Pitch Party ’09: Meet the Winners!

Sunday, June 28, 2009
By: Ramin Zahed

It was a tough job, but someone had to do it! Our animation industry judges spent the last week reviewing the eclectic and colorful pitches submitted by this year’s clever contestants. That’s why we are now ready to announce the winners of the Eighth Annual Animation Magazine Pitch Party. We also received a record number of online votes from our daily site visitors (6,322, to be exact!). Our grand prize winner will be given the chance to pitch to the judge of her choice and perhaps become the next big thing in animation. Additional prizes include a copy of the software suite Toon Boom Animate (a value of $999.99), a selection of animation books from The Animated Cartoon Factory, copies of Chronicle Books’ The Art of Up by Tim Hauser, and a copy of the 2D software title Digicel Flipbook Studio (for Mac or PC). In addition, second or third place winners, staff picks and online voters favorites will get coverage in our August edition

We’d like to thank everyone who voted for their part in making Pitch Party ’09 our magazine’s most popular contest of the past 20 years.

First Place: Clerence
by Chelsea Gordon-Ratzlaff, Capilano College

Sometimes, a clean, imaginative drawing and a simple concept are all that you need to really make a big impact. That’s certainly the case with Chelsea Gordon-Ratzlaff’s pitch, which centers on a cute little dragon that’s descending to our world tied to a balloon. The talented 18-year-old animation student at Capilano College tells us that the idea for the toon just came to her one day.

“The book I was reading at the time had these little tiny dragons and described this one that I thought was just adorable! So I started doodling him—as I do with most characters in books that I read—OK, all characters in books that I read! And I ended up drawing him tied to a balloon. I thought it would be cute seeing as how I kept drawing him with tiny wings so that he couldn’t fly.”

Chelsea says she’s using her time off during the summer to make a short animated project in Flash. Yes, she’s designing, directing, organizing and animating everything—and even held auditions over the Internet for voice actors! When asked about the future, she says she’ll be happy as long as she gets to continue drawing. She has also spent several years developing her own animated series titled Not Quite Normal (www.notquitenormal.ca) and hopes she gets to see it come to fruition in the years ahead. “Maybe I’ll give 3D animation a try now that Pixar is in Vancouver,” she adds. “Working at Disney is another dream of mine—nudge, nudge, hint, hint!” One thing’s for sure: this impressive young talent is going to have an amazing career
ahead of her, with or without the cute dragon!

Second Place: Jolly & Roger’s Misguided Adventures
by Stephen Silver and Frank Rocco

As a ridiculously gifted character designer and well-respected CalArts teacher and author, Stephen Silver has inspired numerous audiences and students through the years. Not only has he worked on acclaimed shows such as Kim Possible and Danny Phantom, he’s produced several insightful books about the art of cartooning and character design. So we were totally thrilled to see his latest creation, Jolly & Roger’s Misguided Adventures on the judges’ list.

“The drawing was simply inspired by my four-year-old son, Caiden,” says the London-born artist. “He never had a cursed pirate hat, but he knew how to wear his pirate costume everywhere, months after Halloween. Early into it I approached my extremely talented friend,Frank Rocco, and asked if he would like to help me co-create the property. From that point on, I believe we came up with a great show concept that we hope everyone else will enjoy as much as we do.”

Silver is working on numerous personal projects, book publishing and teaching an online character design course on www.schoolism.com as well as returning to teach at CalArts in the fall. Rocco is also illustrating children’s books, comics and designs on upcoming Nickelodeon shows. Frank was also creative director for Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! where he was a lead designer, writer and story artist. You can learn more about these two amazing guys at www.silvertoons.com and gorocco.com.

Third Place: Monkey and Robot’s Flying Circus
Kenneth Gray and Mars Elliot, Academy of Arts

Monkeys and robots have always had a special place in our hearts, so it’s not surprising that Academy of Arts students Ken Gray and Mars Elliot decided to put the two enigmatic players in their meticulously drawn pitch.

“I’ve had the idea for an uptight monkey and a goofball robot hanging out and having wacky adventures in the vein of Ren & Stimpy for quite a while,” explains Ken. “I teamed up with Mars and the initial idea morphed a few times ... The 19th century is an interesting time to me—it’s when the corners of the map were still unexplored and the line between magic and science was blurry.”

The creative and very articulate San Francisco-based duo will be going back to the Academy in the fall, but hope to see themselves working on a “wildly successful cartoon series” in the near future. “As long as the world doesn’t come to a screeching halt in 2012, the last year of the Mayan calendar,” muses Ken. Mars adds, “I’m not as optimistic as Ken: I think by 2019, moving pictures will be a commodity few could afford and even fewer will want as they remain a bitter remnant of our lost humanity. Myself? I’ll be busy with the rest of the survivors reinforcing the perimeter fences to keep the insectoid-men at bay!”

