Aniboom Awards 4 Sesame Street
Sesame Street and Aniboom, the world’s first virtual animation studio, are collaborating for the Fourth Annual Aniboom Animation Awards! The Aniboom Awards 4 Sesame Street contest recognizes outstanding creativity among independent animators around the world and encourages animators of all levels to push the boundaries of innovation in the medium. Aniboom’s Virtual Animation Studio currently consists of over 8,000 professional animators from 72 countries and has provided its members with opportunities to make programming for FOX, music videos for Radiohead and animation for Marvel Comics. This contest marks the first time Sesame Street has participated in an world-wide open competition for content in its 40 year history. A total of $50,000 in cash and development money is to be awarded to the winners. Additionally, the Grand Prize winning animation will be included in Sesame Street’s 41st season which begins airing later this year.
This year’s awards will showcase the work of artists creating animations appropriate for pre-school age children in 5 different categories: School Readiness Skills, Pro-Social, re-make of the Sesame Street classic animation “Pinball Number Count,” Anything Goes “The Sky is the Limit”, and Community Favorite (to be determined by a voting tool on the Aniboom website). Each category will have one finalist determined by Sesame Street’s production staff (with the exception of Community Favorite). The Grand Prize winner will be chosen among the finalists by a panel of celebrity judges.
“Animation as an art form and communication tool is especially powerful for developing children, and no programmer or educator knows that better than the producers behind Sesame Street,” says Uri Shinar, founder and CEO of Aniboom.
“Sesame Street has a long history of using animation to teach generations of children all about numbers, letters, shapes and the world around them,” adds Carol-Lynn Parente, Executive Producer of Sesame Street. “We are thrilled to partner with a community of animators like Aniboom to find unique programming from around the globe to help educate and engage today’s kids.”
Animators registered with the Aniboom Virtual Animation Studio will be able to submit their entries over an eight week period from March 1st until April 26th. The top 5 category winners will be announced on May 10th, 2010 and the Grand Prize winner on May 17th. For the full list of rules and Sesame Street animation guidelines for the competition, please visit http://www.aniboom.com/.
