Directors Dave Cooper and Nick Cross stand outside of the ByTowne Cinema at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
A sold-out ByTowne Cinema screened local animator David Cooper’s music video alongside other films at the Ottawa International Animation Festival last night.
The screening may have had audio problems, but Cooper says he hopes it will increase the number of fans and industry professionals interested in his work.
Cooper, who collaborated with fellow local animator Nick Cross, says he was disappointed that the video’s audio and video did not match up and was out-of-sync by a couple of seconds.
“It was really kind of important that there were certain cues hit at certain points in the music that matched up with the video,” Cooper says. “It would have been way more noticeable if it was something like dialogue. Luckily, it was music.”
Still, Cooper remains optimistic and says probably nobody noticed.
The screening was “pretty fun” otherwise, he says.
His video was showcased alongside other films for the commissioned animated competition, including promotional work, music videos and adult television animation.
“This festival carries a lot of weight with animation industry people,” he says. “It can only help to have a film in competition here.”
Kelly Neall, managing director of the festival, says she agrees that the festival is a great place for local animators to get noticed.
“It’s very hard to get into the competition,” she says. “It really says something about the high calibre [of talent] here.”
The festival chose 99 films to compete out of 2,185 entries this year.
Cooper and Cross made the music video for the song “King of Magazines” by rock band Danko Jones. It shows scantily-clad Mimi Wobbly getting ready in the morning and going to eat Chinese food with her friends. Cooper created the story and design of the video and Cross did animation.
Cooper has rights to the characters in his video and he says he is thinking of reusing them in a television show or comic series.
Cooper’s and Cross’ preliminary work on the video, including design sketches, will appear at La Petite Mort Gallery, from Oct. 17 to 22. The exhibit runs alongside the animation festival, which attracts professionals and fans from around the world.