Grand Valley School of Communications film & video graduate, Katie Williamson, won two cash awards at this year's Kalamazoo Animation Festival International, held May 13-15. Her film "Garbage Day" took the Bronze and "Spirit City" won Gold in the Web Competition category.
KAFI is a biennial event that provides a public forum for animation screenings, encourages and showcases animation artists, promotes animation as an art form and offers educational outreach. In all, film projects by six students from Grand Valley were among 148 that were selected, from about 500 entries, for in-competition screening. A team of Grand Valley students was also accepted for an additional festival event, The Cartoon Challenge.
Hogan's Zeros, consisted of Katie Williamson, Melissa Goduto, Robin Reyes, Thomas Vaccoro and Dan Hogan, with Caitlin Horsmon as faculty adviser.
Deanna Morse, Grand Valley professor of film and video, judged some of the competition screenings and lead some panels during the Educators Conference. Kalamazoo native, Brian Tindall, spoke about the making of "The Incredibles" and life at PIXAR. Other presenters included John Fountain of Nickelodeon Animation and Rachel Lewis of Sony Pictures Imageworks.
