AniMazing Spotlight! has announced the two Second Quarter winners, the funny and inventive comment on ways to save the environment, “The Hybrid Union” by Serguei Kouchnerov from Kiev, Ukraine, and the remarkable experimental short, “The Bellows March” by Eric Dyer from Baltimore, Maryland.  Both very different, both award-winning material.  They join the first quarter winners, “The Lighthouse” by Velislava Gospodinova from Sofia, Bulgaria, and El Salón México by Paul Glickman and Tamarind King.  All four become nominees for Best of Festival early in the fall.  There are still two quarters to go, so if it’s like 2009, there will be eight shorts vying for the Best of Festival winner, and this year the winner will receive the new “bozu” bronze trophy being designed and cast by Larry Loc.  For more information on all of this, and more, visit our sister site at …

www.animazspot.com

Many of you have been asking when we will add more of our interviews, and we don’t want to make any promises we can’t keep, but if all goes well, we will start adding interviews very soon now.  cross fingers and stay tooned.

One of our own, Mike Kazaleh, Episode #11, is the first to submit a cartoon for the $3,000 “Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Energy Independence” book cover contest, for AniMazing Spotlight!  As you can see from the last few posts, I’ve totally forgotten how to insert an image.  But, if you’d like to see Mike’s “Gas Crisis” cartoon, which he’s entered in the contest, visit the AniMazing Spotlight home page for the image, at …

www.animazspot.com

… There’s still time if you want to enter the contest as well, or enter your latest animated short in our 2010 festival, dedicated exclusively to animated shorts.  This year we will be presenting the first Bozu Bronze trophy, designed and sculpted by Larry Loc, to the winner of 2010 Best of Festival.

The Deadline for both the Funny Thing contest, and the Second Quarter animated shorts is March 8,

First 2010 Quarter Winners: “The Lighthouse” by Velislava Gospodinova, from Sophia, Bulgaria, and “El Salón México” by Paul Glickman and Tamarind King are the two winners for the first quarter of 2010.

Second Quarter Shorts: Still time to submit independent animated shorts, for feedback from an international panel of animation experts, and to compete for a number of award possibilities. Deadline March 8.

Bronze Bozu Trophy: Larry Loc is designing a bronze trophy, the Bozu, for the 2010 Best of Festival winner, based on a caricature done at Walt Disney Studios back in the late 1930s.

$1,000 Funny Thing Contest: Bob Danziger has written a humorous book on energy independence, with a contest to find someone to design the cover. The winner will receive $1,000, and inside pages will receive $200 each. Deadline: March 8.

New Web Site: AniMazSpot has totally redesigned/upgrade their site and are open for comments.  Discover more about all these news items and more by visiting … www.animazspot.com

Our umbrella group, AniMazing Spotlight, had a very successful animated shorts festival in November 2009, but we’re not resting on our laurels.  The first Quarter for entering animated shorts is now closed, and the shorts are being reviewed by the international panel of animation experts, winners will be announced on the AniMazing Spotlight web site this week.  One of the submitted shorts is “El Salon de México” by Paul Glickman and Tamarind King (pictured to the right) … hmmm, can’t seem to get a picture up there today, so you’ll just have to see it on the AniMazing Spotlight home page post for this month.

The second Quarter is now open for entries, deadline is March 8th, but we advise submitting early to avoid the usual late comers rush, and getting up on the web site longer.  The site has been recently updated with the latest shorts, new international panel, and the festival page has a full review of the 2009 festival activities.

Visit our AniMazing Spotlight web site for more details at www.animazspot.com