Ann Arbor Summer Festival is in full swing. Bring your creative minds down to the Top of the Park this weekend and make a movie on the Animation Station. Find us in the Grove on the evenings of Friday, June 19th and Saturday, June 20th and in the community tent on June 21st.

Then, come back and watch the full edited movie with a soundtrack by Ed Special on Wednesday night, right before Jaws.

PLAY picked up two EMMY awards out of four nominations at the 2009 Michigan EMMY awards celebration. The Animation Station project won in the category of Advanced Media and Peter Traylor’s “Shadow Puppet” won in the Graphics category. Congratulations to all those involved including Tom Bray, Zack Weaver, Dan Fessahazian, Katherine Weider, Peter Traylor & Heidi Kumao.

If real companies don’t deem Detroit worthy of advertising in, The Hygienic Dress League is quick to fill the void. Read the story behind Steve Coy’s recent video post, Hygienic Dress League.

The PLAY Project garnered four nominations all together for MICHIGAN EMMYs! Joanne Leonard: A Life in Pictures received two nominations. Peter Traylor’s Shadow Puppet received another (and since he’s the only one in his category, it’s safe to say he WON the award.) And the Animation Station is up in the category of Advanced Media. Check out the list at the NATAS site.  The awards will be announced on June 6th, 2009.

PLAY Gallery is looking for an Audio Intern to work on Sounds of the State. This ongoing series of audio shorts airs on Michigan Radio and features the sounds of Michigan: places, memories and experiences.

This internship with the Sounds of the State project is non-paying, but it is a fantastic creative and professional opportunity for serious audiophiles with interests in sound art, documentary or public radio.

Our ideal candidate:

~ listens to and enjoys public radio

~ has advanced audio recording, editing and mixing skills

~ has an interest in heading out ‘into the field’ to record people and places

~ is willing and able to collaborate and take direction cheerfully

~ is seriously fastidious…enjoys making things “just so”

~ is creative and has great ears! good writing skills, a plus!

Internship is approximately 5 hours a week, starting early June 2009. Deadline for applying is May 15th. If you are interested, send a cover letter and resume to: playgallery at umich dot edu. Please include any work samples you think are relevant.

It truly is a rhythmic symphonic cacophony at the Jiffy plant in Chelsea, MI. Take a listen to this & more: new haiku now playing on Michigan Radio.

Luckily Michigan Radio listener Richard Mossburg has his ear and his recorder out when the sandhill cranes landed on his yard this spring. The sound triggers a certain prehistoric shudder in him, where for an instant he imagines what it must have been like when dinosaurs ruled the land. Take a listen.

The entire movie from the blast-out experimental movie created by audiences at the Ann Arbor Film Festival is now posted, in parts, on the Animation Station page. Check it out!

The Ann Arbor Chronicle takes note of a vast conspiracy of oversized puppetry which occurred over the weekend, with articles about Pat Oleszko’s Gulliblurr’s Travels and the annual Festifools parade.

New Haiku are in! Peepers, wood frogs, ice melting and the calls of visiting birds all make their spring sounds on the radio. And if this doesn’t satisfy your haiku-hunger, there’s more listener-generated sounds posted. If you need a little outdoors during your day, these haiku will bring you there!

http://playgallery.org/sonichaiku/

The Animation Station once again collected the visual imagination of sleep-deprived fest-goers through the entire week of the 47th Ann Arbor Film Festival.  Check out some picts from the evening & part one from this community movie. Ed Special takes it to a new level with a surreal soundtrack.

One of the best films at this year’s Ann Arbor Film Festival was RiP: A Remix Manifesto, a documentary about intellectual property in the digital age. This is a must-see: check out the website for the film for excerpts.

http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/rip-a-remix-manifesto/

The Ann Arbor Film Festival loop is steadily growing as the Animation Station collects contributions in the lobby of the Michigan Theater. Come down at 5:30pm to see it all put together, with a soundtrack from Ed Special. Find out more about the animation station.

Tonight! Don’t miss the opening night gala of the 47th Ann Arbor Film Festival for an evening of hipster fun & mind-expanding films.

