Recently there was a callout from a Sydney casting agency for nerds to apply to be a part of an television show. That show has now been revealed to be the Australian version of the American reality TV series, Beauty and the Geek. The concept of the show is simple: you mix a group of socially awkward nerds with a group of attractive but dim witted girls and (hopefully) the geeks learn social skills and the beauties learn to use their brains.
As much as I dislike the reality genre format and its unabashedly shameless commercial franchising method, what little I’ve seen of the American series of Beauty and the Geek it was an OK show, mostly because it seemed to have a healthy focus on self improvement rather than spending all its time laughing at the flaws of its contestants. While I can’t in good conscience recommend any reality TV show, I can say that this might just be relevant to your interests. They’re still accepting applications so email
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if you're interested.
MIAF is a week-long festival highly recommend for all kinds of fans of animation, from viewers to professionals to students. In addition to numerous screenings there are also acouple of panels being run.
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL
When: Monday to Sunday; 22nd to 28th June, 2009
City/State: Melbourne, Victoria
Location: ACMI - Australian Center for the Moving Image (Federation Square, corner of Swanston Street and Flinders Street, Melbourne)
Geek Event Type: Animation Cost: Prices vary depending on event; see prices here
Canned Geek recently sent us to Mini-Animania , held at the Citigate Central Hotel Sydney. It's a small side-con to the Animania convention proper; a little warm up before the big event. My partner Jeneara will be covering the Cosplay related items, I however will be looking at the event from a different approach.
Anime conventions are not my forte. I am, at heart, an artist and an animator. I draw pictures, I make things pretty on paper. So anime can be said to hold an allure from the artistic sense, but having only attended Manifest (in Melbourne) solidly in the past, the "Animania' scene is, surprisingly, growing on me.
Perhaps it is the energetic company of my partner, Jeneara, who has been embedded in the Anime and Cosplay scenes up to her neck for years. Coming up for air like the proverbial ostrich before diving, gleefully back into the bright, Technicolor sands. Anime is shiny. Anime is energetic, cute and quirky. Anime is weird. Anime is simple. The culture around it is similar to the culture around the internet; you've got your fans, fiends and those that enjoy it far too much but are, by the by, very good at it.
So it was this time that Canned Geek sent us to Mini-Animania; a small offshoot of the main Animania convention. Mini-Animania holds the preliminary rounds of the World Cosplay Summit, something Jeneara spoke of with the awe and fanaticism of a teenager swooning over their favourite pop idol. So with that in mind I waded through the crowds of Cos-players and decided to approach mini-Animania from the perspective of a noobie-outsider.
