Young peo­ple look­ing to de­vel­op a ca­reer in an­i­ma­tion and new me­dia have a num­ber of op­por­tu­ni­ties at their dis­pos­al these days. In fact, ca­reers in an­i­ma­tion and the new me­dia in­dus­try have proven to be very re­ward­ing for prac­ti­tion­ers and this is be­cause the field of op­tions seems al­most lim­it­less. They in­clude the tra­di­tion­al: an­i­ma­tors, pro­duc­ers, writ­ers, sketch artists, di­rec­tors and as­sis­tant di­rec­tors; to more con­tem­po­rary ca­reer choic­es such as vi­su­al de­vel­op­ment artists, flash an­i­ma­tors, game pro­gram­mers, light com­posit­ing artists and film ed­i­tors. By en­rolling in the Diplo­ma in An­i­ma­tion cours­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) or UWI's Vi­su­al Arts De­grees and Film and Video Cer­tifi­cate in An­i­ma­tion, many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans can get a head start in this promis­ing field.

Opt­ing to study an­i­ma­tion and new me­dia al­so has its re­wards out­side a mean­ing­ful ca­reer. As the sev­er­al de­serv­ing young men and women who walked away win­ners at the 2010 An­i­mae Caribe An­i­ma­tion and New Me­dia Fes­ti­val im­pres­sive­ly demon­strat­ed this week, there is al­so room to cel­e­brate and ac­knowl­edge the achieve­ments of an­i­ma­tion pro­fes­sion­als. The Fes­ti­val, which con­clud­ed in grand style at the Acad­e­my of Per­form­ing Arts in Port-of-Spain on No­vem­ber 28th, saw a num­ber of an­i­ma­tors re­ceiv­ing recog­ni­tion for their sub­mis­sions in sev­en dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories in­clud­ing Most Promis­ing An­i­ma­tion Fea­ture, Best Trinidad and To­ba­go Short, the DEW Most Out­stand­ing Caribbean Short and a Fes­ti­val first - the Best Latin Amer­i­can An­i­ma­tion Award.

The first ever Best Latin Amer­i­can An­i­ma­tion Award went to Cuban an­i­ma­tor Bar­baro Joel Or­tiz for "20 Years", a stop mo­tion/clay­ma­tion film which ex­plores what goes on be­hind the closed doors of a mar­riage. The very re­al is­sues of love, frus­tra­tion, be­tray­al and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence are ex­plored with great in­sight in this 12-minute silent film. The 2010 An­i­mae Caribe Fes­ti­val marks the first time Bar­baro's work has been seen by a wider Caribbean au­di­ence and hope­ful­ly it won't be the last as he al­so copped the Most Out­stand­ing An­i­ma­tion Fea­ture! The young men from the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC) were es­pe­cial­ly ju­bi­lant as they walked away with the Most Promis­ing New­com­er Award for their piece en­ti­tled "The Jour­ney" which ex­plored themes of Hope, Love, Cre­ativ­i­ty and Peace.

The YTC group was part of an an­i­ma­tion work­shop or­gan­ised by the Fes­ti­val Founder Camille Selvon-Abra­hams back in Oc­to­ber. The Jour­ney was the main fea­ture on the open­ing day of the 2010 Fes­ti­val and won the hearts of the judges for the out­stand­ing sto­ry­line yet sim­ple artistry. Trinidad and To­ba­go was al­so well rep­re­sent­ed at the award cer­e­mo­ny in oth­er cat­e­gories in­clud­ing the prize for Best Trinidad and To­ba­go Short: "Rain­bow Hill" by Wen­dell Mc­Shine. Wen­dell is known for stay­ing true to his thought-pro­vok­ing, of­ten dark yet vi­su­al­ly ap­peal­ing aes­thet­ic and Rain­bow Hill is no dif­fer­ent. Cur­rent­ly based in Mex­i­co, he is a Fes­ti­val vet­er­an hav­ing sub­mit­ted last year and won the Best Use of An­i­ma­tion in a Mu­sic Video Award for "Pros­per" by 12 The Band.

We look for­ward to 2011 to see what this self-pro­claimed un­der­ground artist comes up with! The Best Use of An­i­ma­tion in the Me­dia Award went to Christo­pher Guin­ness for "An­i­mal In­stinct". Ja­maica took home the cov­et­ed DEW Most Out­stand­ing Short. Al­li­son Latch­man's "Cab­bie Chron­i­cles" won the nod of the judges, while David Pross­ner won the Best Stu­dent Award for "Mat­ter Fish­er". The An­i­mae Caribe An­i­ma­tion and New Me­dia Fes­ti­val took place from No­vem­ber 22nd to 28th in Trinidad and To­ba­go. There was op­por­tu­ni­ty for ex­po­sure for those want­i­ng to learn from the best in the busi­ness as sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-recog­nised an­i­ma­tors con­duct­ed work­shops at this year's Fes­ti­val. They in­clude two-time Os­car nom­i­nee Bill Plymp­ton, eight-time Eis­ner Award win­ner, Kyle Bak­er and Chris Soy­er who worked on last year's block­buster "2012".

This year's spon­sors in­clud­ed the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny, eTecK, The Guardian, gieN­ET­WORK and the Na­tion­al Drug Coun­cil which sup­port­ed the Anan­si Chil­dren's The­atre Pro­duc­tion on the last day of the Fes­ti­val. Look out for the 2011 in­stall­ment which promis­es to be a grand event as the Fes­ti­val marks its 10th an­niver­sary.