While you’re there, stop by the Animation Station in the lobby and add your stop motion imagination to the festival loop. This gig features original materials created by artist Forest Bright.

Then, see your movie on the big screen Sunday at 5:30pm.

Mark your calendar, next week brings Ann Arbor’s most happening event of the year: the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Check out the schedule for films, parties, panels, at the website. PLAY will be there with the Animation Station and “thank the sponsor” trailers from Emily Skaer, Stephanie Frankiewicz, Sean Darby and Steve Coy.

Rebekah Modrak just turned us on to Vlad who is re-mastering the old View-Master into a still picture, multimedia, movie-making device. Nice! http://www.vladmaster.com/

Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh was on NPR today. Amazing music- thanks to UMS for bringing it to Ann Arbor. The Animation Station went to the concert, visitors animated in response. http://playgallery.org/animationstation

PLAYgallery is now on Twitter.
Follow us at http://twitter.com/playgallery.

Nice project with an active community. Upload, download, share sound files here.

PLAY is continually publishing work on tv, online and in various gallery settings. We always need music, sound designs, often in short snippets. If you have instrumental work, riffs or something you’re working on, even if it’s not ‘complete’, we may find a match for it in our productions. You’ll get a publishing credit on wherever it goes and a copy of the piece for your resume. Contact us at playsoundbank at gmail dot com for more information.

PLAY’s Animation Station is featured in an article in Concentrate on the role of the arts in the new “locavore” movement.

Audiences at University Musical Society’s Gilgamesh were able to try their hand at animation before and after the performance, thanks to the Animation Station. Take a look at what they created, set to the music of Kinan Azmeh.

The Animation Station will visit the UMS production of Gilgamesh on January 23rd and 24th. Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and Syrian/Armenian painter Kevork Mourad fuse the arts in a delicious improvisation based on the ancient tale of Gilgamesh set in the land of Babylonia. Come watch the show and then participate in an animated response using the Animation Station.

Artists beware, our radar is picking up a Storm approaching. If you’re inspired by the subject of storms, or the metaphor of storms, check out the call page. Deadline is January 16th.

Berlin-based artist Philipp Geist sent us a ‘Christmas Card’ of one of his latest video installation, part of the ‘Long Night of the Museums’, a special event taking place twice a year when most of Berlin’s museums are open till 2 a.m.. This video installation at the Kulturforum is called ‘Time Fades’:

(watch more Philipp Geist here.)

The Animation Station was a huge hit at this year’s holiday Shadow Art Fair with a steady stream of visitor from noon to midnight. Take a look at what they created here.

Get creative on the Animation Station at this year’s Shadow Art Fair, a juried event for local artists held two times a year at The Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Local music, featured brews, and other special activities add a distinct flavor and sense of community to this creative showcase. We’ll be there!

Shadow Art Fair is on December 6, 2008, noon to midnight, at the Corner Brewery. Click HERE for more details.

Our new series, Sonic Haiku, launches on Michigan Radio Monday, Nov. 10th ~ short audio postcards that air on the top of the hour intermittently throughout the day. Make sure to tune in!

Join Third Coast International Audio Festival Directors Johanna Zorn and Julie Shapiro for an evening of unforgettable documentary audio stories, including recently-crowned winners of the 2008 TCF / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition, top selections from the Third Coast Festival’s Radio Ephemera public audio challenge, and a few other surprises.

When: Wednesday, November 19, 2008  7:30 - 9 pm
Where: Stamps Auditorium in the Walgreen Drama Center
University of Michigan North Campus.1226 Murfin Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan
How much?: Free!

The rules are simple: an original film, three minutes or less, made in ten hours or less. Take the challenge with the Ann Arbor Film Festival and be there at 9am October 18th at the Kerrytown Concert House.

Edibles, a show about food, opened on September 12th. Audiences stopped by the Animation Station to make an animated movie. Stop by the WORK gallery and add your animation to the loop! (306 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI.)The show runs until October 3, 2008.
And check out Sinful by Jenna Chascera and Toastwriter by Missa Coffman, two videos submitted to the show.

