ABSTRACT
Author Tony White is passionate about seeing a return of top quality 2D animation production in the USA. Since the closure of Disney’s traditional animation studio in 2002 and the advance of our increasingly digitally-obsessive age, the professional artform of hand-crafted 2D animation is in danger of being lost forever. This is a terrible tragedy as America once led the world in this particular field. Therefore, to encourage a renaissance of traditional 2D animation in the USA once more Tony has devised a two-fold plan. ‘Part A’ of this plan is to once again raise the consciousness of traditional art and animation in America. ‘Plan B’ is to encourage a viable 2D production industry once more-at least at the ‘indie’ production level if nothing else. Consequently the major part of ‘Plan A’ is the creation of the DRAWTASTIC Festival of Drawing & Animation. The festival, successfully launched on April 30, 2016 in Seattle, fundamentally supports all forms of animation-but especially so for traditional hand-drawn animation. Filmmakers from all over the world submit their work to DRAWTASTIC’s ‘2D OR NOT 2D’ event, each vying for one of Tony’s coveted ‘Golden Pencil Awards’. Top-level speakers from all aspects of the creative world-each having an allegiance to the ‘humble pencil’—also come to teach and conduct workshops at the event. DRAWTASTIC is an annual event, so all interested artists and filmmakers should visit the festival website at www.drawtastic.org for further information. It’s ‘Pencil Power’ at its very best!
