If you drop into Kendra's free cameraless filmmaking activity between 12 and 3 today (Sunday, January 3rd) at the Akron Art Museum, the film you draw on will be included in a collaborative piece to be screened as part of the upcoming Spark: Family Film Fest on Saturday, January 16^th. Spark is a co-production of Akron Film and the Akron Art Museum, and here's the schedule:

12:15: The Secret of Kells (an Ohio premiere, three months before its US release)
2:00: Shorts (including your cameraless films)
3:15: Girls Rock!

These films are for everyone for a change, so bring your kids if you’ve got ‘em, but don’t feel left out if you don’t. They are not required for admission. Thanks to Cory Sheldon for the poster!

This Thursday, December 17th, at the Akron Main Library, check out the documentary Still Bill, "about the life and music of soul legend Bill Withers. writer of such songs as 'Lean On Me,' 'Just The Two Of Us,' 'Use Me,' and 'Ain't No Sunshine.'"  It's being put on by Sixty Seconds of Heaven; go to the site for a trailer and ticket info. Tickets are $2.50, and seating is limited. Akron Film members get in free.

It starts at 7:30, and the Akron Art Museum's Holiday mART starts at 5:00, so, whoa, I think I just planned your whole evening.

Congratulations to Todd V, Blue Green, Chris Miller, and the others who worked on Blimp: Our Blemished Past for winning both the audience choice and jury prizes tonight. The jurors were David Giffels (author of the book "All the Way Home"), Josh Gippin (director of the documentary "God as We Understand Him"), Vivian Goodman (WKSU Reporter/Producer), and Mike Wendt (director of the documentary "The End of the World as We Knew It"). We thank them for their time and effort!

And congratulations to all seven filmmaking teams for coming up with some hilarious reinterpretations of our city. We'll have to do this again sometime. Photo by Shannon M. Miller.

Here are the rules (pdf) provided to the teams today. If you still want to sign up, email your name, number, and your approximate number of team members to info@akronfilm.com. The $15 registration fee may be paid via PayPal or check. The prompts (the two things that must be explained fictionally by your film) are:

1. Why is there a blimp perpetually overhead?

and

2. Why would one find marbles embedded in the ground in Akron? (If you don't know what we're talking about, refer to this site.)

Both questions must be addressed in your film. Questions? info@akronfilm.com!

Jonathan Nix's "Hello," the story of a cassette tape player wooing a CD player, won the most audience votes at the Revenge of the Freakishly Short Animation Festival. Thank you to the voters and to everyone who came out!

Tomorrow, Saturday, at 2pm is the last chance to see the Revenge of the Freakishly Short Animation Festival, a seventy minute collection of cool and/or crazy animated films from around the world that is playing exclusively at the Akron Art Museum. It's free, if you can believe that. Check out this trailer ok?

In addition to the international lineup, it features the debut of Akron filmmaker Cory Sheldon's new comedic short "Seeds of the Damned." He'll be there for a Q&A!

Dr. Phil Hoffman, University of Akron professor and two time juror for the Akron Film Festival, recently premiered his latest documentary, Turn Blue: The Short Life of Ghoulardi. It details the story of Cleveland TV legend Ernie Anderson and finds no shortage of funny stories to tell about his tenure as late night horror host Ghoulardi.

If you missed the film at Ghoulardifest over the weekend, your next chance to see it is this Tuesday, the 27th, at 9 PM on Western Reserve PBS 45/49. Find out about further screenings and learn more about the film at the Turn Blue Production Blog.

Malone University's Open Frame Film Fest is producing a series of indie filmmaker workshops. I attended the first, on screenwriting, which took place last month and was full of insight. Coming up on Tuesday, October 27th is the second, on pre-production. It's at 7:30 PM at Malone's Silk Auditorium. Check out the Open Frame blog for more info!

Thursday, September 24th sees the first edition of LightLab. It's a free group light discussion/activity taking place at the Akron Art Museum at 7:00 PM. We're going to talk about how to deal with low light situations, looking at them from technical and artistic perspectives. Get more info here, and register by emailing your name and number to info@akronfilm.com.

Coming up soon at UA's Myers School of Art is a series I've been looking forward to called Collider: Interactivity and New Media. According to the press release, it "examines the impact, implications and inspiration of the phenomenon generally categorized under the umbrella term 'New Media' within design practice and the fine arts."

The first lecture, by Golan Levin of Carnegie Mellon University, is on Monday, September 21st at 6:30 PM. The second, by Casey Reas of UCLA, is on Tuesday, September 22nd at 6:30 PM. Get more details here. They are free and open to the public. It's not an everyday opportunity, so I'll see you there!