Cook celebrates multiple awards for film

A short film produced by 14 College of Arts and Media (CAM) students in the Senior Production capstone studio classes last year at the CU Denver Digital Animation Center (DAC) has become a big hit on the awards circuit.

Howard Cook, DAC director, reports that so far, the film, “I Need My Monster,” has been selected for 50 national and international film festivals, including events in Mexico, Canada, England, India, Pakistan, Spain, Brazil and Ukraine. Cook served as the film's executive producer and was in charge of story development and the screenplay.

Awards announced to date:

• Best Animation at the Big Mini Media Festival, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Award of Excellence at the Best Shorts Competition
• Award of Excellence at the Accolade Global Film Competition
• First place at BigPictureCon at Clayton University in Georgia

Guiding production of this award-winning film was a team effort by CAM colleagues. Stephen Baker was the director, and Paul Conner and Tripp Vroman served as faculty technical directors.

What the students created is an animated short-film adaptation of Flashlight Press and Amanda Noll’s children’s book by the same name. It’s a story of a young boy who can only go to sleep to the imagined snoring monster under his bed. One night he finds the monster has “gone fishing.” The boy auditions substitute monsters until the original scary creature returns. See more at “Monsters Come to Life.”