Hi all -

Really cool news. Pen vs. Pencil was selected into the Nextoons: Nicktoons FIlm Festival. Nicktoons is a digital cable channel run by Nickelodeon. I'm pretty sure if you have digital cable, you have this channel. For more info check here.

From what I know the festival, the "screening" is going to be a show aired on Nicktoons from August 21st to 28th. The top 10 / prize winners are on the last day. It's also a judged event (one of the judges is Mark Hamill) and each short is eligible to win several prizes...the largest being $10,000...as well as being part of a DVD. While I really doubt I'll get the big prize, you can help me get a smaller one. There's a "Viewer Choice" award with a prize of a Wacom Cintiq (the drawing tablet monitor). My guess is when it airs, you go on-line and vote for your favorite. I'll be sending a note telling you where to go to vote when I know.

This news came to me on Thursday, right after I finished storyboarding Pen vs. Pencil 2. After writing the script last week, I drew up the boards this week and recorded the scratch track on Friday. By the end of the day, I had a animatic made. This time around, there's one new character, there are 5 different sets (locations) and it's 2 minutes long...twice as long as the last one, and a little more cinematic. Oh, and it's the electric sharpener for the pencil this time.

One more thing. I will be in LA for Siggraph again this year. July 30th to August 4th. Alison and I are turning it into a vacation and will be driving up the coast the whole (most of it anyway) of the next week until we reach Seattle (we have a wedding to attend there). We're even going to be stopping for a few days in San Francisco. So any of you out there I haven't seen in a while, I'd love to get together.

Enjoy...

- Luciano

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