William Morris agents Ken Freimann (l to r), Danny Gabai and Aaron Hart chat with the nominees. © 2008 AWN Inc.

After a late screening in the Aidikoff Screening Room for the William Morris agents, the filmmakers had a chance to meet with a few of the agents. Like many people have said along the tour, the agents felt that this year is one of the strongest years for animated shorts in quite some time. Peter and the Wolf asked how an animation director or producer finds representation. Ken Freimann said that it depends on what the filmmaker wants. Based on their nominated work, he said it would be tough because it’s hard for them to sell less than mainstream projects to the studios. He added that their films prove what they can do, so coming to agents with projects worked out would be a great help in determining what an agent can do for an animator. Agent Danny Gabai, who represents many independent writer/directors, said that if you want to move into the mainstream then they could help, or they could help connect their projects with artists who could help getting the project made. Ken’s example was that if Tim Burton gets involved with a project, the studios would be more interested. For producers, Ken said that they would represent them on a project-to-project basis.