2. One of the highlights of the ACEC2010 conference was listening to Adam Elliot, who provided an funny, inspiring insight into his life. Up until this time, I had not really heard of Adam Elliot but I was aware of his feature length film Mary and Max which was launched in 2009; but that's where it ends. Adam Elliot, grew up on a shrimp farm, who later moved to Melbourne; described himself as an unemployed animator who work from his father's garage for 2 years creating HarvieKrumpet. Prior to HarvieKrumpet, he created Cousin, Uncle and Brother but was relatively unknown outside of Australia until HarvieKrumpet. Once Harvie Crumpet was complete, Adam submitted the short animated story to the various film festivals. Much to his surprise, he recieved a phone call to say he had been nominated for an Oscar award. The lineup for this award included heavy weights such as Pixar Animation Studios and Disney. Much to his surprise, HarvieKrumpet won an Oscar. You can view the acceptance of the Oscar approximately 6 minutes or so into this video. From here the rest is history; Adam Elliot has gone on to be a very successful director and animator who writes his own scripts. Offers have poured in from all over the world but he plans to stay put in Australia. The message to all of us is that no matter the obstacle, if you have a vision and work hard enough at something you will succeed. Stop Motion and Animation has since gained a renewed popularity providing more career opportunity for our students. I have included a further link where Adam Elliot talks about his work with animation and how access to animation software today allows even children, to create basic animation.
