Animation hopefuls can hit big-time in Facebook competition

Former Sony Pictures Digital president Yair Landau is running a competition in which he's looking for user-created animations of individual shots from a short film hes making. The idea is get a variety of high-quality sequences and to incorporate them into the finished product. The competition is being run on Facebook using tools from Aniboom.

(Credit: Mass Animation)

Are you a stud digital animator who hasn't quite managed to find a venue for your work?

If so, a new project being run by former Sony Digital Pictures president Yair Landau could be your ticket to the recognition you deserve.

Starting Monday, Landau--backed by several corporate partners--is opening up a competition which will give Facebook users the opportunity to animate one or more sequences in a short film that he is making.

Called Mass Animation, the competition tasks users with taking storyboarded shots from Landau's planned short film, Live Music and creating animations of them. The idea is that Landau and a team of judges will pick the best submissions and incorporate them into the finished film.

The competition is being run on Facebook and utilizes a new application from a company called Aniboom that earlier this year ran a competition to animate a Radiohead music video.

Live Music is based largely on Romeo and Juliet and follows the story of Riff, a rock and roll guitar, who falls in love with Vanessa, a classical guitar.

Animators who want to participate will be able to do so starting Monday, and can send in as many submissions as they want through January 30, 2009. And while there will be official judges, the submissions will also be subject to community voting, which will open on November 24.