We had a terrific time in Austin meeting and working with our fellow "Excellence In Title Design" jurors and were incredibly humbled to be among such a talented group of people. The title design competition was exceptional, with all 18 finalists bringing something fresh and interesting to the table. In the end after many hours of discussion...

SXSW Film Design Awards: Excellence In Title Design

Winner: Zombieland
Designer: Ben Conrad

Runner Up: earthwork
Designer: Stan Herd

Audience Award Winner: earthwork
Designer: Stan Herd

Special Jury Award: Enter the Void
Designer: Gaspar Noé and Tom Kan

Very special thanks go to Jarod Neece for inviting us to be jurors at SXSW, and David Horridge for bringing the 2010 SXSW Film Design Awards to life.

We also participated in a “Studio SX” interview with Austin Kleon (Newspaper Blackout Poems) and had a blast. The video interview should be online sometime soon.

We met some amazing people:

First mention must go to our fellow jurors Susan Bradley (Pixar), Karin Fong (Imaginary Forces), Ron Pippin (Shiny Object), and Remco Vllaanderen (Watch the Titles). A great group of peers, we were honored to be with them. Our time spent with Gareth Smith and Jenny Lee of Smith & Lee Design (Up in the Air, Juno) was wonderful, and on our last evening we hung with DJ Mike Relm, who put on a mind blowing video mashup show at Austin's Scoot Inn.

SXSW also gave us a chance to be with friends from both Boston - John M. Wilson & Chris Maggio, Directors of "Have You Seen My Hair" (a short we featured as an extra in our Strange Days post), in SXSW competition under the Narrative Shorts 2 category, as well as Vermont-based filmmaker, writer and media educator, Bill Simmon. A SXSW festival veteran, Bill showed us the ropes early on, making our first experience all the better.

We saw some amazing panels:

Ze Frank's "Ze Frank Conversation: The Creative Lifestyle" was inspiring, as was Karin and Susan's "First Impressions: The Art of Main Title Design" where each showcased their extensive portfolio of work. "Online Advertising: Losing the Race to the Bottom" with Jim Coudal (The Deck) and John Gruber (Daring Fireball) gave us encouragement towards future advertising models on Art of the Title and "How to defuse a bomb and other life lessons from the cast and crew of MacGruber" was a riot.

We watched some amazing films:

Along with an truly excellent selection of documentary, experimental, global and narrative shorts, was the hilarious horror comedy Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs, Chris Morris' (The Day Today, The IT Crowd) Four Lions, American: The Bill Hicks Story, and friend of site Gareth Edward's (How We Built Britain) Monsters, a beautifully shot, tender spectacle of survival that puts story first. We feel that Monsters sets new standards in low budget, digital rebel filmmaking, and is one upcoming film that shouldn't be missed. Luckily Magnolia Pictures will be releasing it in the US sometime this year.

One final note: The Alamo Drafthouse is the best movie theater in the world.