Animation technology has come a long way since the early days of hand-drawn cartoons. The tools have changed dramatically, but the issues remain the same: How expressive can the tools become in the hands of an artist? What is the gap between artistic input and the final product? How does this affect the quality, originality and productivity of the creation process? How does the technology inspire or limit the imagination? To what extent is a recognizable style defined by the artists or by the choice of technology ? We will examine these questions by looking at two contrasting techniques.

Erik Goulet will present his creative uses of tried-and-true stop-motion animation, including live demonstrations using his own puppets and video-capture equipment. Erik will also introduce us to the works of puppetteering masters past and present, and consider the role of this 100-year-old 'hands-on' technique in today's computer-dominated landscape.

While Erik covers the pros and cons of using a simple and inexpensive video technology, Gino Vincelli will show us what it's like to work with one of the most recent computer-based animation systems in the world, Softimage|XSI. Beginning with examples of traditional hand-drawn pose-to-pose animations, Gino will show how this approach has been transformed into computer-based techniques operating on 3D models. He will demonstrate how XSI's animation mixer tool can be used for high-level pose-based editing of motion sequences, and explore the opportunities this opens up for artistic creation.