Ottawa ‘06 kicked off with TAC — the Television Animation Conference. One may first think with a title like that this is the strictly business section and the fun comes later. You’d be wrong. Some veteran festival goers said there was concern about how the conference would affect the integrity of the festival. With TAC & Workshop director Maral Mohammadian bringing the same unrushed and laid back atmosphere of the festival to TAC, the conference looks like any other professional event, but feels like a club meeting.This does not mean that business isn’t being done. Just walking through the lobby of the Chateau Laurier, many attendees were scattered throughout engaged in meetings between panels. For me, the most inspiring panels of TAC were “Pitch This!” and “Ruby Gloom Case Study.” The first panel featured live pitches of TV projects. Chris Dainty and Jessica Borutski pitched their property The Constellations and Stephanie Yuhas presented Jersey Fresh. The pitches displayed projects that were at different stages of development and received encouraging and insightful comments from the panel of studio execs. For rookie pitchers, the event was a helpful “how to.” (Read more at AWN.com)