London International Animation Festival

How to Enter

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The London International Animation Festival (LIAF) is one of the largest animation festivals in the world. It usually screens around 350 films each year in competitive, student, curated and retrospective programmes. LIAF also generates a smaller touring programme around the UK.

When you enter your film to LIAF your film is automatically considered for the tour as well, although we will send you separate and specific invitations if we wish to screen your film outside of the festival. There is no fee to enter LIAF.

Your film must arrive in a format that can be viewed by pre-selectors and the jury members. Please supply a DVD (we prefer PAL / all regions) that can be played in a DVD player and viewed on a TV screen.

We cannot accept the following for pre-selection:

• Internet downloads or files
• Youtube / website links
• Computer files
• Quicktime files
• Flash files
• Betacams
• Digibetas
• MiniDV
• Film prints

We will generally NOT contact entrants who provide an unplayable DVD, and the submission will be rejected. We suggest you provide two copies of your film, burnt from different computers in case one copy fails.

An Entry Form must accompany each entry and all required information supplied. We request at least two digital stills for every film that screens in the festival, and ask entrants to please provide these stills at the time of entry.

LIAF Screening Material Digital Media and Video Technical Specifications

Video Specifications

The following are preferred digital video specifications for the delivery of content to be completed for screening at the screening venues. LIAF cinema tapes will be compiled to the Standard Definition DV-PAL format.

SD-PAL Frame Sizes and Pixel Aspect Ratios:

• SD-PAL video frame size is 720x576.
• 4:3 SD-PAL Pixel Aspect Ratio is 1.0940.
• 16:9 SD-PAL Pixel Aspect Ratio is 1.4587.

SD-NTSC Frame Sizes and Pixel Aspect Ratios:

• SD-NTSC video frame size is 720x480.
• 4:3 SD-NTSC Pixel Aspect Ratio is 0.9091.
• 16:9 SD-NTSC Pixel Aspect Ratio is 1.2121.
• NTSC videos will be converted to PAL.
• NTSC videos will NOT be resized when converted to PAL to avoid degradation.

Content Delivery Notes:

• 16:9 videos are preferred in the Full Height Anamorphic (FHA) format.
• The "16:9 Anamorphic" format (also known as 4:3 Letterboxed) should be avoided if possible.
• Videos with Square Pixels will be converted to PAL pixel aspect ratios.
• Content whose sub-titles that are outside of titles-safe margins will be resized.

Frame Rates:

• The PAL video frame rate is 25fps.
• The NTSC frame rate of 29.97fps will be converted to PAL's 25fps.
• Do NOT deliver 24fps videos - they may fail to play smoothly from a 25fps timeline.

Bit Rates:

• Higher bit-rates means less video compression and better image quality.
• AVOID bit-rates below 6 Mbps for Standard Definition videos.

Audio Specifications:

• 48 kHz Sampling Rate.
• Stereo.
• 128 kbps or above.
• Surround audio is NOT supported.

Preferred Video CODEC's:

• DV PAL / NTSC (4x3).
• DV PAL / NTSC Anamorphic (16x9).
• Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2.
• Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2.
• MPEG 2.
• Apple ProRes 4:2:2.
• HDV 1080i25 (50i).
• HDV 1080p25.
• H.264.
• Use high bit-rates for H.264 videos - especially with High Definition videos.
• The H.264 codec allows for low bit-rate & highly compressed videos which can be problematic in a compilation timeline.

Digital Tapes:

• BETACAM.
• DVCAM.
• HDV (NOT the same as HD-CAM).

DVD's:

• Standard PAL / NTSC video DVDs.
• Use the PAL DVD format if possible to minimise a lost in image quality arising from NTSC to PAL conversions.
• BluRay Discs are NOT supported.
• DV files, in the formats listed above, can be submitted on data-DVDs.

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