SXSW, Sunday, March 13

Sunday was a big day for all of us. We did the usual festival/conference thing during the day – hung out, went to some panels, checked out the exhibition hall. But the entire day was simply something we had to get through in order to make it to the evening’s festivities. And were they festive! We attended the SXSW Interactive Web Award Ceremony – we being Moopheus, Louis, Rebecca and myself. The Meatrix was up for an award in the Classic category (we could only qualify for this because the film is over a year old). And we won!

Moopheus proudly went up on stage and accepted his award, honoring all the animals that still suffer on factory farms. He had the crowd moo’ing and hissing and laughing out of their seats. He was, dare I say it, a star.

And to make the evening more special, Louis didn’t even know it but he won an award for another web site that won that evening – the Educational Resource award for Beyond the Fire: Teen Experiences of War. And to top it all off, the Media That Matters film festival 2004 also won an award – and The Meatrix was one of the movies in that festival and on their site! So we were multi-winners!

After the ceremony, we hung out with the other winners. There’s a list of all of them on South by Southwest’s web site. Another mulitple winner was the designer for Billy Harvey Music, a musician here in Austin (who we’re hoping to go see Thursday night). They won a couple awards, including best acceptance speech.

After the ceremony, we hung out and talked to other winners, getting Moopheus to take his photo with some of them.

Rebecca and Louis were interviewed after the ceremony. And just so you all realize, this award was a web/interactive award – it wasn’t just for The Meatrix film; it was also for the web site that Rebecca built and spent a lot of time on. I don’t know if this is the case for all web designers, but I don’t think many people outside the world of web sites really understand how much work goes into them. So congratulations Rebecca!

We all went to celebrate after the ceremony, including Mark from Vancouver who won the student award for his site, Stretch Daily. Laura Swisher, the host of the event, joined us for waffle fries and beer.

Unfortunately, Moopheus celebrated a little too hard and got flattened. Louis acted quickly to save him and carried him home.

It was a memorable day for all of us.

– diane