Experiencing the World of Tomorrow Today

Eclectic VR projects are ready for in-person experiences at Annecy. By Ellen Wolff

Wallace & Gromit: The Grand Getaway

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival has long strived to be forward looking — not only by highlighting ‘Works in Progress’ on upcoming feature films, but also by embracing emerging technologies like virtual reality. This year, commercial VR will get a high-profile boost at Annecy when Aardman Animations’ famed Wallace & Gromit franchise unveils its VR bona fides with The Grand Getaway. Co-produced by Aardman and the virtual reality pros at Atlas V, the piece was funded by Meta to run on that company’s Quest 2 VR headsets. It may signal what VR productions could become when made with beloved characters… and big budgets. But, Annecy’s VR selections this year also highlight production approaches that sit squarely in a more experimental realm. They have not been spun off of movies or game franchises, and their creators have both the desire — and often the necessity — to invent new characters designed specifically for presentation in VR.

Glimpse

Character animation still lies at the heart of many VR projects — especially those that tell relationship stories like Glimpse. This 23-minute animated experience follows an unusual love affair backwards in time. The anthropo-

Glimpse

morphized stars are a well-spoken bear and his deer girlfriend, and their conversations are voiced by actors Taron Egerton (Rocketman) and Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody). As VR viewers let their gaze wander around the intricate sets in Glimpse, the narrative unfolds through poignant dialogue. Co-directors Benjamin Cleary (who wrote the Oscar-winning short Stutterer) collaborated with experienced game creator Michael O’Connor to blend traditional story arcs with interactive design. As Glimpse producer Lee Harris observes, “Drawing people from different industries is required when constructing a VR experience. Many had some VR experience under their belts but originally came from more traditional media such as film, animation, games and VFX.” Cleary and O’Connor oversaw Glimpse through their Dublin-based company Mr. Kite, and worked with the BAFTA-winning London studio Blue Zoo on the animation. “Blue Zoo had some experience with the Unreal Engine, which was very advantageous,” notes Harris. The Glimpse team customized Unreal for this project, creating unique workflows and pipelines as needed. “We also created a multiplayer-style layout tool, which enabled us to design and iterate quickly on virtual environments.” The 3D character animation in Glimpse was created with Maya, and not motion capture. As Harris explains, “That allowed us to be more flexible in the types of performances we gave to the characters, depending on their scale and position within the 3D world. How things played out was dictated by the language of VR — the ‘physical’ space, the interactions, pacing, transitions and the environment itself.”

If it sounds like it took a lot of wrangling to align all the elements behind the project, it did. Harris’ company, Electric Skies, collaborated not only with Mr.Kite, Blue Zoo and Unreal, but also with Viveport, DN Pictures, Albyon and the BFI. Working with Viveport — where the VR experience of Glimpse is initially available — was key to the project. As Harris explains, “Having their support at an early stage helped us to springboard the entire production and allow us to raise financing. We’re also looking to bring it to other audiences on standalone headsets.” In the end, the production country credits for Glimpse — France, U.K. and Ireland — reflect how indie VR production is often a global ‘pay as you go’ proposition. And festival exposure at Annecy is a vital step towards payback.

Marco & Polo Go Round

The creators of Marco & Polo Go Round describe their 12-minute VR experience as a love story with a surreal twist. While the viewers witness a young couple having an argument in their kitchen, things start falling apart around them — literally. Knives and plates and curtains fly around as the couple’s interactions unravel. As director Benjamin Steiger Levine explains, “I’ve always been drawn to stories that transport audiences to dreamed realities.” Levine, who also co-wrote the script, recalls, “When I first experienced VR, I instantly knew it was the right medium for Marco & Polo Go Round. I wanted the emotional and visceral experience of the story to be lived.” The actors who play Marco (Emmanuel Schwartz) and Polo (Léane Labrèche-Dor) brought extensive acting experience to performing Levine’s dialogue. Translating their movements into VR was the challenge that faced the motion-capture experts at Studio du Château in Montreal, Canada.

Marco & Polo Go Round

For the mo-cap sessions, they used basic suits that had sensors connected to a wi-fi hub, explains Levine. “I found directing motion capture to be an extremely ‘pure’ experience. There’s nothing to tell you whether a scene is working except the emotional truth the actors bring to the moment. Sometimes I closed my eyes and just listened. Subtle inflections in how they delivered their lines became the best indicators of which takes were working.”

On a technical level, choreographing the entire sequence without any actual swirling objects required extreme planning. The actors were able to handle some objects on a physically built set, and blocking was worked out meticulously. Facial capture was recorded simply with an iPhone. Levine credits Hugues Bruyère of Montreal’s Dpt. for building the innovative structure of Glimpse, as well as overseeing the photogrammetry of the actors and pipeline issues. Positioning all this data became trickier when the swirling objects had to be simulated in CG. Dpt.’s Sam Walker managed most of the simulations, overseeing how objects floated around the characters. The CG animation was created at Belgium’s Zest Studio, which is skilled with Maya, Houdini, Blender and Unreal, and has developed its own VR technology as well.

“All kinds of hacks and cheats were needed to get the sims from Houdini into Blender and then into Unreal,” recalls Levine. Programs that originated for game productions aren’t designed to handle long narrative scenes, so getting hundreds of pieces to sync on one uninterrupted timeline was tricky.

Like most indie VR production today, multiple supporting entities were involved, including Item 7, Belga Productions and Arte. Levine is hopeful that exposure at festivals worldwide will lead eventually to distribution in VR, though he admits it’s still expensive to optimize the experience for platforms like Quest 2. “As of now, to run Marco & Polo Go Round as a VR experience you need a good gaming computer.”

