Animation Magazine - Ottawa Issue #333

VOLUME 37, ISSUE 8, NUMBER 333 SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2023

THE MUST-HAVE LIST

FEATURES

CRACKING THE DA VINCI CODE

Writer-director Jim Capobianco takes us behind the scenes of The Inventor, his charming and innovative animated movie about the Renaissance master

RETURN OF THE BEAR AND THE MOUSE

Directors Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger look back at the making of their charming sequel, Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia

6

10

A FEAST FOR THE EYES 12

Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta take us behind the scenes of their acclaimed Annecy prize-winning movie, Chicken for Linda!

GREECE IS THE WORD!

Dan Harmon and His Team Dive into the ‘Evergreen Playground’ of Greek Myths with Krapopolis

16

BEYOND THE LAND OF OOO 20

Fionna and Cake find themselves in brand-new worlds in Max’s eagerly awaited Adventure Time spinoff show.

OUT OF THIS WORLD

Strange Planet creator Nathan W. Pyle answers a few of our burning questions about his charming new Apple TV+ animated show.

SHORTS

22

6 6

FEATURES

CRACKING THE DA VINCI CODE

TELEVISION/STREAMING

THAT LOONEY DUCK IS BACK IN STOP-MOTION! 24

Director Max Winston tells us everything we need to know about his new short Daffy in Wackyland

FLESH AND FANTASY 28

Director Flóra Anna Buda’s acclaimed short 27 explores a isolated young woman’s rich imaginary life.

MILESTONES

CELEBRATING A JAPANESE POWERHOUSE 30

Polygon Pictures has big plans for the future as it looks back at 40 years of stellar animation production.

EVENTS

PIXELATL 2023 ‘DARES TO BELIEVE’ 32

Festival CEO José Iñesta gives us an exclusive sneak peek at the this year edition of the animation event in Guadalajara.

MINDGAMES GALORE AT OIAF ‘23 34

the scoop on

on this year’s must-see

16

GREECE IS THE WORD!

Dan Harmon and His Team Dive into the ‘Evergreen Playground’ of Greek Myths with Krapopolis.

16

VFX & TECH

60

unveils

VFX & TECH

THE VAMPIRE AT SEA CHRONICLE 60

VFX supervisor Brad Parker details the clever visual tricks and blood-curdling magic behind The Last Voyage of the Demeter

EVERYTHING I LEARNED AT SIGGRAPH 2023 62

Our intrepid tech expert offers his take on the computer graphics event held in Los Angeles in August.

STATE OF THE ART

SURFING THE TSUNAMI 64

Suggestions for artists and writers on embracing AI.

DAY IN THE LIFE A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ... 65

Janet Perlman invites us into her indie animator world as she prepares to bring The Girl in the Red Beret to OIAF.

COVER: Dan Harmon’s new show Krapopolis premieres Sept. 24 on FOX.

MIPJUNIOR COVER: Cyber Group Studios brings Press Start! to the MIPJunior market in France.

CARTOON FORUM COVER: Millimages unveils Camp Farmcreek at Cartoon Forum in September.

THE VAMPIRE AT SEA CHRONICLE

VFX supervisor Brad Parker details the clever visual tricks and blood-curdling magic behind The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

September Animation Festivals

Animafilm [Baku, Azerbaijan | anima.az]

AnimaSyros [Greece | animasyros.gr]

Animatex [Egypt | animatex.net]

Ars Electronica [Linz, Austria | ars.electronica.art]

Cartoon Forum (Toulouse, France l cartoon-media.eu]

Encounters Film Festival

[Bristol, U.K. | encounters.film]

Fantoche [Baden, Switzerland | fantoche.ch]

Festival of Animation Berlin [Germany | fa-berlin.com]

FIA [Uruguay | fcd.ort.edu.uy/ international-animation-festival]

Khem Animation Film Fest [Newark, NJ | khemfest.com]

Malaysia Digital Content Festival [Kuala Lumpur | mydcf.my]

Ottawa Intl. Film Festival [Ottawa, Canada l animationfestival.ca]

Pixelatl Festival [Guadalajara, Mexico l elfestival.mx/en]

Viborg Animation Festival [Denmark | animationfestival.dk]

World Festival of Animated Film Varna [Bulgaria | varnafest.org]

Winds of Change

As we get ready to put the summer of Barbie, writers’ and actors’ strikes and out-of-touch CEOs behind us, some are hanging on to the hope that Hollywood’s broken entertainment machine will fix itself in time. Yet, many of us continue to worry about the threat of AI and the fate of artists in a town dominated by profit-driven corporations and risk-averse executives.

