How animation, with its evolving technology and artistic creativity, can be effectively taught to students interested in that kind of career and how it might enhance the learning environment for other subjects will be in the spotlight at a one-day conference for educators launching the second [ Kalamazoo Animation Festival International ] (KAFI) in May.

Among the main presenters at “Animation Education: New Ideas for an Evolving Industry” will be Linda Simensky, vice president of original animation for the Cartoon Network.

The conference, scheduled for Friday, May 16, in the Stone Theater at the Radisson Plaza Hotel at Kalamazoo Center, will kick off KAFI 2003. The deadline to register for both instructors at the K-12 and college levels is May 1. The $100 fee will entitle the educators to take part in the entire festival that will run through Sunday afternoon in downtown Kalamazoo.

Simensky, a 1985 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a researcher on the history of “Looney Tunes,” will discuss what the animation industry is looking for in prospective artists and what it is not looking for when graduates are ready to move into the profession.

A part of the team that produces “Dexter”s Laboratory” and “Johnny Bravo” for the Cartoon Network, Simensky will be joined in that presentation by Ellen Besen, a film maker and animator from Grand Rapids, who will also open the conference with a keynote address.

Other conference topics will include “Creating a Successful Learning Environment,” a panel discussion on how to develop an animation curriculum that can keep up with the emerging technology, whether current courses are teaching what the industry wants in its animators, how to create a portfolio that showcases a student”s best work, and the importance of gaining feedback and critiques from professionals as students move through their classes.

“This is a great opportunity,” says David Baker, a KVCC animation instructor and director of KAFI 2003, “for educators to examine current trends in the industry, build alliances with other schools, network and exchange ideas, hear from professionals who are on the firing line, and learn about the latest in animation technology. Plus, they have a chance to take part in an entertaining, exciting and educational three-day festival.”

In addition to Simensky and Besen, other presenters will come from Max the Mutt Animation School in Toronto, Bowling Green State University, the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, CalArts in Valencia, Calif., and the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla.

Animators with ties to major companies that produce full-length films and shorts for movie houses and cartoon networks will gather, along with professionals in the field and students who want to hone their creative skills, to turn downtown Kalamazoo into “Toon Town” for three days. They will be competing for $15,000 in prize money, while teams from 10 animation schools in Michigan, California, Ohio and Canada will take part in the unique “Cartoon Challenge.”

Those testing their “under-the-gun” animation talents in the “Cartoon Challenge” will come to Kalamazoo prior to the festival to create a 30-second production. The teams will not know the topic until the week-long competition began. Teams are coming from as far away as Vancouver, Canada, San Jose State University in California and Toronto, Canada. A jury of professionals will pick the winning entry whose members will share $4,000 in scholarships. May 12-16 are the dates for the second “Challenge.”

KAFI 2003 will run through Sunday of that week with three full days of activities designed to show animation as entertainment, education, employment and art. Many of the events will have no admission charge.

Among the free KAFI attractions will be:

* an art show of hand drawings used to create the legendary Disney cartoons;

* a presentation on the “Golden Age of Disney Animation;”

* a retrospective of the classic cartoons (from “Popeye” to “Superman”) produced by the Fleischer Studio;

* a display of the animation produced by Education for the Arts students in Kalamazoo;

* a two-hour showing of cartoons dating from the 1920s through the 1960s in the State Theater, complete with an organist for the silent animated films;

* a sing-along with the “VeggieTales” that use animated tomatoes, stalks of celery and a cucumber named “Larry” to tell biblical parables;

* panoramas showing the caliber of films entered in the 2003 festival, what the 10 best schools of animation in the country have to offer, and examples of the work of international animators.

* “The Best of KAFI 2003″ to end the three-day event.

The festival, regarded as the first of its kind in the Midwest, is being organized by Kalamazoo Valley Community College with the assistance of Downtown Kalamazoo Inc., the Arts Council of Kalamazoo, and the Education for the Arts program. Funding and support for the second festival is being provided by the college, the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, Monroe-Brown Foundation, the Plaza Arts Circle, Lawrence Productions, WKFR-FM 103.3, and WWMT-TV Channel 3.

Nuts-and-bolts information about the KAFI events and activities, the “Cartoon Challenge,” prizes and awards, and other details is available at this webpage: http://kafi.kvcc.edu. Baker can be contacted at (269) 488-4520 or [ dbbaker@kvcc.edu ].