The Full Lineup

Affiorare by Rossella Schillaci (Italy, Portugal) Déjà-vu by Dennis Stein-Schomburg (Germany) Glimpse by Benjamin Cleary & Michael O’Connor (France, Ireland, U.K.) Goliath: Playing with Reality by Barry Gene Murphy & May Abdalla (U.K., France) Kidnapped in Vostok by Jean Bouthors (France) Marco & Polo Go Round by Benjamin Steiger Levine (Belgium, Canada)

On the Morning You Wake (to the End

of the World) by Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Pierre Zandrowicz & Arnaud Colinart (U.S., France, U.K.) Samsara by Hsin-Chien Huang (Taiwan) Kidnapped in Vostok

It’s a mark of virtual reality’s evolution that artists increasingly wish to tell unusual stories in this format. Kidnapped in Vostok by French director Jean Bouthors is a case in point. The 15-minute experience immerses viewers in a mysterious kidnapping plot in which they’re held hostage by Russians seeking top secret data.

While this storyline may seem sadly timely today, Kidnapped in Vostok actually is set in 1979. The Cold War is still hot, and Russian scientists working in Antarctica are using any means possible to achieve their goals. The viewer actually is a central figure in this tale, tied to a sled, at the mercy of these captors. We’re able to move only our head to take in this hostile world.

“Only our head movements allow us to communicate,” explains Bouthors. “We wanted to create a parallel between the situation of the spectator and the character that we play, which is why we decided not to use controllers.”

Bouthors, who cowrote the project and contributed animation as well, oversaw the creation of the project at the company he co-founded, Les Astronautes, in Bourg-lès-Valence, France. The studio’s work has largely been in film, TV and new media and videogames. “Our team mainly comes from video games and animation,” he explains. “Although this project doesn’t involve gameplay, it seemed essential to have the experience of a game designer to finesse the interactivity.”

The choice was made not to use motion capture, and the characters present a highly graphic, streamlined appearance. “I come from traditional animation,” says Bouthors. “It’s also one of the specialties of the studio. This was a graphic choice, but also an economic one. Interactivity obliges us to plan many variants of the story, which requires additional work vis-àvis a linear film. Real-time animation, where we calculate the images for each eye, is very resource intensive. We looked for a refined graphic design to simplify the animation to meet this constraint. Characters with gloves, glasses and beards avoid lots of problems in the animation.”

Sound cues also were essential to keeping the viewer fully oriented during Kidnapped in Vostok. “The sound on VR projects has a really important role,” asserts Bouthors. “Watching the film with headphones during production allowed us to work in binaural and thus have a very precise spatialization. It’s a great tool to catch the viewer’s attention and we play with it throughout the story.”

Kidnapped in Vostok was in primary production from 2019 through 2021, but the work actually continues with an eye towards the future. Bourthors’ team is working on an adaptation for a 3-DoF headset, and he’s said he hopes it can be seen eventually on economical platforms like Gear VR and Cardboard. “But it will obviously not be the same experience as it is in 6-DoF,” says Bouthors. “I will always recommend people see it in 6-DoF!”

For more info, visit annecy.org.

Kidnapped in Vostok

2D and Transcendent!

Ireland’s Lighthouse Studios celebrates five years of animation excellence.

It has been five years since Lighthouse Studios opened its doors in the beautiful town of Kilkenny in Ireland. The joint venture between Academy Award-nominated Cartoon Saloon and the Ottawa-based Mercury Filmworks was founded to further bolster the thriving 2D animation industry in Ireland.

“Our overarching mission is Claire Finn to create the best possible quality of animated content for global audiences, across all genres and for all ages,” says the studio’s managing director Claire Finn. “The first two series we produced were the animated children’s series The Bug Diaries, and Season 2 of the Emmy Award-nominated If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, which we worked on with our parent, Mercury Filmworks. Both of these series were for the globally-recognized content giant Amazon Prime, so we were off to a great start!”

Finn points out that while Lighthouse operates as an independent studio, the expertise of its “parent” companies, has ensured that they’re able to offer world-class animation from the very beginning. “Having such famous parent studios to collaborate and strategize with has been invaluable,” she notes. “We also really believe in fostering career development and have a Learning and Development specialist in the studio to set up various training programs from ToonBoom to life drawing, English language classes to professional skills development. With a crew comprising over 25 nationalities, we also have a strong EDI program and are proud of this being a part of the culture that we have been developing over the past five years.”

She also notes that the physical aspects of the studio are equally special. “Being based in a neo-Gothic-style building, formally an old

El Deafo

seminary, means that we can offer an incredibly unique and creative studio setting for our talent,” Finn says. “We have accommodation for crew on site and the building is set in beautiful grounds — complete with an operating school where crew can see the students play hurling (Ireland’s national sport) as they enter the studio. The town of Kilkenny itself is known for its vibrant culture and design heritage, and the local community from pubs to estate agents and hotels, etc., all get behind welcoming the crew to the city.”

The past year has represented a huge step in the growth of the studio’s work-for-hire business, with the delivery of three animated children’s series, including the critically-acclaimed El Deafo for Apple TV+, based on the award-winning graphic memoir by Cece Bell; The Cuphead Show for Netflix adapted from the massively successful videogame; and Little Ellen for Warner Bros. Animation which is available on HBOMax. Finn adds, “We’re also really excited for the May 27th theatrical release of The Bob’s Burgers Movie from Disney’s 20th Century Studios, for which we produced the animation in collaboration with Mercury Filmworks and Bento Box”.

In addition to the work for hire business, Lighthouse is also gearing up to expand into original series and movies with its first project going into development— a short film called

The Cuphead Show!

Póg Mo Pigeon based on a concept developed from a in-house film competition. As Finn explains, “One of our ambitions is to tap into our vast creative talent to source new and original ideas to develop and produce, and this is our first step! Alongside that, we’ve optioned the rights to a gritty adult graphic novel.”

Depending on the different phases of all productions, the studio typically has anywhere between 130 to 270 crew members from various diverse backgrounds and cultures. Finn says, “Our studio culture embodies inclusivity and the bringing together of talent with unique points of view – all of which adds depth and diversity to our creative process. I love hearing all the different languages whenever I pop into the kitchen for a cuppa!”

