The Animex International Festival of Animation, VFX and Computer Games takes place every year in

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The festival has its roots firmly planted in the creative side of the animation, visual effects and computer games industries and acts to provide animators, vfx artists, compositors, directors, students, artists, designers, writers and educators with a forum in which they can share their knowledge and skills and promote the art of animation and computer games development.

History

Animex was founded by university lecturers Chris Williams and Siobhan Fenton. It began as a two-day series of lectures by animators and industry professionals at the

University of Teesside , mottoeng = Deeds Not Words , established = 1930 – Constantine Technical College1969 – as Teesside Polytechnic 1992 – gained university status , type = Public , endowment = £0.23 m (2019/20) , chancellor ...

in February 2000, and has grown to a week-long festival incorporating the two-day event that began it all, Animex Talk. Animex Game was founded by Gabrielle Kent in 2004, creating another two days of presentations, this time by games professionals. Chris Williams remained director until leaving the university in 2012, at which point Gabrielle took over until 2018.

Animex today

The main venue for the festival is The University of Teesside. The festival also runs an exhibition of animation and games art, an international student awards scheme, screenings, workshops and Animexperience, a programme of school and community events giving people the chance to try their hand at animation and meet industry luminaries. Guest speakers in the past have included such industry professionals as stop motion legend Ray Harryhausen

Pixar Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californ ...

animator Mark Walsh,

Bob the Builder ''Bob the Builder'' is a British animated children's television series created by Keith Chapman for HIT Entertainment and Hot Animation. The series follows the adventures of Bob, a building contractor, specialising in masonry, along with ...

designer

Curtis Jobling Curtis Jobling (born 14 February 1972) is a British illustrator, animator and author, born in Blackpool, England but lives in Warrington. He was the original production designer of the stop-motion puppet version of children's TV hit ''Bob the ...

, Phil Tippett, Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, Blitz Games, Ernest W. Adams, Chris Crawford, Professor Stuart Sumida and representatives from games and animation studios around the world. Animex was in part the inspiration for the

Red Stick International Animation Festival The Red Stick International Animation Festival is an annual event is hosted by the Lab for Creative Arts & Technologies (LCAT), a research group within the Louisiana State University's Center for Computation and Technology. The first festival took ...

in Baton Rouge,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. Animex is run by a team of people, including animation and computer games lecturers within the

as well as support staff. *Animex AVFX Coordinator - Chris Wyatt *Animex Game Coordinator - Matty MacGrory *Animex Exhibition - Stephen Murray *Animex Screen & Awards - *Animex Project Manager - Tim Brunton *Festival Founders - Chris Williams & Siobhan Fenton

External links

Animex official site

University of Teesside
Multigenre conventions Animation film festivals in the United Kingdom Film festivals in England Festivals in North Yorkshire Middlesbrough {{UK-festival-stub fr:Animex