25 new animated shorts created in 48 hours as part of Cardiff QuickDraw animation jam!

A record 75 teams entered this year’s Cardiff QuickDraw animation jam competition, which took place last weekend, with teams working around the clock to create short animated films on the theme “Green”. 25 new animated short films were created over the course of the 48 hour competition. Audiences and filmmakers from around the world will come together this Thursday at 7pm for an online watch party to see the new films.

Organised by animator Tim Hawkins and Cardiff Animation Festival, the QuickDraw animation jam is part of a programme of online Cardiff Animation Festival activity. Despite having to postpone the festival, scheduled for 2-5 April 2020, due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Cardiff Animation Festival team and their partners have been working hard behind the scenes to bring people together remotely through animation. As well as curating online shorts programmes, resources and activities for adults, families and filmmakers to get involved in at home, the team are working to organise online events such as industry talks and watch parties.

Cardiff Animation Festival Director Lauren Orme said “I’m so pleased we were able to run the QuickDraw animation jam, and the response has been so amazing. During social distancing I think it’s so important to find ways to bring people together, and QuickDraw did that. Tim Hawkins who organised the competition did an amazing job. The quality of the work created is astonishing, but more importantly I think QuickDraw gave the teams a platform to spend the weekend remotely working together with like-minded people on something positive.”

Tim Hawkins, who organised QuickDraw, said “The response to the competition has really blown me away. Seeing teams coming together from all over the world, at a time when we’re all physically isolated, was pretty incredible. I can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend in quarantine!”

As well as animators, composers and sound designers got involved to help create soundtracks for the brand new films. Those taking part in the competition kept in touch throughout the weekend using the platform Slack to help encourage each other and share their progress. One participant turned their room into a stop motion set, using sugar and cling film to make an ocean scene, while another team created foley sound from utensils they had in their kitchen. Even those that didn’t complete a film had some brand new animation to show for their efforts.

The winning film will be chosen by the Cardiff Animation Festival jury which includes Daisy Gould, Head of Marketing at Cardiff’s Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival as well as a trained animator, Yvonne Connike, a programmer, curator and founder of Cinema Golau and the Black Film Festival Wales, and Beth Hughes, an animator and director, currently working as Series Director of children’s television show Luo Bao Bei at Cloth Cat Animation.

There will be a watch party at 7pm on Thursday 26th of March via YouTube. Everyone is welcome to join as we stream the films live and celebrate what each team has created. Follow @cardiffdraw on Twitter for updates and where you can watch all the films.

Cardiff Animation Festival 2020 is funded by Arts Council Wales, Ffilm Cymru Wales, Film Hub Wales as part of the BFI Film Audience Network (FAN), BFI NETWORK Wales, and Ymddiried through the Owen Edwards Scholarship Fund, and sponsored by Cloth Cat Animation, Picl Animation, Creative Europe Desk UK – Wales, the University of South Wales, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Jammy Custard Animation, the British Animation Awards, S4C and by the ScreenSkills Animation Skills Fund with contributions from UK animation productions.

More online Cardiff Animation Festival events will be announced soon. To keep up to date, and hear how to join this Thursday’s QuickDraw watch party, follow Cardiff Animation Festival on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and sign up to our mailing list for more updates and announcements as they are released.