Max Rubin and Michael Wu.

BY ALBA MORA // Early Saturday morning, the AMC Theater at Bay Street was packed with excited high school students, parents, grandparents and friends. They didn’t come to watch a Hollywood feature. Instead, the students’ own animation films would soon appear on the screen as part of the 2nd Annual Bay Street Animation Film Festival.

After a two-hour screening of all the submitted films, a festival judge stood to announce the festival’s three winners. The room was quiet and tension filled the air.

Michael Wu jumped from his seat when he heard his name announced as the $15,000 grand prize winner. His father seated at his side clapped loudly. A panel of six judges chose “Stalking in the Shadows,” a digitally animated film based on the video game “Assassin’s Creed,” as the best of the group. The film depicts a sword battle in great detail.

The two other winners were Max Rubin, for “The Adventures of Awkward Girl, Episode 1,” and Anna Dobos with her film “Imagine.”

Rubin’s short film portrays the experiences of a teenager and made everyone in the audience laugh. The 12th grader from Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto was enthusiastic about his win.

“The underlying message was that being awkward is beautiful. Because when something isn’t quite right, it’s perfect. And it is enjoyable to be goofy and not do things completely perfectly,” said Rubin.

Dobos is a 12th grade student from Hilo High School and was not there to receive her award.

The student animators of the winning films received scholarships to continue their higher education in the digital arts, and their schools will receive $1,000 to support and encourage animation and digital arts programs.

Not all the student participants had learned animation at school.

“I was more or less completely self-taught in animation,” said Rubin. “When I was in primary school I used to do flipbooks in the corners of my notebook. And at the time that was an early sign that I was an animator-to-be.”

“The number of films presented tripled from last year,” said Whitney Livingston, regional director of marketing for Madison Marquette, the festival’s corporate organizer. A total of 48 films were shown, but 12 of them were not eligible because their authors had already graduated. As the festival gets larger the organization wants to add more theaters for next year’s competition, said Livingston.

The festival was judged by animation executives from Pixar Animation Studios and Ex’Pressions College for Digital Arts, both companies located in Emeryville.

Bay Street’s 3rd annual Animation Film Festival will be held in fall 2009. For more information on how to submit a film, email Sarah Skotvold at sskotvold [at] mmrs [dot] com.