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Kyle Mowat’s thesis film BALLPIT is an incredible tour through a surreal world of parading organic shapes and vivid colors.

Check out Mowat’s blog too.

The winners of the 2012 Ottawa International Animation Festival were announced earlier tonight at the National Arts Center in Ottawa. The top prize for short film went to Dutch filmmaker Hisko Hulsing for his short Junkyard. The animated feature prize went to the Spanish feature Arrugas (Wrinkles) directed by Ignacio Ferreras. It’s Such a Beautiful Day by Don Hertzfeldt picked up the audience prize.

I Am Tom Moody by Ainslie Henderson picked up two awards, including the grand prize for best student animation. Two films in this year’s Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival were also recognized: Kyle Mowat’s Ballpit won best graduate animation and Noam Sussman’s Gum won the Canadian student animation award.

The complete list of winners is below:

Nelvana GRAND PRIZE for Best Independent Short Animation
Junkyard directed by Hisko Hulsing, Netherlands

GRAND PRIZE for Best Animated Feature
Arrugas (Wrinkles) directed by Ignacio Ferreras, Spain

Walt Disney GRAND PRIZE for Best Student Animation
I Am Tom Moody directed by Ainslie Henderson, Edinburgh College of Art, UK

GRAND PRIZE for Best Commissioned Animation
Primus “Lee Van Cleef” by Chris Smith, USA

Best Animation School Showreel
Supinfocom (France)

BEST Narrative Short
A Morning Stroll by Grant Orchard, STUDIO AKA, USA

BEST Experimental/Abstract Animation
Rivière au Tonnerre directed by Pierre Hébert, Canada

Adobe Prize for BEST High School Animation
The Bean by Hae Jin Jung, Gyeonggi Art High School, South Korea

Honourable Mention:
La Soif Du Monde (Thirsty Frog) by a Collective: 12 Children, Camera-etc, Belgium

BEST Undergraduate Animation
Reizwäsche by Jelena Walf & Viktor Stickel, Germany

BEST Graduate Animation
Ballpit directed by Kyle Mowat, Sheridan College, Canada

BEST Promotional Animation
Red Bull ‘Music Academy World Tour’ by Pete Candeland, Passion Pictures, UK

BEST Music Video
The First Time I Ran Away by Joel Trussell, USA

BEST Television Animation for Adults
Portlandia: “Zero Rats” by Rob Shaw, USA

BEST Short Animation Made for Children
Beethoven’s Wig directed by Alex Hawley & Denny Silverthorne, Canada

Honourable Mentions:
Au Coeur de L’Hiver directed by Isabelle Favez, Switzerland
Why do we Put up with Them? directed by David Chai, USA

BEST Television Animation Made for Children
Regular Show: “Eggscellent” by JC Quintel, Cartoon Network

Honourable Mention:
Adventure Time: “Jake vs. Me-Mow” by Pendleton Ward, Cartoon Network, USA

The National Film Board of Canada PUBLIC PRIZE
It’s Such a Beautiful Day directed by Don Hertzfeldt, USA

Canadian Film Institute Award for BEST Canadian Animation
Nightingales in December directed by Theodore Ushev, Canada

Honourable Mentions
Ballpit directed by Kyle Mowat, Sheridan College, Canada
MacPherson directed by Martine Chartrand, National Film Board of Canada, Canada

BEST Canadian Student Animation Award
Gum by Noam Sussman, Sheridan College, Canadaa

Honourable Mentions
Ballpit by Kyle Mowat, Sheridan College, Canada
Tengri by Alisi Telengut, Concordia University, Canada

The Ottawa Media Jury Award
For the best short competition film, as deemed by the local Ottawa Media, consisting of:

-Peter Simpson (Ottawa Citizen)
-Sandra Abma (CBC)
-Fateema Sayani (Ottawa Magazine)
-Denis Armstrong (Ottawa Sun)

I Am Tom Moody by Ainslie Henderson, Edinburgh College of Art, UK

Today, as part of Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival, we’re delighted to present Ballpit by Kyle Mowat of Canada’s Sheridan College. What begins in pure abstraction slowly reveals itself to be an evolutionary tale—albeit an unconventional evolution that blends organic materials with the mechanical. The film could be dissected, but the total effect is what makes it memorable. Ballpit delights the eyes and yields visual suprises at every turn. The riot of color, the patterns of colors, the rhythms of movement—it is the joyous possibilities of animation distilled into 90 seconds.