Lighthouse Studios in Kilkenny

Don’t Rain on my Parade

The Road Ahead

Finn believes that animation has come of age and it is no longer seen as just a kids’ venture. “It is so broad in potential of style and genre,” she offers. “Access via streamers has opened up the potential for audiences that weren’t there before. That’s exciting for creators and for those wanting to tell untold stories. I feel optimistic that this trend will continue and allow lots of untold stories be made. And, even though we had challenges operating remotely during the pandemic, it is great to know that it’s possible to continue production with a little modification, compared to the live-action production business.”

We ask Finn to give us a fun piece of trivia that not many know about Lighthouse. “Our studio looks like Hogwarts,” she says. “And Ralph Fiennes, who played ‘he who shall not be named’ actually went to high school here for a time. So, we feel close to magic every day. It truly is a spectacular historical space that we get to work in and really adds fuel to our creativity!”

For more info, visit www.lighthousestudios.ie

The Man with the Golden Touch!

Fred Seibert’s FredFilms searches for fresh talent and distinct voices in animation.

We all know Fred Seibert as the brilliant cable TV pioneer and Emmy-winning animation producer behind such acclaimed shows as Adventure Time, Bravest Warriors, The Fairly OddParents, Castlevania, Bravest Warriors and Bee & Puppycat. Last year, Seibert launched a new production company called FredFilms, with a first-look deal with VIS Kids (a division of Paramount Global). He was kind enough to give us an update on what he’s been working on along with FredFilms’ director of development Casey Gonzalez:

Congrats on your fantastic new venture, Fred. Can you tell us what prompted you

the stories that need to be told now? FredFilms looks for projects with unforgettable protagonists that drive ambitious stories. All our projects have a stand-out creator with a strong and distinct Fred Seibert POV, great storytelling chops, and a strong grasp on character. • Original, always. We champion emerging voices and original projects. • Your Next Favorite Cartoon. Our doors are open for anything that we can’t say ‘no’ too; we want to make your next favorite cartoon. • We love kids comedy and we always will! But we’re also looking to embrace more adult comedy, and we’re exploring more anime-adjacent projects (a la Castlevania). Right now we’re in the midst of several reimagined reboots –ah, the times we live in– and thrilled about the new Bee and PuppyCat (created by Natasha Allegri) coming to Netflix soon, and Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake in production from Cartoon Network Studios for HBO Max.

to form FredFilms?

Animation is having yet another golden age driven as always by new technologies. The rise of streaming platforms has given the unique creators I work with a whole new landscape to have their innovative voices and stories told. And the success that many projects are finding in streaming, both adult and kid-targeted series, has re-opened the eyes of executives at linear networks as well to invest in premium animation programming. With that said, I thought it marked the perfect time to set up a new production company where I can focus 100% of my energies on what I truly love to do: nurture fresh talent and emerging voices, and help bring to life amazing, cutting-edge animation.

What is your take on the global animated feature scene?

The audience is expanding past all the wonderful “animation nerds.” In the same way that Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! mainstreamed American kids into international cartoons, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train and Your Name seem like they’re helping an expansion of the feature audience that the anime action pictures and Studio Ghibli releases began.

How would you describe FredFilms and the types of projects you look for?

• Creators first, character first. What are

Last month, everyone was talking about the slowdown at Netflix and how it impacts other streamers…What is your prediction?

Netflix has been the great disruptor that led us all into streaming and sometimes it’s easy for everyone to take pot shots. As they stay so far ahead of the curve, it’s inevitable they’ll take some missteps here and there. Soon enough, others are going to bring about their own innovations and that will be good for our industry and great for viewers. The challenge that Netflix has in animation and all those who are following them is to create hits. In the scheme of things there are a lot of people who can create wonderful shows. Where are the people who know how to make us all pay attention? We certainly live in fascinating times!

What kind of advice do you offer young animation newbies who have the dream of creating their own shows?

The first and best advice I got when I started out was to stay focused on great characters and great stories. No matter what medium or style someone works in, it was true then, true today, and will be true tomorrow. Tell the story YOU need to tell. What experience makes a work something only you could create? What can your perspective add to a larger conversation, and how do you translate that into a compelling story? It’s tough out there. Persevere. Making good art is an essential part of seeing your show made, but it’s just one part of the process!

Your favorite animated shows and movies of all time?

You’ve got to be kidding. We could fill this page!

For more info, please visit fredfilms.com

A Gift from the Sea

Lupus Films’ producer Ruth Fielding and director Robin Shaw discuss the development of The Storm Whale.

There’s always great excitement when the team at London-based Lupus Films embarks on a new project. The award-winning studio behind such beloved 2D-animated projects as The Snowman and The Snowdog, The Tiger Who Came To Tea, Ethel & Ernest and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt is now working on a threepart adaptation of Benji Davies’ acclaimed books, The Storm Whale, The Storm Whale in Winter and Grandma Bird. The trilogy is about a young boy called Noi and his friendship with a small whale.

The project will be directed by Robin Shaw, who also helmed We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and The Tiger Who Came to Tea. He says he was immediately struck by how perfect the book was for a film adaptation after seeing the first book in the series. “There is so much emotion and beauty captured in what on the surface seems like a simple story that I knew it was something I wanted to do,” he explains. “I could almost see the film being played out as I turned the pages. This feeling has just grown and grown with the release of the second and third books.

Shaw says he loves the vulnerability of Noi, the central character, and his relationship with first his dad and then his grandma. “We see him grow, learn to love and to be loved, and all through finding a young whale stranded on the beach,” he notes. “You really care about him. Adults will want to look after him and children will empathize with him. As well as this, Benji Davies’ illustrations are stunningly beautiful. He has a rare gift for effortlessly capturing light and a sense of scale and place that appeals to me as a director.”