In our animated corner of the universe, however, there were silver linings aplenty. Sony Picture Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Pixar’s Elemental drew audiences to movie theaters consistently. Generally, fans appreciated their creative choices and bold artistic innovations. The box office numbers were equally impressive. By August 20, Spider-Verse’s global box office reached an estimated $686.9 million while Turtles took in $118.5 million and Elemental continued its slow burn to the top with $458.4 million.

As the big blockbusters of the summer fade into memory, we look forward to the smaller, indie gems that are making the festival rounds and being distributed by indies in the next few months. In September, we can look forward to Jim Capobianco’s labor of love, The Inventor, which uses the charming medium of stop-motion animation (as well as 2D animation) to chronicle an interesting chapter in Leonardo Da Vinci’s life.

Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s hand-painted Chicken for Linda! offers a different kind of artistic adventure: The helmers use splashes of color and broad black brushstrokes to tell a poignant story about a single mom and her eight-year-old daughter as they cope with grief and loss. The film, which won the Cristal for Best Animated feature at Annecy, will be distributed by GKIDS later this year, but you can read Kambole Campbell’s excellent interview with the directors in this month’s issue today.

Early fall is an especially busy period for global animation events and confabs as well. We have all the details and highlights for Pixelatl in Guadalajara (Sept. 5-9), Cartoon Forum in Toulouse (Sept. 18-21) and Ottawa International Animation Festival (Sept. 20-24), as well as MIPJunior in Cannes (Oct. 13-15), in this issue.

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2023

VOL. 37, ISSUE 8, NO. 333 info@animationmagazine.net

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EDITORIAL

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Editor in Chief: Ramin Zahed

Multimedia Editor: Mercedes Milligan

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Tech Reviews Editor: Todd Sheridan Perry

Contributors: Kambole Campbell, Kevin Geiger, Trevor Hogg, Karen Idleson, Charles Solomon, Jeff Spry

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by Bob Harper

Of course, we’re planning another edition of our own World Animation Summit for November in Burbank (Nov. 1-4). Early bird tickets are now available, so make sure you visit the site to book yours (animationmagazine.net/summit). I have a feeling it’s going to be a really fun and inspiring event this year as we all seem to be ready to break away from a period of doubt and uncertainty. Make sure you visit our website daily to get the latest news and announcements about this year’s honorees, informative panels and shorts screenings. Let’s create some great memories together once again.

Ramin Zahed Editor in Chief ramin@animationmagazine.net

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Posters for Jim Capobianco’s The Inventor and Chiara Malta & Sébastien Laudenbach’s Chicken for Linda!

The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age

As the animation and broader entertainment industries increasingly join the re-emerging workers’ rights movement, it’s the perfect time to dive into the history of labor organization in Toon Town. Author Jake S. Friedman takes readers back to 1941, when one of Walt Disney’s leading animators, Art Babbitt, led a strike that divided the studio’s employees and nearly toppled the House of Mouse. The Disney Revolt brings the story to life in fascinating detail with research gleaned from previously lost records, including transcripts of conversations among insiders. Struggling artists! Iconic picket signs! Mafia ties! — It’s a real life film noir guest starring Mickey Mouse. [Chicago Review Press | HC $30, PB $20 | Sept. 12]

The Must-Have List

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir 1

ZAG’s teen Parisian superheroes pop on the page in the new mangastyle adaptation. Written by Koma Warita (Free Life Fantasy Online: Immortal Princess), illustrated by Riku Tsuchida. [Kodansha | $11]

Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 2: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures (2nd Edition)

An undisputed classic of the animator’s training library from one of the Disney studio’s greatest artists and mentors, edited by Don Hahn. [CRC Press | HC $150]

Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition): Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Pixar co-founder and longtime president Ed Catmull updates and expands his 2014 best-seller on creative leadership with all that he has learned in the last nine extremely eventful years.

