SOFA pulls all-nighter for animation competition

There were a lot of fatigued bodies in the basement of Gannett Hall come the afternoon of Oct. 22 as a result of diligent deadline work that called for an all-nighter. 

At 12:30 p.m., 38 School of Film and Animation (SOFA) students spread across 13 teams wrapped up an intense, fun competition in the College of Art and Design at RIT building, highlighted by power nap-fueled focus. The students spent 24 consecutive hours — starting at 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 — in SOFA labs creating animations for the sixth annual Ani-Jam, run by SOFA assistant professor Mark Reisch.

Teams had 24 hours to complete a film for contest submission and were to remain in the SOFA area the entire time to remain qualified.

Judging of the animations has yet to be finalized and is a combined effort by the participating students and the audience at an end-of-semester screening of the 13 new animations. Each Ani-Jam team gets three votes to use on what they deem to be the top works. Then, at the showing, viewers will vote on their favorites, with the audience tallies counting as another team.

The screening is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 16., in RIT’s Carlson Auditorium. The winners are set to be announced later that day. Each student who was part of the first-, second- and third-place groups has the chance to choose from a collection of valuable prizes.

Available prizes are Wacom Intuos Pro tablets; HTC Re cameras; TVPaint digital animation software; Toon Boom software: Harmony Premium and Storyboard Pro (both one-year subscriptions); Sphero SPRK Edition; Wegmans gift certificates; and Boxx shirts.