HISTORY
The concept for AvsB was devised by Martin Zapata in May of 2002 after attending the Biola Film Festival at Biola University. Hoping to see more animated material at Biola in the future, he saw a vision of what it could be and decided to take action. A Biola graduate with a heart for the story-telling ability of animation, Mr. Zapata took what he knew and began to develop the concept into reality.

Borrowing from the stiff rivalry between Biola University and Azusa Pacific University, Mr. Zapata soon stumbled on a competition format that pitted the two rival logos against each other, thus producing a concept that could be embraced by current Biola Students. Based loosely on the Spy vs. Spy stories from Mad Magazine, AvsB slowly began to congeal into a series of vignettes that showcase the animation techniques available while integrating themes from our popular culture that are instantly recognizable to most students.

In addition, this concepts allows a safe and fun way for rivalries to take place between Universities. No lawn poisonings, no statue theft, no vandalism, no high-speed chases through campus. Just plain, old fashioned animation. Now the artists can join in and have some fun.

AvsB IN ACTION
In August of 2002 Mr. Zapata began working with a small group of students who had completed a course in animation through the Communications Department at Biola University. Much of the time was spent learning the animation software to help develop techniques that would be used specifically for the learning project.

Meeting on Wednesday evenings at the Production Center, the first semester was dedicated to software instruction and object modeling. Conceptualizing and finalizing the Logobots design and movement took some time. While the bots needed to somehow incorporate the likeness of each University's logo, the bots still needed to be based on reality and be believable.

The second semester was dedicated to choreography, texturing, and bot movement. Originally slated to be a collection of multiple vignettes for the Festival, AvsB was trimmed down to just Logobots in order to meet the deadline. While some of the animation and rendering took place at Biola, most of the rendering was done on Mr. Zapata's own computer. After 1 month of continuous rendering, the 2900 frame animation was completed from 5 different angles.

The three weeks prior to the Festival submission deadline was dedicated to editing, sound effects, and dialogue. As luck would have it, four students were located that lended their voice talent to the project. The results were fantastic.

WHAT IS AvsB?
AvsB is a concept that requires two University Logo's to compete in some fashion. Though the overall project title is AvsB, the animations are not limited to universities that start with A or B. We encourage all universities who want to join in to do so. Just get a group of people together and do it. Student groups who wish to have their work shown here must follow the Submission Guidelines listed under the Submissions link.

The future for AvsB may expand in the future. For example, if we wanted to do a competition animation between Biola and Westmont, it would be titled AvsW. However, it would be noted that it is part of the AvsB Original Concept. If this takes off and becomes a popular thing to do, we may standardize all of the Universities with specific initials so that we can enjoy continuity of thought across the board. That will be down the road, though.

THE FUTURE OF AvsB
No one really knows what will happen to AvsB as a concept. Everyone that contributed to the project did so on their own time. Accordingly, the continuation of this project will depend upon Funding, Facilities, and Feasibility.

The amount of time needed to supervise and execute a decent animation project is huge. Mr. Zapata was in a position to do so this year, but that is not guaranteed for next year.

In addition, future projects at Biola will either be done on the computers of participating students/Task Force members or in the Production Center. Currently the Production Center does not have enough equipment to support a large animation project or team. Hopefully that will change.

Finally, a year commitment is need for the project to get done successfully and on time. There will always be a learning curve and participating students are encouraged to learn the software when they can. One of the hindrances to this project is that students receive no credit for it and have to put in time above and beyond normal University course load requirements. However, to those who have the passion for it, that may be a small sacrifice for the ability to show a potential employer a finished piece.

If other Task Force members become actively involved in hand's-on production, AvsB as a whole could be around for a while. Other schools are encouraged to start developing their own animations around this theme. When possible, other animations will be showcased here. When that happens AvsB will cease to be a Biola-only phenomenon. We hope that this happens and that we can encourage creativity in students to produce funny animations with excellent production quality.