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Shawn
Pucknell / Yugo Nakamura Clip (qt)
1. Congrats on a great success. Each year FITC seems to make
great strides from the previous year.
Thank you. This was the certainly the largest and most well
received festival yet! We've been very lucky and have seen
the festival grow and improve each year. I credit this to
the amazing group of staff and supporters we've assembled
over the last 4 years, as well as the fact that we've consciously
aimed to diversify and improve the event each time we do it.
2. Presentation themes were much more diverse this year.
Is this something you will continue in upcoming festivals?
Definitely. Since we've made the change from a 'flash
festival' to a 'design and technology festival' in 2003, we've
strived to expand the breadth of the content for the festival
each year. This is both exciting and challenging, as on one
hand, the 'design and technology' umbrella allows us a very
large space in which to work within, giving us an incredible
amount of flexibility in terms of who and what content we
show. But this is also very challenging, as there seems to
be an endless number of possible people and topics to cover!
So, we've tried to move slowly yet surely into this new space,
and hopefully we'll do a good job of it in the coming years.
3. Do you have any confirmed speakers for FITC 2006?
We are talking to some very, very, interesting people
for 2006. The only person we've confirmed at this point is
Stefan Sagmeister (sagmeister.com) from NYC, whom I've wanted
to see for some time. I have heard he is an amazing speaker,
so I'm looking forward to that. There are some other people
I am in talks with, but unfortunately they've got such busy
schedules, its hard for them to commit to something so far
in advance. I can tell you that the breadth of speakers will
be the most diverse yet , and will include people that work
on special effects for major motion pictures, 3D animators,
and some other interesting things. We' hope to have some info
up soon on fitc.ca and will post any updates there. |
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| 4. The Westin has
turned out to be a great venue for FITC. Will 2006 be held
there?
Yes. We've already confirmed the dates with the Westin
Harbour Castle for April 21-23, 2006. We've been very happy
with the events there, and are definitely doing 2006 there.
5. There was a huge turn out this year, especially for
the Yugo Nakamura, Josh Davis and David Carson presentations.
Toronto seems to be incredibly hungry for this type of inspiration.
Would you say the local community is still growing?
Interestingly enough, the most growth we've seen from attendee's
is from outside of Canada. This year, for example, over
50% of the attendee's were from outside of Canada. The nice
part of that is its showing us that the world is continuing
to hear about our little festival in Toronto and is attending
as well. But it also shows we have to work harder to get
Canadians out to our shows!
6. How can people interested in speaking at 2006 approach
FITC? Are you looking for specific topics?
We currently have a list of potential speakers, as well
as a list of potential topics. But we're always interested
in hearing from people doing interesting work that their
interested in sharing. People can contact me directly at
Pucknell@fitc.ca and
introduce themselves.
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| 7. What was your
greatest obstacle this year?
All in all, it went pretty smoothly. We've been doing this
for 4 years now, and it is getting easier to run and organize.
But there are still things we learn each year that we try
to carry forward to the next event. The greatest obstacle
this year was personal, and that was simply that my wife
was pregnant and we were all hoping she would not give birth
during the festival! As it was, she waited till 3 day after
the event to give birth to our beautiful baby girl! So there!
8. How was the turn out for the Colin
Moock bootcamp? Will it be organized for 2006 as well?
We started with one in Toronto, and it was sold out. Then
we started to get interest from people asking us to do it
outside of Toronto. Currently we have one coming up in Rochester,
and Los Angeles, and we're also talking to other people
in other parts of the world as well. So I see that continuing.
As well, we've already begun thinking about the follow up,
which would cover new Flash content, when it does come out.
9. What was the last great book you have read? What was
the last great movie you have seen?
Books…its been a while. Movie…"Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind" was an excellent movie.
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