A Terrific Trilogy

The team plans to produce three individual and complete films that are different in tone, but come together to make a greater whole as a trilogy. As Shaw explains, “I’ve subtly linked the stories narratively, but kept them distinct from each other so that a child could pick any one of them to watch on any given day depending on the way they were feeling or what kind of story they needed to see.”

“We have storyboarded the first film and made an animatic, plus we have scripts and

designs for the second and third film,” says producer Ruth Fielding who is the studio’s co-founder and managing director with Camilla Deakin. “The production schedule is 94 weeks for all three half-hour films. We are looking for financiers and broadcast partners at Annecy to greenlight the production. We would love to animate it all in-house at our London studio. This is how we have worked on our previous 2D hand-drawn films. We usually have a crew of about 50 people for these kinds of films.” Fielding points out that the films could be scheduled around a holiday, as a family appointment to view. “The winter film would be an obvious one for the December holidays but “The films fit with the rest of our catalog because they are beautifully the joy of the stories is crafted in a hand-drawn illustrative style which matches the original books that they can also be and, like all our films, the stories pack a strong emotional punch.” played at any time of year,” she notes. — Producer Ruth Fielding Shaw is pleased that Lupus Films is continuing its tradition of creating 2D animated classics based on heart-warming, beloved books: “The studio has always brought much-loved classics to the screen with all the love and respect they deserve,” says the director. “The Storm Whale is, I believe, a modern classic and will endure because of its timeless themes and beautiful imagery. Lupus Films is the perfect home for it.” Adds Fielding, “The films fit with the rest of our catalog because they are beautifully crafted in a hand-drawn illustrative style which matches the original books and, like all our films, the stories pack a strong emotional punch.”

For more information, visit lupusfilms.com

LAIKA’s Upcoming Slate Explores New Territories

The Portland studio’s ambitious new movies, Wildwood and The Night Gardener, defy easy categorization.

Since its inception in 2005, Portland-based LAIKA has tackled subject matter and cinematic techniques that are unique in the animation and family entertainment sectors. The studio behind the much-loved and award-winning movies Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link continues to push the envelope and explore new genres and stories with its next two projects.

Currently in production at the studio is Wildwood, which is based on the bestselling novel written by Colin Meloy, lead singer and songwriter for The Decemberists, and illustrated by artist Carson Ellis. The film will be directed by Travis Knight, President & CEO of the award-winning animation studio.

Travis Knight

BAFTA-nominee, cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. The creative team also includes producer Arianne Sutner and screenwriter Chris Butler, both of whom won the Golden Globe for the studio’s Missing Link. The film is also

The Night Gardener

powerful figures with the darkest intentions. Wildwood is a tale of love, loss, sacrifice and secrets, and of the magic you can find on your doorstep, if you’re willing to look for it.”

A Gritty Noir Takes Root

In May, the studio announced the studio’s seventh feature film: The Night Gardener, which is an ambitious stop-motion project based on a story by Bill Dubuque, the creator of Netflix’s hit show Ozark. The movie, which will also be directed by Knight, is described as a gritty neo-noir folktale centered on a young man in rural Missouri fighting to keep his family together in the wake of a tragedy. The film will paint an unflinching portrait of sacrifice, self-reliance and revenge.

“The Night Gardener is a beautiful and timeless story that quickens the pulse as often as it breaks the heart,” said Knight. “Bill

Wildwood

“As a deep-dyed native son of Oregon, I have rainwater, microbrew, and fair-trade coffee coursing through my veins,” said Knight, who won the BAFTA for his directorial debut film Kubo and the Two Strings and also helmed the live-action hit Bumblebee. “With Wildwood, I have the opportunity to tell a madly ambitious story of magic, wonder, and danger set in the place I grew up. My very own Portland will join that pantheon of unforgettable fantasy realms, with a stirring epic that will kindle imaginations, lift spirits, and break hearts.”

Wildwood will be the first fully animated feature film lensed by multiple Oscar- and described as the biggest stop-motion movie ever attempted and to achieve its scope and technical vision, LAIKA is utilizing every inch of its studio and crew numbers are currently at the highest level in the studio’s history. The film’s early synopsis reads: “Beyond Portland’s city limits lies Wildwood. You’re not supposed to go there. You’re not even supposed to know it exists. But our protagonist Prue McKeel is about to enter this enchanted wonderland. Her baby brother Mac has been taken by a murder of crows into the forest’s depths, and she – along with her hapless classmate Curtis – is going to get him back. Prue might think she’s too old for fairytales, but she’s just found herself at the center of one. One filled with strange talking animals, roguish bandits, and is a masterful storyteller. He’s crafted a lyrical world layered with complex characters, provocative ideas, and keenly felt emotion. It’s gonna be one helluva movie.” “I’m delighted that Travis Knight saw in The Night Gardener a story worth of the timeintensive process and collective talent of LAIKA’s in-house artisans,” noted Dubuque. “LAIKA’s creativity and dedication to detail is, in my opinion, as close as one can come to conjuring storytelling magic.” Although the studio hasn’t announced release dates for its sixth and seventh movies, we know the wait for these exciting and highly original cinematic journeys will certainly be worth it

For more info, visit laika.com

Jetpack Brings Two High-Flying Shows to Annecy

U.K.-based Jetpack Distribution continues to deliver a colorful catalog of animated shows to outlets all around the world. The global distributor of series such as Kitty Is Not a Cat, Moley, Clangers and Mighty Little Bheem will have a strong presence at the Annecy market this month. CEO Dominic Gardiner was kind enough to tell us a bit about Jetpack’s hot slate:

Can you tell us a bit about the two standout shows Jetpack is taking to Annecy?

