Award-winning animator Camille Selvon Abrahams will conduct an intensive Animation Incubator at the highly anticipated CaribbeanTales 2011 Film Festival that runs from March 14-20, in Barbados. Entitled Creating a Convincing Animation Bible, this special three-day programme will take place on March 15, 16, and 18, and aims to teach participants how to create market-ready animation proposals using creatively innovative local characters and storylines developed especially for the medium.
Sessions will include Creating the Ideal Synopsis, Character Design, and a presentation on Creating your World, which deals with environmental and background design sheets. At the end of the workshop, participants will have put together a detailed production Bible, which can be used to support a pitch for funding. CEO and Founder of CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution, Frances-Anne Solomon expressed her delight that Abrahams would be participating in CaribbeanTales 2011.
"Camille is a pioneer and visionary who has single-handedly created the basis for a highly successful indigenous animation industry based out of Trinidad. We are delighted that she will be joining us here in Barbados to share her skills with producers from around the region and the Diaspora. "Animation is an aspect of the film industry with huge potential for development in the Caribbean." Solomon added
As Abrahams explained: "In discussions with Frances-Anne, we decided to focus on developing storytelling skills, rather than on the purely technical aspects of animation.
"This is really exciting for me because we in the Caribbean have so many rich stories to tell. It is the craft of storytelling, that if mastered, will add a whole new dimension to our Caribbean animations." She went on to state that "...animation is a $25 billion industry, and within the past couple of years movie-goers in England and America are craving products from the Caribbean. I know there are dozens of young talented animators around the region, and I am coming to CaribbeanTales to give back." In 1999, Abrahams, a graduate of Goldsmith's in London, won the Royal Television Society Award for her film, Master Peace, and decided to move her four-year-old company, Full Circle Animations, to T&T.
There, in addition to producing animations for a range of multimedia services including commercials, corporate productions, and Web sites, she trains young animators through the BA programme that she created at the University of Trinidad and Tobago. Abrahams looks forward to sharing her knowledge as she seeks to contribute to the development and creation of wonderful, funny, authentic Caribbean animated films. "The Caribbean is now being seen as an exciting new frontier for animation, and I believe we have the versatility, creativity and passion to really make a statement on the world stage," she said.