Animation Magazine Staff Picks:
First Place: Monkey & Robot’s Flying Circus
(by Gray and Elliot)

Second Place: Jolly & Roger’s Misguided Adventures (by Silver and Rocco)

Third Place: Duck and Cover (by Oryan Ventura and Maya Arad)

Online Voters’ Picks:
First Place: Monkey & Robot’s Flying Circus (by Gray and Elliot)

Second Place: The Do-Good Gang! (by Ainsley Waller)

Third Place: Harold & the Walrus (by Daniel Contois)

The Pitch Party is an extremely targeted advertising campaign designed to help indie producers and up-and-coming talents present their ideas to influential people who currently hold key positions in the development and production of animated television. Contestants who purchased a 1/6th–page ad at a discounted rate in this issue were able to get their ideas off of their computers and draft tables, and in front of these execs and the animation industry at large.

We wish our grand prize winner, Chelsea Gordon-Ratzlaff, the best of luck with Clerence and all her other projects and hope all of this year’s contestants take advantage of the exposure their ideas will receive in the magazine. Next year’s Pitch Party will be here before you know it (deadline is June 15, 2010), so start getting those pitches together now!

Be sure to check out all of this year's Pitch Party ads in the August (Comic-Con) issue of Animation Magazine!

Reader Comments

• Jessica :

  Monday, June 29, 2009

  The only entry I like is the Monkey and Robot, What happened to Johnny and the Pretenders?

• Asa :

  Monday, June 29, 2009

  Next year you should hold a trictly online judged Dev Exec Party, the winners getting to replace one of the key development executives in the industry. Repeat this contest each year until there is an entirely new crop of gatekeepers. It could not be worse than the present situation.

• Joe Weatherford : Student :

  Monday, June 29, 2009

  Funny, I don\'t recall that Jolly & Roger thing on the list. But then again, the one that really caught my attention was Monkey & Robot\'s Flying Circus. I could actually see that as a show... provided the boys at Monty Python are okay with the title.

• Ken Gray : Student :

  Monday, June 29, 2009

  Thanks to everyone who voted for Monkey and Robot. It\'s been a labor of love, and it\'s amazing to have such a wonderful response from everyone. Mars and I will be doing our darnedest to get the show out there for all of you to enjoy in the future. Our website MonkeyandRobotgo.com will be up and running in the next few day\'s. Stay tuned for upcoming developments. Thanks again for all the love, and great job to all the entries I really liked a lot of the stuff I saw. Follow your bliss and keep at it, you only fail if you quit!
  Ken Gray

• Roberto Pax : Animation Student :

  Monday, June 29, 2009

  Three cheers for Monkey & Robot! Nice post, Ken. We hope to see your animated project on the air one day. keep the dream alive, amigo.

• shakeem winn : writer n artist : winn ltd.

  Monday, June 29, 2009

  Congrats man! Monkey and Robot completely kicks ass. Lookin\' forward to seeing this on the air real soon.

• Cute Bruiser :

  Tuesday, June 30, 2009

  Hmm, how come none of the winning 3 entries have female leads? There were quite a few entrants with female leads that I thought were really good.

• chris L :

  Tuesday, June 30, 2009

  Jolly Roger is ready for TV. Monkey and Robot has nice art and should be a film not a tv series. MTV should give every entrant, even the loosers 20k to develope a single 7 minute. episode of their concept, and air them all for a few weeks around some new series. go mtv. .

• Brian : Animator :

  Tuesday, June 30, 2009

  Jolly Roger just looks like another Sponge Bob Square Pants. Monkey and Robot does has nice artwork, but the premise is lame. Clerence, just looks like they copied Up and How to Train Your Dragon and mixed them together. I agree with Chris L - give everyone a chance, there were some better entries

• Tom Ramirez : Concept Artist :

  Tuesday, June 30, 2009

  Maybe entries like mine?
  
  Sorry to sound desparate. It\'s just that was my 4th try and 9 pitches overall.
  
  *sigh*
  
  At least it wasn\'t Brian Smith again.

• shakeem winn : writer n artist : winn ltd.

  Friday, July 03, 2009

  I feel your pain Tom Ramirez. Rejection is a hard thing to swallow especially for a guy of your considerable talent. But, don\'t give up my brother. I want you to keep on fighting. It can\'t rain all the time. Eventually, something will hit. Just keep on keeping on.

• Adele : Illustrator/animator :

  Monday, July 13, 2009

  yes, I thought I may have a chance too...but maybe Irazu just want strong enough on a straight forward idea.
  Oh well...at least there is a free mag coming my way :D
  Irazu will be going on the shelf for a while as I am too busy to work on it further at the moment.
  Congratulations to Jolly and Rodger image...then again im a fan of Stephen Silver...he didnt have to take my second place prize though! Ha ha ha
  Well done everyone, keep up the hard work!