Click HERE to read an interview with the filmmaker Kyle Mowat.

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Today, as part of Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival, we’re delighted to present Ballpit by Kyle Mowat of Canada’s Sheridan College. What begins in pure abstraction slowly reveals itself to be an evolutionary tale—albeit an unconventional evolution that blends organic materials with the mechanical. The film could be dissected, but the total effect is what makes it memorable. Ballpit delights the eyes and yields visual suprises at every turn. The riot of color, the patterns of colors, the rhythms of movement—it is the joyous possibilities of animation distilled into 90 seconds.

Continue reading for comments from the filmmaker Kyle Mowat:

THE IDEA
The idea came out of some sketchbook work of mine. I was doing a lot of explorations of vague organics and eventually they started looking like microscopic systems of a surreal sort. I made drawings and paintings of these things, using a bunch of different mediums and such. I knew I wanted to focus my short on how these things may move, form and interact and I ended up using some loose concepts of natural selection as a framework for that. I distilled it into two “forces”; organic life and more generally geology, things like gradual changes in the environment, natural disasters etc. The ball shapes and the block shapes came to represent the two forces,respectively.

TOOLBOX
I did everything for the film digitally. Animation was all in Flash, the backgrounds Photoshop and all the compositing and such was done mostly in After Effects with a bit of Premiere for later.

CHALLENGES
The biggest challenge was probably finding the look for the short. The initial concepts were way too elaborate to really use in full. I needed to distill them into something simple, usable and cohesive while still having them function in the way I initially intended. This process went on well into the animation stage; I was often re-designing things as I animated them. It was a difficult position to be in sometimes.

INSPIRATIONS
I was looking at a lot of books on coral reefs and deep ocean life while working on the film. There’s some crazy stuff down there. I watched at a bunch of films by guys like Norman Mclaren and Charles and Ray Eames. Mostly for ideas about pacing a film that isn’t necessarily carried by its stories but more by its visual elements. Some other things that inspired me: the work of Moebius, the giant baby from Akira, the band Ponytail, and, of course, my peers and fellow students who helped create an amazing creative atmosphere to work in.

FILMMAKER WEBSITE:
Website
Vimeo page

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We’re delighted to announce the selections for Cartoon Brew’s third annual Student Animation Festival. This year we topped over 200 submissions, which made programming this year’s festival a challenging task. We chose filmmakers whose work displayed confidence and maturity while being unafraid to experiment with new ideas, techniques and styles.

(A brief note: for the first time, we have multiple selections from two schools: Rhode Island School of Design and Sheridan. In particular, there are three films from Sheridan. We received a record two-dozen entries from Sheridan this year, and we appreciated the diverse range of voices coming out of there, as well as the consistently high technical proficiency of the school’s students.)

Each of the ten filmmakers below will receive $300. Further, we’re introducing a new twist this year. After all the films have debuted, we will conduct a poll where viewers can vote for their favorite film. The winner of the audience choice award will receive an additional $500.

Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival is made possible by JibJab, our major sponsor for this year’s festival. JibJab has consistently demonstrated generous support for young and emerging talent, and we are proud to recognize them as the sponsor of our festival.

Once again, a hearty congratulations to this year’s selections in our Student Animation Festival. Mark your calendars: the first film will debut on Cartoon Brew on Monday, July 2.

The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete
Directed by Uri Lotan, Adam Campbell, Elizabeth McMahill
School: Ringling College of Art and Design
Country: USA (Florida)

Ballpit
Directed by Kyle Mowat
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Gum
Directed by Noam Sussman
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Money Bunny Blues
Directed by Ellen Coons
School: College for Creative Studies
Country: USA (Michigan)

Otzi
Directed by Evan Red Borja
School: School of Visual Arts
Country: USA (New York)

Peace One Day
Directed by Angie Phillips and Phoebe Halstead
School: Kingston University
Country: UK

Pest
Directed by Nooree Kim
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Troubleshooting
Directed by Eric Ko
School: Rhode Isla