In a candid, behind-the-scenes look at the barnyard American Idol auditions for TV, seven barnyard characters try their luck, and win – or lose – in a big way. The nonchalant Goat sweeps past us, the broken hearted Cow sobs at the door, Speak to the hand!, gestures the disappointed Duck, leaving us in no uncertain terms about how he feels. But four lucky critters – the Bunny, the Rooster, the Prairie Dog and the Pig – make it on to the Colorado Lottery scratch card. And they jump, strut, scoot and fly before their eager friends and family, captured by the exit camera. In, AUDITIONS, it’s ee-i-ee-i-dough indeed!

In a fast four-week production a good working relationship is kind of essential but when you know ahead of time that the agency at the other end is smart, efficient and fun, it makes it all the more doable. Karsh + Hagen is just such as agency and Becky Ferguson, Associate Creative Director, is all that plus. In this biz you often hear about the nightmares but some productions are just so much fun you wish they didn’t have to end. So it was for Little Fluffy Clouds when we made our first spot with K+H some six years ago with the ultra-talented Becky Ferguson at the helm. We fell in love. She doesn’t do nearly enough animation and we don’t get to work with her nearly enough. Too bad!

AUDITIONS was created by Little Fluffy Clouds director, Jerry van de Beek, using the studio’s now signature 2D/3D combination of Autodesk Maya with Flash, Illustrator and Photoshop from Adobe CS3. After Effects was the compositing tool with audio completed in Adobe Audition. Airing regionally from August 6.

See: www.karsh.com

On Thursday evening at the de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the 2007 Adobe Design Achievement Awards were held. I was most honored to be asked to present the award for best animation. When you are face to face with all those young, hopeful things, sitting together in little groups – daring not to dream but not being able to help it – you’re honestly amazed at the raw talent of it all. Every category chock full of imaginative, interesting, smart thinking projects, by students from all over the world. One of the things I stressed to the students was the need to make, and keep, as many contacts in the industry as they possible could. Also to make the most of this unique moment provided by Adobe. You look at their work and can’t help but feel good about the future of our industry as well as being cheered by the prospect of following them through the course of their careers, which I’m sure will be illustrative.

The three finalists in the animation category, Axel Brotje, representing the Braunschweig University of Art, Johnny Kelly, from The Royal College of Art in London, and Sean Monahan, of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, each produced excellent short films. All were diverse in look and theme, yet each one was arresting, unique, stimulating to the senses and of the highest professional quality. All of these young men have bright futures ahead of them.

Axel Brotje’s, Fische und Schiffe, was the winner. Axel is a charming, unassuming young man from a small town in Germany. He was, I think, fairly blindsided by his win which made it all the more poignant for me. Making the most of this opportunity to be here in California, he got up early the next morning, and made his way to SIGGRAPH 2007 in San Diego.

As a side note, I was impressed by the fact that, for services rendered in judging this competition, Adobe donated 10 licenses to each judge for them to choose a worthy recipient organization. The judges worked extremely hard sifting through thousands of entries from more than 30 countries and made the awards the great success they undoubtedly were.

Take some time to look not only at the animations, now on the Adobe site, but also at the other categories of this exceptionally interesting competition.

See: http://www.adobe.com/education/adaa/winners//