NYC ACM SIGGRAPH is excited to announce that we will soon be opening our submission portal for MetroCAF 2021. MetroCAF is the annual NYC Metropolitan Area College Computer Animation Festival organized by the New York City chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH. Started in 2003, MetroCAF has grown into the most important local festival of its kind. It provides an exciting opportunity for all students in the NYC metropolitan area to show their work not only to their fellow students, but also to industry professionals. Plans are under way for the festival to tour the network of ACM SIGGRAPH Professional and Student Chapters so this could mean international exposure for your work.
Check out MetroCAF site for more details!
While not as challenging as last year, students still faced a number of obstacles and as a result we will again be offering an extended submissions timeframe. We will be accepting initial submissions through Friday, July 2, 2021. This will give students an extra month to finish their work.
Next, we also understand that many students can only do some of their work, like rendering, at their schools. To help with this, we will do an initial jurying phase after which any accepted pieces will be able to submit a final show version by Friday, August 6, 2021. To be clear, the initial work submitted by Friday, July 2, 2021 should represent what the finished piece will look like. For example, a student may have completed their piece but not rendered every scene. In this case, the jury should still be able to get a pretty good idea of the story and the characters, and it is primarily the rendering that needs to be done. We do not want students to submit 30 seconds of storyboards expecting that their piece will be accepted on what might be possible. But we do want to give students with pieces that have a majority of the work done the chance to produce a final show version so that is why will provide extra time to students with accepted pieces.
Finally, we know how much our screening means to the students and the NYC-metropolitan area digital media community each year, but we are not sure what this fall will look like with regard to large events such as MetroCAF. So, while we are looking at dates when we might do a physical screening, we will also be adapting our submission form to cover permissions for a virtual screening. This would allow us to hold a premiere for the festival that would be available not just to NYC attendees but to anyone around the world.
On behalf of MetroCAF and NYC ACM SIGGRAPH, we would like to thank you for your past participation in MetroCAF. We look forward to seeing your students’ work once again this year. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions or comments you may have.
-Danesh Taraporevala & Patty Wongpakdee
Co-Chairs, MetroCAF 2021