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Terrestrial Human

Confessions of Fumiko

If you are a fan of animation, one program you should try to catch every week is Digista, or in English the Digital Stadium. Each week they have a guest who is a professional in the digital arts field, usually but not always animation. That guest, referred to as the Curator, nominates four works by unknown new talent for the panel and the audience to review and judge. One piece each week is declared the winner and goes into the permanent collection of the Digital Stadium Hall of Fame. Once a year all the entrants to the stadium become part of the annual competition, at which the DIGISTA Awards are handed out.

This program is a wonderful showcase for new animation talent, giving them world wide exposure. You can watch each weeks program anywhere NHK World is available. If your local cable company does not carry them (mine does, if yours doesn’t start calling and writing them to tell them to add it, or you can get them off a satellite), you can watch the animations online from the hall of fame page. Other NHK programs I never miss are Imagine-Nation for the weekly Anime, Gaming, and Manga news and features, and J-Melo for news and performances from the Japan music scene. The animation that won this weeks Digital Stadium entry is called Confessions of Fumiko; enjoy.

Voice and Video

One of the talents it takes to produce animation is Voice Actors; I know a number of them (and used to be one), and they have a unique skill set. Crunchyroll has a nice presentation on the topic called Adventures in Voice Acting, staring a huge assortment of the best in the business. Now that I have watched the first section, I have to flip a mental coin and decide if I want to buy and download the other segments, or just get the DVD for the permanent collection.

For some eye candy gone wrong, stop by SFX’s It’s Gone a bit 2001, a humorous review of ten movies that tried to imitate the psychedelic ending of that classic film and failed miserably.

Something to Do: Cons

Before the Cons, a salute to Ada Lovelace and to this, her day. This was a woman who wrote software in the first half of the 1800’s for Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, and wrote the world first algorithm, thereby becoming the worlds first computer programmer.

The World Horror Convention takes place from the 25th to the 28th in Brighton, England. You can not get in unless you already have your ticket, because it is completely sold out. This is possibly related to the fact that this is the first time ever that this convention is being held in Europe.

In North America, Wizard World, the Toronto Comic Con, runs from the 26th to the 28th. This is Canada’s monster Comics and Collectibles event, second only to the San Diego insanity. Meanwhile, Comicpalooza will be performing a similar function in Houston, TX. Just take a quick peek at the guest list, which is huge; actors, artists, and authors galore… and that’s just the A’s.

I-Con 29 is a general Sci-Fi con, but huge; again, a glimps of the guest list will give you a feel for the scope of this event. This one takes place at Stony Brook University, in Long Island, NY.

Pax East is a Gamer Con running this weekend in Boston. I am not much of a gamer (I’m usually the guy they send out first so they can spot the snipers when they take me out), but I would be there for the music alone! Nerdcore Godfather MC Frontalot, the orchestral VGO, the hacked hardware of Anamanaguchi, and many more. If you hadn’t already guessed, PAX stands for Penny Arcade Expo, which usually hangs out on the west coast.

Perhaps the most unusual Con of the month is Xanadu Las Vegas, a Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fetish Convention. Only in that city would you have a Masquerade dedicated to the memory of Forrest J. Ackerman (who along with his date wore the first costumes to a Sci-Fi Con ever in 1939), and judged by an Adult Film Star who is also the con GoH; and only in this city would you have a Masquerade where the wearing of an actual Mask is against the law (Nevada State Law prohibits the wearing of any face covering in any casino, and you will be arrested forthwith). This one looks like a world of fun and CONtradiction.

Things to Do: Movies

There are two new genre selections to choose from this weekend. The first is Hot Tub Time Machine, which looks to be silly fun requiring no mental straining at all. The main sense of Deja Vu generated in this one just might be that we have seen these jokes before. If you are more in the mood for animated fun, How To Train Your Dragon could be just the ticket. It is built by the same team who did Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, so expect more of the same great humor and animation quality.

And there is a third choice: Waking Sleeping Beauty. I don’t normally recommend documentaries, but this one tells a behind-the-scenes story about the rebirth of the Disney animation studios that received a lot of attention on the Film Fest circuit.