[Random House | HC $32]

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania

The latest chapter in Sony’s spooky family comedy franchise sees Dracula confronting a terrifying fate — being human! — when Van Helsing’s “Monsterfication Ray” goes awry, transforming Johnny into a beautiful beastie and zapping Drac’s vampire powers. Special features include the mini movie Monster Pets, making-of featurette, filmmaker commentary and more. [Sony | BD $35, DVD $30]

Ranking of Kings: Season 1, Part 2

With Kage at his side, Bojii continues his quest to prove his royal mettle and face his fiercest enemy yet: his father. The four-disc set includes previews, textless opening and closing songs. The Limited Edition comes beautifully boxed with a full-color booklet, four art cards and a Kage patch! [Crunchyroll | LE BD $90, BD $70]

Smiling Friends: The Complete First Season

Get your jollies with Adult Swim’s delightful Aussie import, following the adventures of Pim and Charlie (voiced by series co-creators Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel) two Smiling Friends co. employees determined to turn your frown upside down! [Warner | BD $30, DVD $25]

Gay Purr-ee

Judy Garland and Robert Goulet voice a pair of star-crossed cats in this 1962 animated musical from director Abe Levitow, making its Blu-ray debut.

[Warner Archive Collection | $23]

Junk Head

The award-winning 2021 stop-motion scifi feature from Japanese director Takehide Hori, based on his short of the same name, is set in a distant future where mankind faces extinction due to infertility.

[Synergetic Dist. | $23]

The Life of Budori Gusuko

Another new-to-Blu-ray score this month is Gisaburou Sugii’s adaptation of the Japanese children’s novel, animated by Tezuka Prod.: Once upon a time, when he lived in the forest with his parents and younger sister, Budori Gusuko’s life was wonderful. Then the weather began to change…

[Sentai Filmworks | $25] ◆

— Mercedes Milligan

FRAME-BY-FRAME

Cracking the Da Vinci Code

Writer-director Jim Capobianco takes us behind the scenes of The Inventor, his charming and innovative animated movie about the Renaissance master.

- By Ramin Zahed -

When Pixar veteran Jim Capobianco was working on features such as Ratatouille, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo, he spent his free hours developing a 2D hand-drawn short about one of his favorite artists, Leonardo da Vinci. That 2009 short became the launch pad for a much more ambitious, challenging and rewarding labor of love for the artist, who is best known for co-writing the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Brad Bird’s Ratatouille

After more than a decade of development, fundraising and production, he will finally see the release of his feature The Inventor, which is based on a late chapter in the life of the Italian master. Co-directed by PierreLuc Granjon (The Tower, Poppety in the Fall), the stop-motion and 2D-animated pic features the voices of Stephen Fry, Daisy Ridley, Marion Cotillard, Gauthier Battoue and Matt Berry. The storyline follows da Vinci (a perfectly cast Fry) as he leaves Italy to join the French court, where he can continue his ex-

periments, invent flying machines and study the human body without the interruptions of the church. He is aided in his many ventures by the broad-minded and trailblazing Princess Marguerite (Ridley).

Impossible Dreamers

As Capobianco tells Animation Magazine, he was always fascinated by the brilliant artistry and scientific explorations of da Vinci. “The name of my company is Aerial Contrivance, so you can tell that I’ve always been fascinating by flying machines,” he explains. “The whole notion of a person with a man-made contraption trying to fly is so idiotic, but it also reflects how we like to reach for something that seems really impossible. That was on my mind, and I also realized that I’ve never seen an animated movie about da Vinci. When you have the power to create something from nothing through animation, why not reach for that?”

Capobianco found himself becoming more and more knowledgeable on the subject as

he began to read everything he could find about the Florentine artist, especially about the period of his life when he moved to France. He was also delighted to learn about Ridley’s character Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549), King Francis’ sister, who was a big supporter of da Vinci during his time in her country.

“They called her the first ‘Renaissance woman,’” says the director. “She ran an artists’ salon and wrote her own books. She really kept the peace between the French Catholics and the Protestants during the Reformation. She was just amazing. Later on, her brother ended up being captured by the Spaniards and she ended up negotiating his release. So, I started thinking about the fact that maybe she was influenced more by Leonardo than her brother. That gave me this nice triangle of characters and conflicts to use in the story. At that point, I knew how to go forward, and all those elements came together.”

