Shane Acker’s post-apocalyptic short 9 took home an armful of awards in 2006 (Best in Show at SIGGRAPH, a Gold Award at the Student Academy Awards and then a nomination at the Academy Awards), but I’m sure no prize will supplant his next accomplishment – getting a greenlight for the feature version. With Tim Burton producing, the film is underway at Starz Animation in Canada, and below we get a taste for what to expect. It’s the first full trailer, in which we see that dialog is now in the mix (the short was all pantomime) and the “what happened to the humans” storyline is revealed. The film, which is being released by Focus Features (Coraline), is due in theaters on the all-too-appropriate date of 09/09/09.

Ten Kens, a band out of Toronto, handed the direction of their latest music video over to Kareem Thompson. The video for the track Spanish Fly was produced at The Blackbelt Kids.

Art Direction, Animation, and Compositing by Sheridan College grads Peter Auld and Louis Norris, and Additional Art by Lubomir Arsov.

See the hi-rez video at nofatclips.com.

The Ten Kens are Dean Tzenos, Dan Workman, Lee Stringle and Ryan Roantree.

Bastiaan van Rooden, a student at Vancouver Film School, created this CGI short below titled Border. It pits Lt. Lou versus a traffic light that delivers a halting performance.

Love Bug is a short CGI film about the consequences of cyber love. It was made by 6 students at the Vancouver-based Capilano University Digital Animation – and produced in 3 weeks. The crew included Ran Kim, Kevin Little, Igor Ramade, Hayley Brock, Steve Oh and Zhenwei Huang.

Know what a cellphone charm is? I think South Korea is responsible for starting this phenomenon, but I just don’t get it. There’s no purpose for it. It’s like a rear-view mirror for your coffee mug. Anyway, Cosmo Campbell at Bent Image Lab in Portland was the creative director on this clever spot for the BC Dairy Foundation (for their Must Drink More Milk campaign). They were brought in by Tribal DDB, Vancouver, and Rob Shaw directed the spot, which is aptly titled Cellphone Charms. Eric Scheur and Dennis Rivera animated.

According to CityNews.ca, Neil Burns has directed Canada’s first stop-motion feature film. Edison & Leo is a 79-minute tale that grew from an 18-minute short of the same name. Burns tells the tale of George Edison and the birth of electricity in a unique and imaginative way. The film got its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Here’s a clip (NSFW):

…. and an interview with Burns.