August 8th, 2009 inaugurated China’s First Annual International Scientific Animation (SciAn) Festival, in Guiyang. 

It all began three summers ago in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I had been invited to speak at the Red Stick Animation Festival. I had noticed, and was subsequently introduced to, a lively and friendly Chinese gentleman named Wang Liuyi. I came to know and like Liuyi, first during a reception at the festival and subsequently through numerous emails.

Formerly an international journalist for a Chinese government publication (meaning he was allowed to travel extensively overseas – a rarity in his day), Liuyi eagerly attended every Red Stick session and took copious notes. Besides enjoying our conversations (on events and politics in China, from my perspective and recent US history through his), I found out that Liuyi was intent on founding China’s first international animation and cartoon festival. Attending the Red Stick Festival was part of his research. Liuyi had been having this conversation with another new friend of mine from Red Stick, Sander Johnson, an LA based entrepreneur with broadcast relationships in China. 

Be careful what you ask for. It may be delivered on a platter!  

Sander was instrumental in the difficult gestation and birth of Wang Liuyi’s first, tiny, AYACC (Asian Youth Animation and Comics Contest) in Guiyang in the summer of 2007. Sander enlisted my help to fly over and serve as a lecturer in Scientific Animation for last summer’s 2008 AYACC. Sander and I noted numerous growing pains and much growth potential for the AYACC and between us we convinced Liuyi that there should be a separate category for scientific animations in future AYACC Festivals. Liuyi, a person of great persuasive skills and a wonderful imagination, countered that if Sander and I wanted to, ‘we could run’ our OWN separate International Scientific Animation Festival in Guiyang!

Liuyi volunteered regional support from the provincial Guizhou government as well as municipal financial and services support from the city of Guiyang. The city of Guiyang refurbished and donated a building, converted from an abandoned factory, to house both our festival and a soon-to-be-established animation school. He even offered to furnish Chinese animation industry and academic participation. Liuyi ended up getting us support from five of the six ministries from Beijing, including Science and Industry and Education, with a promise to bring in the Ministry of Health, and a liaison with the Beijing open University, through its president.

Heady stuff, and I am getting ahead of my story, but that is how Sander and I became co-chairmen of the Chinese International SciAn Festival.

So, after a year of communications, brainstorming, rule and entry form-writing and endless defining of terms, conditions and terminology over a twelve hour time difference, we had a Festival, a Contest, and a Panel of Speakers and a built-in audience, as our first year was to be held under the umbrella of (and concurrent with) the AYACC, a now robust three-year-old festival.

I was fortunate to be able to bring into the mix two speakers who (along with Sander and me) doubled as animation entry judges: Jane Hurd and Dr. Elizabeth Rega, who are long-standing friends of mine, who are each at the top of their industry. Jane Hurd is a medical illustrator whom I have had the pleasure of knowing and learning from, for 30 years, and who, as founder of Hurd Studios was both my competitor and collaborator for much of that time. Beth and I met at TED MED II in 2002. She is an Associate Professor of Anatomy at the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, and has had a long-standing advisory position with several movie studios, including the Disney Company. Beth is instrumental in making sure that the anatomical and anthropological details in movies as diverse an Mulan, Pocahontas and The Jungle Book maintain correct racial morphology in their drawn characters.  Beth’s husband Dr. Stuart Sumida, an anthropologist who has also advised on many movies, from The Invisible Man to Bolt, had been responsible for my speaking at Red Stick (all your fault Stu!), and will be a judge (fingers crossed!) next summer.

Flash forward to August, 2009 and you can read a report on China’s First Annual International Scientific Animation (SciAn) Festival, and the list of award winners, in our News section.