Fifty brand-new animated short films showcasing the creativity of animators from around the globe will premiere October 10 at NOUNS FEST, an eclectic animation celebration taking place live at the United Theater in Downtown L.A. The festival today released a special sneak peek trailer teasing what happens when animators let loose! (You can watch it at the bottom of this post.)
As part of the program, the Emmy, Annie and Clio Award-winning animators at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, home of Robot Chicken, will also debut three all-new animated shorts created especially for the event.
A limited number tickets to NOUNS FEST are still available to purchase at www.NounsFest.tv. All tickets offer access to the full screening, and to the NOUNS FEST after party.
Digital arts collective Nouns created a $1 million grant pool that has been used to fund the animated shorts that will premiere at NOUNS FEST. The films range from 30 seconds to five minutes in length, and once funds were granted, creators were subject to no intervention whatsoever by the festival organizers.
“What you’ll see at Nouns Fest is creativity unleashed, pure and simple,” says Stoopid Buddy co-founder Eric Towner, who is also a co-founder of Nouns Fest. “In a time of massive change and turmoil for the animation industry, our goal was to finance, encourage and support true creative freedom, and the results we’ve seen so far have smashed through our sky-high expectations. We can’t wait to see these incredible works on the big screen.”
NOUNS FEST received more than 400 entries from independent animation creators around the globe. After reviewing all creative submissions, the NOUNS FEST judging team selected 50 animators who received grants ranging from $7,500 to $25,000, which they used to fund the production of their short films.
Creators were given only one direction: to incorporate at least one of the “Nouns” — digital characters generated by Nouns and auctioned off daily at Nouns.wtf. Every other creative decision was theirs to make, from the form of animation used to the content itself. The results, organizers promise, will be wild, unpredictable, and definitely not suitable for all ages.
“We told everyone involved to take off all of the safety rails and show us what was in their deepest creative minds, and that’s exactly what they’ve done,” said NOUNS FEST co-founder Walter J. Newman. “If there’s one common thread that runs through the ninety minutes of animation that will debut at Nouns Fest, it’s creative freedom — a spirit that will be felt in every aspect of the event itself.”
NOUNS FEST is co-founded by Towner, Newman, Playground Productions CPO Chris Waters, Nouns veteran Joel Cares, music executive Joshua Fisher and award-winning animator and director Goldy, who came together with digital art collective Nouns to create the single largest source of funding for independent animated shorts.
In keeping with the spirit of unbound creative freedom, every animator who will be featured in NOUNS FEST retains full rights to their work, content and characters in perpetuity, underscoring Nouns’ commitment to a free market of art and ideas.
NOUNS FEST is the next evolution of Nouns Short Shorts, an animation competition and festival that led to the production of 17 animated short films in 2023. In June 2023, Nouns Fest held its first festival at BrainDead Studios in L.A., featuring work from some of the top independent animators in the world. Those shorts can be viewed at Nounsfest.tv.
Founded in 2021, Nouns is a global, community-run organization that uses the proceeds from the sale of digital collectibles to fund open-source technology, art and public-works projects. For more information and an explanation of Nouns and the Nouns DAO, visit www.nounish.com.
A full list of every short film to be featured in NOUNS FEST will be released shortly before the festival on October 10.
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