Capobianco, who has a wide range of influences, including stop-motion masters

Rankin/Bass and cinematic auteurs David Lean, Billy Wilder and Akira Kurosawa, says he was very pleased that he chose stop-motion to tell most of da Vinci’s story, despite all the challenges. “Stop-motion is the primary medium we used to recreate his warm, handhewn world, rather than force the cold precision of a computer to do it,” he notes.

“I felt that a project that focused on da Vinci should be either hand-drawn animation or stop-motion,” he explains. “It had to be a hand-crafted form. At that point in the industry, Disney had gotten rid of its 2D division, and I’ve always had this affinity for 2D and hybrid projects, be it with my Ratatouille short Your Friend the Rat or the work that I would eventually do on Mary Poppins Returns

The painter’s own story inspired us to take this artisan approach, and my collaborators and I could not resist the charm of building a Renaissance world in miniature and creating this story around it.”

Not Your Usual Animated Fare

The filmmaker, who is based in northern California, also realized that his film would be a hard sell to the major U.S. studios. He made a teaser showing his ideas for the movie out of his own pocket to explain his vision to potential financiers and other production entities. “It was tough because they’d look at it and think it was an educational documentary,” he recalls. “They’d say they were interested in developing an IP on da Vinci!”

The movie finally began to pick up steam when Capobianco presented it at the European animation feature confab Cartoon Movie in France in 2020. “We had a few false starts,” says the director. “We tried to set up the movie in Italy, but I think they have a certain pride attached to the artist, and they really didn’t want to focus on his life in France. Things began to happen when we made the connection with Foliascope studio in Valence.”

The director says it was a lucky accident that he was introduced to his co-director Pierre-Luc Granjon. “When I was developing the movie, I was inspired by one of his works The Four Seasons in the Life of Leon He is an amazing filmmaker in his own right. After I met Foliascope CEO Ilan Urroz, he asked me,

‘The painter’s own story inspired us to take this artisan approach, and my collaborators and I could not resist the charm of building a Renaissance world in miniature and creating this story around it.’

- Writer-director Jim Capobianco

AN ITALIAN MASTER ABROAD: Directed and written by Jim Capobianco, The Inventor is a stop-motion adventure film about Leonardo da Vinci’s years in France, featuring the voices of Stephen Fry, Daisy Ridley, Marion Cotillard, Gauthier Battoue and Matt Berry. Top right: Early concept art of Marguerite by Lauren Kawahara; Poster image on left by art director Samuel Ribeyron.

‘Do you want to meet him? Do you want to work with him?’, and of course, I said yes! We share the same sensibility and love the same films. He had this great knowledge of making stop-motion films, and my background was in drawn animation and Pixar movies. When you add our producer Kat Alioshin, whose expertise in stop-motion includes movies such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, we had the perfect combination.”

Capobianco points out that he and his team had to work efficiently and wisely to make the most out of the film’s relatively small budget. “We ended up making the movie on time and on budget,” He recalls. “We had to think twice about the kind of shots and the number of characters we needed for each scene. The trick was to simplify things and make them better at the same time. Orson Welles said that the enemy of art is the absence of limitations. I just love that and believe it to be true.”

About 100 people worked on the production, which also features about 25 minutes of 2D animation. The 2D animation was done with Toon Boom Harmony, while the stop-motion team used Dragonframe. Made

out of silicone and armature, the puppets were about eight inches tall. As the director points out, “The design of the faces were very simple. Only two characters had replacement mouths. All the others had sticker mouths. The animators did such a beautiful job because they had to get so much emotion out of these dot eyes and sticker eyebrows and mouths. When you have less detail in the facial features, you allow the audience to do the work. They end up projecting more onto the acting. It actually pulls the audience in.”

Renaissance Woman

He says the only reason The Inventor was finally finished and delivered was because of his amazing team. “They were the best people I had ever worked with,” he concludes. “There were no egos involved. Everyone was very engaged with what we were doing. Another aspect of the project I’m really proud of is that women made up 50 percent of our team, and we even had a higher percentage in the leadership.”

Among the lessons Capobianco says he learned from the movie was that pursuing an indie passion can indeed be a very challeng-

ing process. “Yes, it’s really hard,” he shares. “There were many times that I didn’t think it was going to happen. But you just have to keep pushing and be open to different possibilities and meeting new people. The secret is finding the right people. Perseverance is a good lesson to learn!”