Dominic Gardiner: First up is Alice’s Diary, a delightful, upper-preschool-age 2D animated show, which is a co-production between Portugal-based Sardinha Em Lata, Spain’s Alice AIE and Brazil’s Geppetto Films. We have 52 x four-minute episodes. It’s currently in production and centers around a little girl named Alice who tries to understand the world through her own art. It is set to air on Portuguese public service broadcaster, Radio e Televisão Portuguesa (RTP), Spain’s

Critter TV

national broadcaster RTVE and Disney Junior in Latin America.

Next, we have the hilarious cartoon spoof animal documentary Critters TV, produced by Dublin-based Turnip & Duck. We have 26 11-minute episodes of the 2D flash animation and live-action series aimed at 4-8 year-olds and their families. The series was funded by Screen Ireland, RTEjr and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the support of incentives for the Irish Film Industry from the Irish Government.

What makes these shows stand out?

Alice’s Diary offers a magical insight into the individual thoughts of Alice, the adorable, quirky, and highly imaginative 6-year-old lead, as she invites viewers into her beautifully illustrated diary. As Alice talks, she draws and her pictures come to animated life, adding a captivating and comedic visualization of what she’s thinking. It’s a beautiful and sweet show which will be highly captivating for this age group. (Alice’s Diary will be available from Q4 2022).

On Critters TV , for the first time in the history of television, audiences get an animal’s-eye view on nature documentaries and learn some facts about the natural world along the way. Think Gogglebox if the audience were

animated wildlife characters. It features a cast of hilarious cartoon animal families, from fun-loving foxes to filthy fleas, oddball squirrels to very silly owls. It’s genuinely unique and laugh-out-loud funny! It is strongly appealing for kids everywhere.

Alice’s Diary What kind of shows do you look for?

Within our catalog we have a wide ranging selection across all genres and age groups, and offer buyers a great deal of choice. All our shows have a high level of quality and they stand out! They travel well, connecting with audiences through universal themes such as comedy, strong characters, friendship and teamwork. We often celebrate

Can you tell us a bit about the history of Jetpack?

We launched at Annecy in 2014 and since then have grown our catalog to 1500 half hours of high quality, characters driven shows, working with 47 producers. We help shows flourish and thrive! And have extensive market knowledge and a buyer network. We celebrate the creativity and efforts of our producers, and a show’s provenance is an important part of how we sell. More than 80 % of our revenue is export and we’re a truly global business, selling in 194 countries worldwide. shows that are a bit off-the-wall with quirky and unusual elements. We watch our shows and genuinely love them! Perhaps we are big kids, but when they make us laugh we know they are something special.

Increasingly we are acquiring more shows in development, and working alongside producers to help nurture series and bring them to fruition. We plan to keep growing this side of our business.

We have recently expanded the team and restructured, with more dedicated resource focused on acquisitions, means we can give producers more — and improved — creative feedback.

What’s your take on the constantly changing world of animation in 2022?

There is an increasing demand and consumer value placed on educational content, especially that which is seamlessly integrated with entertainment. The education-tech sector is booming. The entertainment industry needs to keep up, as tech is a major part of a kid’s life and screen time. Kids trends often move faster than any company can and we need to react and be ready to produce quickly and economically. YouTube is one of the most universally accessed platforms in the world by kids, and they are not always watching animation that costs a million bucks an episode. Quality is important, but it doesn’t have to cost the earth!

For more info, visit jetpackdistribution.tv

A Whale of a Tale

10th Ave Productions makes a big splash with Katak the Brave Beluga, its beautiful fifth animated feature.

Quebec-based film and TV production outfit 10th Ave Productions has begun postproduction on its fifth animated feature, Katak the Brave Beluga. This marks the second time the company has worked with screenwriter Andrée Lambert: Nearly 20 years ago, 10th Ave asked the prolific TV writer to collaborate on a collection of CG-animated shorts on Christmas themes. She wrote the fourth of 10th Ave’s Holiday Tales, The Kiss Under the Mistletoe.

Having benefitted from a screenwriting course and a specialized training program in animation offered by Teletoon, Andrée made the jump into features and penned the screenplay for Katak the Brave Belgua. The storyline is inspired by marine world that Andrée knows well as she spends a large part of every summer aboard her sailboat, which is named Katak. The writer recalls close encounters with groups of belugas that often came close to her boat during the summer season.

“I was in love with this project from the outset, especially since it is set in the undersea world of whales traveling the length of the river from Tadoussac to the Arctic, passing the Mingan Islands, Blanc Sablon and Red Bay,” notes 10th Ave producer Nancy Florence Savard. “We all agreed that those amazing white whales are very beautiful.”

Finding His True Path

The film, which had a five-year development journey, centers on young Katak who finally discovers his true path and motivation: to realize the last wish of his dying grandmother, but also to prove that he could have an impact on his own life and the lives of others, even if he’s small and grey.

In addition to refining the story during development, 10th Ave took care to put together a dedicated team. Christine Dallaire-Dupont is serving as director on her first animated feature film. Prior to the project, Dallaire-Dupont worked on all three seasons of W, a 156-episode animated series, on which she distinguished herself by animating the character of Cormorant, a marine bird living on Sable Island at the edge of the Atlantic. Later, moving to Montreal, Christine participated in several animated feature film projects including The Day of the Crows, April and the Extraordinary World, Ballerina, Riverdance, Trouble, and Snowtime. The film’s producer Nancy Florence Savard made sure Dallaire-Dupont had all the tools she needed to return to Quebe City and direct the project with her long-time friend and professional mentor, Nicola Lemay, who serves as co-director.

Commenting on the film’s unique themes and setting, Dallaire-Dupont observes, “My family has deep roots in the lower Saguenay region. It’s a place with a distinctive aura. Through the imagery of the film, I wanted to turn the fjord and the river into characters in their own right, and to depict them as they’re known to those who live there.”

