This video features a recorded group discussion among animation enthusiasts who share their experiences and insights about creating animated short films. They discuss the challenges of animation production, software tools like Clip Studio Paint and EBSynth, and the importance of starting small and gradually building skills. The conversation also touches on the creative process, asset reuse, and the motivation to pursue animation projects despite obstacles.

Gobelins is one of the best (if not THE best) animation schools in the world, and every year, from October, they release their students' short films for everyone to watch. It has become an annual event that gets people excited to see which stories are being told for the year. Here is the trailer for this year's collection. It starts on October 1st, and on every Wednesday (till the films are done). You can check out their YouTube channel's playlist for the previous year's films (HIGHLY RECOMMEND! 😁). They also work with the Annecy film festival and produce shorts for their programme lineup, and also have animated FX exercises. If you're looking for inspiration, this is a great place to start! 🤩

I'm a HUGE fan of animating on my iPad. To the point that I gave my Cintiq tablet to a friend to use, while I dedicated myself to animating solely on my iPad. Now, when it comes to animating on the iPad, lots of animation apps have been made available to us, which is really great! So far, I'm aware of RoughAnimator, ToonSquid, Clip Studio Paint, Procreate (+ Procreate Dreams) and Callipeg. I've used all these apps but I love Clip Studio Paint, and I've been using it to animate all my 4 animated projects in college. There are lots of great features in the app, and it's available on both desktop and tablet devices! The one great feature I LOVE is the Vector Layer, which enables you to use Bitmap brushes on Vector layers!!! and the drawn lines can be edited non-destructively afterwards! What apps do you use for animation, and what are the amazing features in your apps?

Most film festival submission sites require you to pay some amount of money to submit a film to a festival, even free ones, but that doesn't have to be the case for you. If you don't have a budget like me, I heavily recommend Filmfreeway.com. On Film Freeway, you get to submit your films to various film festivals across the world, paid, or, the best part, for FREE!!! without any minor payments needed. 🤩 You will be required to submit other documents like your film's press kit and poster artwork, but it truly isn't a hassle to create a profile for your film and submit to film festivals right away! Here's a YouTube tutorial on how to use FilmFreeway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv6101YLhlY&pp=ygUWaG93IHRvIHVzZSBmaWxtZnJlZXdheQ%3D%3D Have fun and I hope this helps!

Thanks to @David Saah for joining me on the first-ever weekly call for Patrick's Club! Meeting Notes: Introductory call to discuss David’s animation projects, film festival submission strategies, community resources, and plan next steps for collaboration and follow‑up. The call introduced David’s body of work and highlighted practical strategies for festival exposure, notably through Film Freeway’s no‑fee submissions. They addressed initial tech hurdles, reviewed his Film Freeway project page, and identified access considerations to research. The host shared plans for a mostly free community club and encouraged David to post a resource tip. They agreed to continue the conversation next week after the host reviews David’s video.