And the most surprising thing he discovered about his favorite Italian Renaissance man? Capobianco says he was surprised to learn that the artist was a big procrastinator and that he often felt like a failure. “There’s a line in the movie where he says, ‘I never created anything!’ He felt that way about every big project that he did: He tried to build this giant statue in Milan, the clay version was destroyed, and it was never cast. He tried this technique for the painting The Battle of Anghiari in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, and it started to melt. He painted The Last Supper, and that started to peel. Here was this guy who was a genius and knew so much, and he thought he was a failure or an imposter. Now that is really amazing.” ◆

Blue Fox Entertainment releases The Inventor in U.S. theaters on September 15.

ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS: Clockwise from top left, The Inventor storyboards by PierreLuc Granjon with notes by Jim Capobianco; the Leonardo and Princess Marguerite puppets, and Dance of the Planets concept art by Lauren Kawahara.

Return of the Bear and the Mouse

Directors Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger look back at the making of their charming sequel, Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia.

- By Charles Solomon -

They’re back!

The plucky little mouse and the slovenly, musical bear who charmed audiences in the feature Ernest & Celestine (2012) have returned to the big screen. An adaptation of Gabrielle Vincent’s children’s books, Ernest & Celestine received an Oscar nomination, numerous critics and festival awards and the César for best animated feature. The sequel, Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia, will open in theaters in the U.S. on September 1.

The 2D-animated feature, which is produced by Folivari, Mélusine and StudioCanal with France 3 Cinema and Les Armateurs on board as co-producers, is directed by Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger. The duo recently discussed the new film in an interview conducted via email. (They responded to the questions jointly, following their practice sharing tasks on the production.) They began with the obvious question: Why a new feature for these characters, 11 years later?

“We believe producer Didier Brunner has had

the idea of producing another Ernest & Celestine movie since the first film was released,” they said. ‘‘But he didn’t find the right story or team to really get it going. When we collaborated with him on the Ernest & Celestine TV series, he asked us to consider directing a new feature. The first scripts for a new film were written at that time, around 2016. We worked alongside the producers and screenwriters for many years before finding the right tone, a mix of intimacy and bigger drama.”

Adding More Drama

The new film explores Ernest’s back story. When he wakes from his winter hibernation, Celestine urges the sugar-loving bear to go out and start busking to earn money for food. During the ensuing arguments, Celestine accidentally breaks his violin — a rare “Stradibearius.” Ernest explains that the only individual in the world who could possibly repair the antique instrument is a luthier in his homeland of Gibberitia. When he refuses to go back to find the artisan, Celestine sets out

alone on the long perilous journey through rugged snowy mountains. Soon after, Ernest goes to rescue her in their ramshackle van.

Author/illustrator Gabrielle Vincent said the Ernest character was inspired by a man she knew from Eastern Europe. In the television series, Chheng and Roger showed that Ernest was an immigrant, from the country of Gibberitia (“Charabie” in French). “He left his country for reasons unknown which we discover in this second film,” they continue. “Screenwriters Guillaume Mautalent, Sébastien Oursel and Jean Regnaud developed the story to give Celestine a chance to visit Ernest’s past and fix what is broken in her friend’s heart.”

Once she crosses the blizzard-wracked peaks, Celestine finds herself in a mountainous country that suggests late 20th Century Eastern Europe. Bears travel on tramways and go about their daily lives in quaint, colorful houses and grand public squares.

“The name ‘Charabie’ comes from the word ‘charabiov,’ which designates Ernest’s native lan-

guage in the series. It sounds like a word from some Slavic language,” Chheng and Roger explained. “From the very beginning, we looked for visual references in the Caucasus, especially since Gibberitia is a country of mountain bears. The architecture of the houses evokes the old houses of Tbilisi in Georgia. We’ve travelled to the far north of Pakistan, to the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges. We’ve also worked in the Ukraine. All these memories and experiences enriched our vision of what Gibberitia could be.”

Celestine is puzzled by the strange country: Its inhabitants don’t even know what a mouse is. But the strangest things about Gibberitia is the complete absence of music. Government officials chase away birds that try to sing; the few officially sanctioned performers play only one note. (A concert piano in Gibberitia has a single key.) Conditions in Gibberitia may remind some viewers of the unhappy kingdom Jerry Mouse ruled in the 1945 Gene Kelly musical Anchors Aweigh.