Working during the pandemic created some obstacles, Dallaire-Dupont admits. She’s proud of the work she and her team did to overcome those obstacles: “Technology was a big help, but communication was a major challenge. Directing choices arise from impressions, from feelings, and it can be tricky to communicate those through the impersonal medium of Zoom screens, without the warmth of collaborators’ physical presence. But I think we managed very well.” Nancy Florence Savard

Christine DallaireDupont

Nicola Lemay, who is deeply passionate about animation, directed 10th Ave’s most recent animated feature, Felix and the Hidden Treasure, which has been sold in 170 countries and territories and selected for two dozen festivals. He has directed several prizewinning animated shorts, winning the prestigious Filpresci Prize at Annecy for his project Nul poisson où aller, and the Unicef Award for Black Eyes, adapted from the book by Gil Tibot. He also created the storyboard for, among others, the animated feature The Little Prince, and he helped storyboard Ice Age 1 and 2, and Rio, at Blue Sky Studios in the USA.

The team also includes acclaimed art director Philippe Arseneau Bussières – who handled art direction on The Legend of Sarila, Mission Kathmandu: the Adventures of Nelly and Simon, and Snowtime. The creative and directing team even had to do some of the scouting by helicopter during the Covid pandemic to respect the health regulations that were in place in the Tadoussac region. When they were grounded by the sudden arrival of thick fog in Baie-Sainte-Catherine, the production team found shelter for the night at a cottage owned by whale-watching tour company AML, which opened up its empty seasonal cottage when all the other local amenities were closed!

It has been an amazing ride for 10th Ave’s fifth animated feature: Katak the Brave Beluga!

For more info, visit www.10ave.com.

Arnauld Boulard Gao Shan Studio

Exploring New Horizons in Animation

Gao Shan founder Arnauld Boulard discusses his current projects at Annecy and beyond.

If you’re a fan of acclaimed European animated features such as Zombillenium (2017), Funan (2018), I Lost My Body (2019), My Sunny Maad (2021) and this year’s Little Nicholas, you are already familiar with Gao Shan Pictures projects which have won numerous prizes at Annecy, Cannes and Animation Is Film festivals.

The studio, which was founded in 2014 by industry veteran Arnauld Boulard (Despicable Me) is located in the beautiful, tropical island of Reunion located between Mauritius and Madagascar. Last January, Boulard added a new studio, named Shan Too in Angoulême, France as well. Gao Shan is currently involved in two eagerly anticipated arthouse features, Jeremie Perrin’s Mars Express and Benoit Chieux’s Sirocco, as well as the new CG-animated The Smurfs series, which airs on Nickelodeon.

“We specialize in independent productions bearing values that we view as essentials, which often required a tailored pipeline to serve bold artistic choices,” says Boulard. “That translates mostly into features targeted to adult/young adult’s audience, films like I Lost My Body and My Sunny Maad, but we also help produce films for families and young audiences such as Yakari and White Fang.”

An Environmental Tale

The studio will have an active presence at the Annecy festival this June with its first inhouse production The Fire Keeper (Le gardien du feu) at the MIFA pitch even on Wednesday morning. Based on the 1985 book by Pierre Rabhi, the film is adapted by Magali Pouzol (Funan) and co-writer of last year’s acclaimed feature Summit of the Gods, and directed by Jeanne Irzenski. The story centers on a 12-year-old boy who lives in a small desert village. When his older brother returns with a modern mining complex project promising a better life for the villagers, he will find himself at the heart of a conflict between his father who’s the guardian of tradition, and his brother, an apostle of modernity. Willing to escape the burden of tradition, but confronted to the dark secrets of the mine, he will have to find his own way with the help of a young nomad girl he befriended. The film will be produced with a hybrid 2D/3D blender pipeline.

Boulard recalls how one of his lead animators Jeanne Irzenski brought Rabhi’s novel

The Fire Keeper

The Smurfs

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Little Nicholas

My Sunny Maad I Lost My Body

to his attention a few years ago. “In France, Pierre is quite well known as one of the early advocates for the environmental activism and chronicler of the social challenges that face the modern world. After reading his book, I discovered that Pierre was actually a great storyteller as well and that we could produce an exciting adventure feature for kids, bearing many values that I view as essential. I had worked with Jeanne for many years and firmly believed that she was the right person to adapt this story to the screen. So, it was quite obvious to me to support her stepping up to a directing role. I had met our writer Magali Pouzol, during the production of Funan some time ago, and I invited Jeanne to pair up with Magali on the script.”

Boulard says he’ll also be at Annecy to support two projects: The first is Little Nicholas (Le Petit Nicolas) the adaptation of Rene Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempe’s popular children’s book, directed by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon, which is one of the titles in competition, and the second is the work-in-progress feature They Shot the Piano Player, directed by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, about a New York journalist who sets out to investigate the disappearance of a Brazilian piano prodigy. Layout on Little Nicholas was provided by his studio in Angoulême and both studios shared the animation. The two studios Gao Shan and Shan Too are also working on They Shot the Piano Player.

When asked about the general animation scene, the producer responds “In France, we’re going through a paradoxical time, with so many amazing adult animation projects in development and theater’s audience plummeting. That should have a direct impact on financing indie productions in the coming years. Globally, it seems that there has never been such a high demand for kids and preschool programs, employment is at his highest and talents acquisition is more key than ever.”

He adds, “On the technical side, the one thing that is really exciting us these days is real time engines, and we just launch a feature production adding Unreal 5 in our pipeline. It is a first step and using real time can eventually disrupt the usual animation workflow.”

Boulard says as service provider, he would like to keep working with independent European producers. He notes, “But we definitely are willing to get an international production as well, either for independent US production or streamers, with a focus on adult animation. We recently made a large investment with the support of the National Center of Cinema (CNC) in order to strengthen our technical infrastructure and be able to handle such a project. On another note, after opening in Angoulême last year, we are now looking at launching another studio in a non-European country in the Indian Ocean area, to accommodate some requests from our clients on top of services we are already providing.”

