The Catalina Film Festival is “always ranking as the TOP 20-40 on FilmFreeway’s Top 100 Best Reviewed Festivals” according to FilmFreeway, which was reason enough to be excited about being selected for the festival. Another reason to be excited was that my screening happened on the island of Catalina, a place I had never visited even though I have lived in Los Angeles area for over 20 years. So, I hopped on the ferry and went to the festival.

Although the idea of a film festival on Catalina sounds exotic and glamorous, the location makes it difficult and costly for others to see your film. A ferry ticket must be purchased and you must spend the entire day on the island. This is a very difficult ask of anyone who wants to support me and my 10 minute short film, so I was there by myself for the day. I explored the quaint downtown area while heading to the venue where my film was to be screened. I sat through several live-action programs during the day, and was saw many good films. As with any program, there were films that I didn’t prefer, but the quality was definitely of a high level so I could understand why they had been chosen. Eventually it was time for the program that included my film, the “Imaginations Gone Wild” animation program.

The program itself was pretty strong as there was a wide variety of techniques on display. Unlike other festivals, this one seemed to embrace 3D animation so there were several other films that looked like mine. I knew the list of entries up for awards and payed special attention to each of them as they were shown. Later, I was surprised to learn who the winner was for one reason - the “winning” animation was hardly “animated” at all. It was simple a series of super-realistic 3D environmental renderings with slow camera moves. Nothing really moved in any of the images other than the camera and in my mind I remember it looking like a powerpoint presentation that a realtor might place on a website to sell a “lived-in” house. The story of the short had something to do with human trafficking and to tell a story like that through a series of images is impressive, but as someone who adheres to a more strict definition of “animation,” it didn’t seem to have enough of it to fit the category.

This is when I started to look more closely at the other films I had seen in other festivals. As an animator, I was under the impression that the “animation” was an important part of an animated film, but as I recalled all the techniques I had previously seen, including puppets and marionettes, I now believe that “animation,” from the perspective of film festivals, is everything that is not shot with live actors and a camera. Perhaps a more appropriate name for the category should have been “un-live action” films because it’s certainly not “animation” in the traditional sense.

The biggest disappointment of my experience with the festival was the venue and quality of the screening. Once you made your way through the city and followed the labyrinth courtyard of the hotel, you found yourself in a small room with an ordinary video projector. All the films in the festival were submitted through an online source and it was curious that a high resolution file was never requested or submitted. The video projector did an admirable job though, but considering this was a “TOP 20-40” film festival, I was expecting more.