Elbow Grease is coming up, submit soon. Here’s an interesting work-related video we found on vimeo:

Shifts from E K on Vimeo.

We found this wonderful animation made on a simple white board without redo or undo functions~ just like our Animation Station:

Attention audiophiles and sound artists! PLAY is launching a new project with Michigan Radio called the Sonic Haiku Project. Think 30 second ’sound portraits’ that punctuate the NPR listening landscape. We’re looking for contributors. Find our more HERE.

We’ve got lots of buzz at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair, so we figured we should answer some questions about the Animation Station. This is the second iteration of the Animation Station, after its launch at the 2008 Ann Arbor Film Festival. We’re currently in the beta stages of this project, testing out the station in different locations and venues. Keep your eye out for PLAYNATION, as we develop it into a television project for Michigan Television and a web gallery. And, contact us if you have questions!

Come down to the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair to make a stop-motion animation at the PLAYNATION Animation Station. We’re on North University between Thayer and Fletcher in the New Art New Artists Tent. Stay tuned for movie posts from the fair!

Wow, PLAY won an EMMY award at the 2007 Awards Gala of the Michigan Chapter National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In a top ten market, poised against some serious professional motion graphic suites with the latest technologies and big budgets, it is a huge honor that one of our promos took home the prize! Thanks to the super talented Jeff Christy for making the first year of PLAY an EMMY-award winning one.

PLAY has been recognized by the Michigan Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, receiving three (!) nominations at this year’s awards. The final award winners will be announced in June.

Come down to the Michigan Theater this week for the 46th ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL. Make sure to stop at the PLAYstation where you can make your own stop-motion animation to add to the Festival Loop.

(And kudos to PLAY Team members: Tom Bray, Rob Brancheau, Emily Skaer and Katie Trent for masterminding this invention!)

PLAY wins Best Marketing & Promos in 2007 at the Broadcast Excellence Awards presented by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. Kudos to PLAY’s Head Animator for that year: then-A&D senior, Jeff Christy. You can see his promos HERE.

Youtube star, Seth Welton, master of the rabbit-centric blockbuster flick, seeks a composer/sound designer for his new film (see SAMPLE). Contact us at playgallery at umich dot edu and we will connect you with Seth.

In conjunction with Work & Slusser galleries, PLAY invites submissions on the subject of aging for Aging With Attitude & on the subject of personal geography for Place.Mark. Visit our CURRENT CALLS page for more information.

PLAY invites Detroit artists working in time-based arts: video, film, performance art, etc. to submit work that reflects the description: “Made in Detroit” for a series that will run on Michigan Television and the Michigan Channel. Click HERE for more information.

Don’t miss it! Two opportunities to see Acts of Art, an half hour documentary profiling Janie Paul & the Prison Creative Arts Program:

Friday, Nov. 9th at 6:30pm: a screening and Q&A at FOCUS HOPE IN DETROIT as part of the opening reception for The Linkage Show, featuring the work of formally incarcerated artists. Reception 5:30pm-9pm.
Monday Nov. 12th at 10:30pm: the premiere on MICHIGAN TELEVISION (PBS, Ann Arbor Comcast Ch. 24).

Watch the TRAILER.

Make art, make money! Up to $30,000 in prizes will be awarded for the Annual All Student Exhibit at the University of Michigan’s School of Art & Design. If you are a student at A&D working with time-based arts, submit here to PLAY.

Joey Ostrander is looking for original music for his submission to the Green Show. Check out the Collaborators’ Corner for more information.

PLAY invites submissions exploring the color green, along with its many environmental, political and emotional associations. Interesting interpretations are encouraged.

Deadline: October 8, 2007.

Work will be selected for a Green Show Feature on the site and for PLAY TV. Visit the submit page for more information.

PLAY returns to the air this Sunday with The Oscillettes. This month featured new work by ManosBuckius Cooperative, Melano Manos, Nick Tobier & Ed Johnston.

Check our online calendars for up-to-date schedules: Michigan Television (Ch. 28/Ch.24*), Michigan Channel (Ch.22**)