Future Ventures

Gao Shan is also developing another feature, Winter of the Holy Iron, an adaptation of a novel by Joseph Marshall III. “It’s a powerful story set in the Dakotas during the mid-18th century, which provides an authentic portrayal of the Sioux and their encounters with white people, and raises questions around the power of a gun,” Boulard explains. “We also expect to produce a TV special that we have in development, The Possum that Didn’t based on the book by Frank Tashlin.”

And what does the studio founder want to the global animation to remember about Gao Shan? “Whether you are a producer looking for a talented and committed studio team, or an artist willing to work on meaningful projects in a caring work environment, our studio is the right place to come to,” he says. “It is not just by accident that Gao Shan Pictures is behind many acclaimed independent features!”

For more info, visit www.gaoshanpictures.com

Meet Kayara, a New Inca Heroine

Tunche Films founder César Zelada discusses his new pic and plans for his growing studio.

Peruvian director/producer César Zelada’s first animated feature Ainbo centered on a spirited young heroine who sets out on a quest to save her beautiful home in the Amazon rainforest. The beautifully crafted movie, which was directed by his brother Jose, had a limited release in 2021 and found its receptive audience despite facing the challenges of the Covid pandemic worldwide.

This year, the talented Peruvian filmmaker is working on a new movie, a CG-animated project titled Kayara, another female-led adventure about a young Inca woman who dreams of joining the Chasqui messengers, an alite male-only league of the official messengers in the famous empire. The film, which is written and directed by Zelada, is produced by Peruvian/Panamanian animation studio Tunche Films and co-produced by Toonz Media Group Spain and distributed/exec produced by Cinema Management Group. The film, which will be available for delivery in mid-2024, will have an estimated budget of about seven million dollars.

“The story of Kayara is about a courageous young woman and an ancient myth of how the Golden City—which remains undiscovered today— was protected and hidden from the great dangers of exploitation and stolen resources y an unsung hero of the Incan Empire,” says Zelada. “What I love about Kayara is that she’s a strong, intelligent girl, who at the same time has certain insecurities typical of her age. I’m also pleased to be able to recreate Peru’s wonderful landscapes such as Machu Picchu, as they were was more than 200 years ago.”

Preserving an Ancient Culture

According to the director, in animation, very little has been done about the Inca empire, which was as great as other known empires in Europe and Asia. “This is a new IP created by a Peruvian studio since we know the culture from the inside,” he adds.

Zelada says telling these stories about empowered women and bringing his culture and history to the animated screen has been a great passion of his. “Tunche films is a family-run animation studio, created by my brothers Jose, Sergio and me,” he explains. “Our previous film Ainbo was inspired by our mother and the stories that she told us about living and growing up in the Amazon. From a very young age we grew up admiring those stories and seeing our mother as a strong figure with a great spirit of adventure. So, perhaps that’s why and perhaps also unconsciously, we made our second pro-

tagonist Kayara a similar kind of woman.”

The director says his love for animation began at an early age, when he saw Disney’s The Jungle Book for the first time back in the 1980s. “That’s a movie that really had a big impact on me,” he recalls. “You can definitely see Mowgli’s influence on Ainbo! Animation was something that my brothers and I always dreamed of doing since we were kids. We all had some talent in drawing, and we used to draw animation sequences on the edges of the pages of our school notebooks.” Looking back at the experiences of his first movie, Zelada remembers, “The best reactions to the movie were definitely those of the children, because we made the film for them. But, perhaps the most memorable opinions for me were when we projected the film in the Amazon in a village of the Chipibos Conibos tribe, which had inspired our movie. It was very gratifying to see their reactions and laughter when they watched it.” Zelada explains, “As a Peruvian studio, it is interesting to tell our own stories since it is what we know best, in addition to having the opportunity to show the world a little about ourselves. Over the past few years, animation has grown remarkably all over the world and it still has a lot of room for growth. Latin America is no exception and in Peru more animation is produced every year, even for large streaming platforms. As for Panama, there are great incentives and very good cash rebates that help co-productions. We are a new studio that generates IP, looking to find a space in the global animation industry. Our pipeline is based on Maya, Arnold, Houdini, Nuke for compositing and Shotgun. We are willing and excited to co-produce with different studios around the world in the years ahead.”

For more info, visit tunchefilms.com.

Un-TTAPing Caribbean Potential

Trinidad & Tobago Animation Production Factory assembles the region’s future stars.

For the past twenty years, the Caribbean has been honing its skills in animation and digital media. The fruits of this labor are flourishing, as the University of Trinidad and Tobago and the Animae Caribe Animation and Digital Media Festival (now in its 21st year) continue to be the catalysts for the growth of the industry. As an extension to the University’s animation program, TTAP Factory (Trinidad & Tobago Animation Production Factory) is a groundbreaking hub partly funded by the Inter-American Development Bank. TTAP is where the best technology, ongoing skills upgrades, and international industry connections, create the perfect environment for international studios to connect and do business.

With over 300 graduates passing through its BFA program, the country has seen the development of several small studios that have secured international contracts for animation and game art.

TTAP Factory supports and facilitate production by providing workforce, access to infrastructure and management to ensure timely and professional delivery.

A Network of Industry Experts

Top executive consultants, Wendy Fitzwilliam and Joan Vogelesang, whose combined experience in the Caribbean and Vogelesang’s expertise in the global animation industry, have been critical additions to the team.

“The TTAP factory provides the perfect blueprint for building the animation sector in emerging economies,” says Vogelesang. “Backed by the University of Trinidad and Tobago, the facility provides a steady flow of trained students in all fields of animation production, an incubator facility for new entrepreneurs and a state of the art facility set in a glorious conservation park in a country with a wonderful climate. It’s all a great formula for success.”

