Emmy Marshall-Hill and Kyle Crawford took the stage as Masters of Ceremony following an animated introduction created by Jake Fullerton which brought life to Kyle, who was depicted as a cartoon character in the intro.

Superior productions like the 2D Narrative Flashbot by Leanne Lau of Cawthra Park.S.S. and the claymation A Snowman’s Revenge by Beatrice Imrie of Mayfield S.S. highlighted the evening which also featured the festival’s first-ever game entry – The Great Pianist by David Chung and Sinthushan Sivapatham of Harold Brathwaite S.S., played by numerous students in the lobby.

Guest speaker Stephen Barnes took the throne on stage and shared his experience as a professional animator in many top feature films. Stephen spent 5 years at Pixar in California working on A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc. and Geri’s Game as well as at Lucasarts working on their Gladius game. His animated presentation and the detail he gave us while showing clips from the films made everyone cling onto every word he had to say.