Monsters Scare Up Austrian Gold
Monsters, Inc. may not have won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, but director Pete Docter and crew are going to take home an award that is just as important to Pixar Animation Studios and to much of the digital community; a Golden Nica. The highest honor bestowed on category winners during the Ars Electronica festival of Upper Austria, the Golden Nica is familiar especially to Pixar Director and Exec VP of Creative, John Lasseter. The winner of the Golden Nica in the category of Computer Animation/Visual Effects in 1987 for his short Luxo Jr., Lasseter became a huge fan of the competition and festival. Not only did he find the cultural activities surrounding the Ars Electronic utterly inspiring, his hosts, members of the ORF Upper Austrian Regional Studio, more than gracious, according to com petition organizer Dr. Christine Schoepf, Lasseter proposed to his wife Nancy during a festival concert along the Danube. Jury members for this 2002 CA/VF category explain that Monsters, Inc. portrayed emotion through digital "tactility?" The scene in which Boo holds onto Sully’s fur was, for them, a moment in which breakthroughs in “visual feel” met emotional reaction. Awards of distinction in the CA/VFX category will be given to Peter McDonald of the Australian Film & Radio School for his short entitled Harvey; to BUF for its work on The Panic Room; and, of course, to Pixar for Monsters, Inc. The weeklong Ars Electronica festival begins Sept.7 in Linz, Austria. For more information on Nica winners, to attend the fest or to enter the 2003 competition, go to www.aec.at/festival2002.