Led by animation ambassador for the region and senior lecturer, Camille Selvon Abrahams, the project is expert driven and student led. This model prepares students for the world of work by integrating “learning while doing,” where suitable students are thrown into real-life studio experiences and acquire credits for doing so, and once they finish the program successfully, they can be easily integrated into the work force. TTAP Factory is a competitive and sustainable business model. It is radical in

its concept and is a strategy that is being looked at by other animation markets in their infancy in Africa, the Caribbean and other parts of the world. Partnerships have already been formed with well-established organizations like Toon Boom Harmony Camille Selvon Abrahams Wendy Fitzwilliam Joan Vogelesang and CelAction. Over the years, several key relationships have been formulated. These world-renowned experts in the field, which include LAIKA’s Brad Shiff and WETA Digital’s Sidney Kombo (and his Third-Pole mentorship program), give the workforce access to much sought-after industry standard training. As Carina Cockburn, IDB’s Country Representative in Trinidad and Tobago points out, “Ultimately, we would like to see the evolution of TTAP Factory as a sustainable and competitive model that facilitates creative and business collaborations for the sector.” Being the first funded outsourcing studio in the Caribbean, TTAP Factory is positioned to be a pioneering and successful business model that can be replicated throughout the world. It is a one-stop shop for animation services in 3D and 2D animation, game art, VR and AR experiences and emerging digital services. Responding to the latest industry demands and trends, the training program is fluid and open to new technologies. The educated workforce and innate creativity of Trinidad and Tobago, in the context of the global industry, means that cultural nuances will be easily transferred to international projects. The aim is to create an enabling work environment for international and local clients: Working closely with state organizations, TTAP Factory will facilitate access to tax incentives and rebates and other solutions to create maximum benefit for our clients. We look forward to hearing from you as we invite you to #OutsourceInSunshine and #AnimateInSunshine.

See the full launch at animaecaribe.com/ official-launch-of-the-ttap-factory/ info@ ttapfactory.com.

Animating Love in All Shapes and Colors

AddArt/Funny Tales Studio brings a great mix of entertaining shows to the market.

Four years ago, brothers Dmitris and Stavros Savvaidis formed their design and animation studio AddArt aka Funny Tales in the beautiful Greek port city of Thessaloniki to present compelling art content and projects for their clients all over the world.

“From its outset, our studio was perceived as a laboratory of ideas and a springboard for artistic expression,” says studio founder and producer Dimitris Savvaidis. “AddArt/ Funny Tales specializes in 2D animation and production. Operating on an interdisciplinary basis, at the intersection between art and technology, it brings together diverse ecosystems in order to deliver meaningful, engaging creative output, in the form of animated TV series, features, short films, video clips and documentaries.”

The studio’s first series Pix & Leo aired on 800 platforms all over the world via BabyTV, a FOX group channel. Funny Tales is also in

production with another show titled Bug & Play for the same broadcaster. The shop is also involved in various interesting roles in many other global productions.

“Our new series which we’re bringing to Annecy is My Superhero Husband,” says Savvaidis. “This is our prized project since it is picked for the MIFA Pitches in the TV series category. Then, we have What the FluffoVerse, which is our wacky TV series for 8- to 12-year-olds in co-production with Cosmonaut, an amazing studio from Japan. There’s also Our Space, an 8-part animated documentary series, co-produced with Awesome Town Entertainment from Canada In total, we have more than 20 IP’s from preschool to adult fiction and some animated documentaries in development searching for the right partners to get realized and produced.”

Embracing Differences

My Superhero Husband is created by the amazing Alex Tagali and Mikaela K. Deligianni. “This is a sitcom about superheroes in a town that embraces individuality and love in every way,” notes Savvaidis. “The differences between the main characters, Joule and Cynthis, immediately reminded us of I Love Lucy. Just imagine the hi-jinks of Lucy Ricardo stuffed into Superman’s body: That’s Joule, who is constantly being ‘managed’ by their transgender superhero husband, Cynthis! We believe that what I Love Lucy did for mixed race couples, My Superhero Husband does for the queer community. This innovative show will warm the hearts of families and reaches them without preaching to them.”

He adds, “The LGBTQI+ communities are still fighting for recognition, and some brands have been staunch allies. Through My Superhero Husband and our partner, Alphabet Initiative Agency, we reward these brands for their solidarity by providing them a showcase on screen. Our partnership with Lyre´s alcohol-free spirits has helped us promote the project here at MIFA and brought us significantly closer to our production goals.”

The talented studio founder says he loves the limitless creative freedom animation offers. “My vision is to provide audiences of all ages with stories created with passion and love, stories thrilling enough to move them and wacky enough to change them, as we wholeheartedly believe that storytelling has the power to change the world!” he offers. “Animation gives you the possibility to create and visit parallel realities and universes through imagination and creation. It offers endless possibilities to reach the core of humanity.”

Savvaidis is optimistic about the future of animation in his country. “The demand for content is helping animation thrive. Quality-driven studios such as Funny Tales will sooner or later get their chances to shine in the global animation scene. But we have an extra advantage. Greece is becoming a great destination for creating content because of the new incentives. EKOME is giving a 40% cash rebate on money spent in Greece. This is putting us in the global map and providing us with the boost we needed to showcase our projects and services at an amazing rate. I think Greece is a huge opportunity for animation right now.” “Funny Tales is full of artists and creators that love animation and I want to take this chance to thank them personally,” he adds. “Dimitris Kazantzis, our general manager and line producer;

Vasilis Evdokias, our creative director; Lefteris Faidas, our creative director; Ioannis Texis, our lead storyboard artist and director; Chrisa Gouma, our lead scriptwriter; Vasilis Dimopoulos, our lead designer; Alkis Koumaros, Eleftheria Moscha, Silena Nikolopoulou and Vasilis Gerkou, our artists/designers; Konstantinos Athanasooulos, storyboard artist; Konstantinos Andrias, animator; Lida Sakelaridou, scriptwriter; and Fanouria Arvaniti, graphic designer! They are the drive and creative power of Funny Tales and I am grateful they are with us!”

For more info, visit www.funnytales.gr