The main drawback is that you DO have to do everything yourself. You have to build every frame of film. Later, I attended graduate school at the California Institute of the Arts, where I studied with Jules Engel. Cal Arts taught me the aesthetic and technical lessons I needed to sustain myself as an independent animator. So you moved from California to Rhode Island.
Most festivals are good experiences.
It is best when there are many filmmakers attending and the focus is on the art form. Some of the best have been the Hiroshima Animation Festival and the Ottawa Animation Festival. Animation is an incredibly diverse and eclectic field with many more opportunities than most people realize. All right, I have to ask.