Cartoons aren’t just for kids anymore, as proven by the success and growing popularity of Baton Rouge’s annual Red Stick International Animation Festival.
Returning for its sixth year, the festival brings competition, screenings, lectures and special events to the downtown Baton Rouge area.
The University’s Center for Computation and Technology is sponsoring the festival. University students are involved as filmmakers, staff workers and volunteers.
Several big-name companies are participating in this year’s festival. Events opened Wednesday with a preview of Disney’s new movie “Tangled,” with one of the animation directors for the film present, said Stacey Simmons, festival director and associate director of economic development at the CCT.
“We have a great relationship with Disney and DreamWorks,” Simmons said. “The legitimacy of those kinds of relationships helps when we talk to try to work with companies.”
The festival makes an economic difference in Baton Rouge on both a large and a small scale, said Stephen David Beck, co-founder and festival host and director of the University’s Laboratory for Creative Arts and Technologies and the CCT.
“People come into town for the festival, and they rent hotel rooms and buy food,” Beck said. “But on a larger scale, having the animation festival helps to provide a framework and awareness of media in the capital region and attract businesses.”
The tax breaks that have attracted film production in Baton Rouge similarly affect the animation community, Beck said.
“The state has an array of tax credits that make it affordable to set up businesses in Louisiana as part of a coordinated effort to try to establish digital media in the capital region,” Beck said.
Simmons said the overall goal of the festival has always been to increase awareness of digital media as an economic catalyst to the state.
“It’s hard to create awareness in a city that doesn’t have an event. Well, Red Stick became our event,” Simmons said. “We’re trying to become known as the great American animation festival. There currently isn’t one, but we’re getting there.”
Beck said animators benefit from meeting other artists during the festival, which allows them to “begin building a community.”
One event at the festival geared toward making these valuable connections is Fandemonium. For people interested in video games and animation, this conference-like event gives people the opportunity to meet others within the industry.
An event called Video Games Live will close the festival Saturday. It is a collaboration with the Baton Rouge Symphony that brings music from old and new video games into the Baton Rouge River Center with video screens and interactive activities.
Simmons said this year’s festival has made more of an effort to reach out to established filmmakers. He said the festival has been working to become an Oscar-qualifying festival to show up more prominently on people’s radar.
“Animation is more than just cartoons,” he said. “It’s any kind of virtual sequencing that shows process, which creates a nice blend of art and science.”
Events began Wednesday and will continue until Saturday. Red, Gold and All-Access passes grant admission to different events. Venues include the Manship Theatre, Louisiana Art and Science Museum’s planetarium and the Old State Capitol.
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Contact Morgan Searles at [email protected]