And about time too, I hear you say.

The master is finished (pending some final testing), so all that remains is to sort out the fiddly legal and logistical stuff so I can get it pressed into thousands of high tech coffee coasters and Christmas tree ornaments for the masses.

I can only guess how long this will take (which I’m not going to and you can’t make me) but in the mean time here’s a quick feature list to ponder over:

• 16 minute making-of thingy (which was in itself several months in the making, and largely responsible for my… erm… delay)
• Complete animatics
• Isolated soundtracks
• Other stuff
• And as an added bonus: the film itself!

Incidentally, the pic above is a mockup - the final may or may not differ in appearance.

The Passenger still seems to have some festival life in it, so in the absence of anything non-film-festivally to post about, I’ll continue my current trend of posting only about film festivally things.

In what could quite possibly be its last theatrical outing (don’t quote me on that), it’ll be screening at The Reel Shorts Film Festival in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada on Wednesday, April 22 at 12:20pm, and then again on Saturday, April 25 at 7:00pm.

The Passenger is showing at the new Asian incarnation of Siggraph this year, thereby achieving one of its original goals (well, sort of).  It’s in Singapore on the 11th of December, and you need a conference pass to see it by the looks of it (expensive!).  Took me a while to find the details for this one, so there’s not much time left.

Just a quick update on the Australian International Animation Festival, which is moving on to Sydney.  The Passenger is included in the Australian Panorama on the 18th of October.  Details here.

The Passenger is heading over to London for the London International Animation Festival, which is in …London.  It’s scheduled for the International Competition Session 2, on Thursday 4th September at 7pm.  If anyone catches the award announcements, feel free to let me know if I won anything.

According to eyewitness accounts, The Passenger won Best Australian Film at the Melbourne Animation Festival last week. Thanks to the audience members who tipped me off! Somebody must have forgotten to tell me. I wonder if that’s what happened with the Oscars…

Almost forgot about this one! The Passenger is touring the country as part of the Australian International Animation Festival, which kicked off in Wagga Wagga last month. Next stop: Bendigo! Keep an eye on the AIAF site to see if the “Big Bus” or “Mini Bus” program is making a “pit stop” in your neighbourhood. How thematically appropriate.

Missed one! Teen Program 2 - Friday 20 June, 4:00pm acmi cinema 1. Keep your eyes peeled, there might be more.

My festival run had apparently run out of steam, so I decided I might as well submit The Passenger to the Melbourne International Animation Festival, since it’s virtually just down the road and all. Well, I’m happy to report it’s been selected, and after rummaging around the MIAF site I’ve found that no less than three screenings are scheduled!  They are:

International Program #2 - Tuesday 17 June, 8.15pm acmi cinema 2
International Program #2 (repeat) - Sunday 22 June, 1.45pm acmi cinema 1
Australian Panorama - Saturday 21 June, 2.30pm acmi cinema 2

More info on the MIAF site.

Some people were having playback problems with the high res version of the trailer, and I’ve finally replaced it with a newly encoded one. See how that goes. It’s a wmv file this time, marginally better in video quality but less than half the size. I’ve stubbornly kept the 5.1 mix intact, so like the other one it will need Windows Media Player 10 or above to work properly (theoretically).

Incidentally, there’s now also a flash version of the low res one.