated hits such as "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo," as well as 44 of the last 47 Visual Effects nominations to the Academy Awards®.

"Dr. Catmull's innovations and leadership encompass his true passion for the computer graphics industry," stated Jacquelyn Martino, SIGGRAPH 2008 Conference Chair from IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. "A great deal of what is done today with animation and computer graphics in motion pictures would not be possible without his inventions and contributions. Given that SIGGRAPH is celebrating its 35th conference, we could think of no one individual that could represent the evolution of the industry better than Dr. Catmull."

Catmull has been honored with numerous industry awards for his contributions including four Academy Awards®; one in Technical Achievement, two in Scientific and Engineering, as well as one Academy Award of Merit. He is a Fellow of ACM, and has been involved with SIGGRAPH conferences for more than 30 years serving as chair of the Papers, Awards, and Technical Program committees. In 1993, he was awarded ACM's Steven A. Coons Award honoring his lifetime contributions to the computer graphics industry.

In addition to his own professional achievements, Catmull founded three of the most renowned computer graphics research centers in the world including the computer graphics laboratory at the New York Institute of Technology and the computer division of both Lucasfilm, Ltd. and Pixar Animation Studios.

Catmull received a bachelor's degree in physics, as well as a bachelor's and PhD in computer science from the University of Utah. He is also holds an honorary PhD in engineering from the University of Utah.

Based on overwhelming positive feedback provided after the switch from a single keynote speaker format to multiple featured speakers in 2007, SIGGRAPH will once again provide focused content by offering presentations from different prominent industry leaders and technology experts. Each featured speaker will provide key insights on the future of computer graphics and interactive techniques.

The Best of Show Award: "One Rat Short"
Directed by Alex Weil of Charlex (United States)

Special Jury Honors: "458nm"
Directed by Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck, Tom Weber of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.