TAMPA, Fla. — A free animation showcase is spending its final day Sunday on the University of Tampa campus, after roughly 200 fans filled the Charlene A. Gordon Theater when the event opened Thursday night.
Gregg Perkins leads the school’s film, animation and new media program and created the Tampa Animation Festival to help the city grow into a home for the craft. The present edition is only its second year, though he organized earlier versions during the 2010s, and no ticket is required.
Opening night put Wildwood on the screen, with Brad Schiff, Laika’s head of animation, there in person to present it. Campus officials said the first showing reached capacity just 10 minutes after people could sign up online. Schiff graduated from Tampa in 1993 and later supervised animation on Coraline and ParaNorman. He stayed afterward to explain how the work was built.
Wildwood runs 132 minutes and reached theaters in October. Organizers call it the longest stop-motion feature ever completed. Schiff told the crowd that artists used 142,030 printed faces to capture expressions, spent three years on one battle sequence, and that 24 frames make up each second of movement.
Perkins has said qualifying status for the Academy Awards typically takes seven uninterrupted years of strong feature and short programming. If that happens later, titles in the Tampa lineup could become eligible for nomination shortlists. This year’s slate counts 119 titles from filmmakers worldwide and covers all continents but Antarctica. He also said respected animation schools on six continents sent work, and Derek Horne programmed the films.
Perkins has talked about eventually turning the gathering into a place where studios and buyers meet new talent, more like a sales market than a typical regional film week. For now, the last program is another look at Wildwood at 6 p.m. Sunday.
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