With her usual perseverance, Celestine gradually uncovers the link between the government’s rigidly enforced anti-music policy and Ernest’s decision to abandon his native land. Her good nature and courage enable her to forge an alliance with the musical equivalent of a resistance movement.

Because music is a key element in the plot, Chheng and Roger worked closely with composer Vincent Courtois: “We wanted Vincent Courtois’

music to be very melodic and emotional, playing around the musical theme of resistance, which Gibberitia has long forgotten. We didn’t feel like it needed lyrics to further describe what the notes of his score evoke so well.”

The directors had worked with Courtois on the TV series, so when they began the film, they were happy to expand the collaboration. “From the start of the development, we searched together for what would be good for the film and the music,” they added. “We drew the storyboards and made a first rough edit by integrating them with the first samples of the music that Vincent composed in parallel. The music is so important for the story, that in our minds, we could not separate it from the structure of this film. It was essential to establish the rhythm of the film and the development of the story through the evolution of the score. The symbiosis between the visuals and the music is a characteristic of the film.”

New English voices have been chosen for the film. “Forest Whitaker is unfortunately not rejoining the cast and Mackenzie Foy has aged out of the role,” Chheng and Roger said. “We cast it to match those original voices, so audiences should expect a very similar sound.” Canadian musician and actor Andrew Kishino, who’s done numerous voices for animation, plays Ernest; Ashley Boettcher, whom anime fans know as the magical Hina Amano in the English dub of Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering with You, voices Celestine.

Making Art for Future Adults

Monique Martin (1928-2000), the creator of Ernest & Celestine, was initially known as a watercolorist. ‘‘She took the pen name of Gabrielle Vincent to create the Ernest & Celestine books because being an author of a children’s book was frowned upon — children’s books were considered to sub-art,” Chheng and Roger explained. “But she was interested in children — she considered them to be full-fledged people. We share that vision: We strive to make films for young audiences and families by considering children as future adults.”

“The theme of this film is: Everyone must write the script of their own life,” the directors concluded. “Sometimes, young people do not receive enough encouragement to develop themselves. They’re advised to be safe. But the future lies in the pioneering spirit and creative daring of today’s youth. Sometimes we feel powerless about what’s going on in the world. But at the end of the day, it’s human beings who are the source of everything, and we think it’s important that children be made aware of the potential their life

GKIDS released Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia on Sept. 1. The movie opened im some European territories including France last year.

(Renowned French actor Lambert Wilson voices the bear in the original-language version.)

contains.” ◆

‘Sometimes we feel powerless about what’s going on in the world. But it’s human beings who are the source of everything, and we think it’s important that children be made aware of the potential their life contains.’

- Directors Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger

A LASTING BOND: Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Giberritia is a sequel to the 2011 French feature about an unlikely friendship between a big bear and a tiny mouse.

Julian Chheng

Jean-Christophe Roger

A Feast for the Eyes

Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta take us behind the scenes of their acclaimed Annecy prize-winning movie, Chicken for Linda!

- By Kambole Campbell -

After taking home the Cristal for best feature film at this year’s Annecy Festival, not long after receiving acclaim at Cannes, the upcoming French production Chicken for Linda! is shaping up to be one of the year’s most beloved indie features. Produced by Dolce Vita Films and Miyu Productions and co-directed and co-written by Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta, the film follows a mother and daughter as they try and find a chicken to eat on the day of a general strike.

“We wanted to work around childhood and children,” Malta says about the beginnings of the project. “It seemed to us that injustice was something that all children experienced, so that was our base.” Laudenbach continues, “And we had the feeling that films aimed at children often took them for fools. We wanted to make a film that is accessible to children, like the jam jar placed a little too high on the kitchen cabinet: You have to make an effort to reach it.”

Reflecting on the film’s strike element, Laudenbach says, “Perhaps adults will be more sensitive to the question of strikes and

demonstrations. The strike is a dramatic spring that serves our adventure, but also expression of a feeling of injustice that the children can understand.”

Loss and Remembrance

Chicken for Linda! isn’t just about the impact of the strike, but also about a young girl trying to remember her deceased father. The main reason for the chicken hunt is to make a dish that he used to make her. Laudenbach says, “The question of mourning is mainly told by a lost memory. It is striking how quickly a child forgets: Death is something very distant for children. We wanted to work with contrasts, bringing together beauty and comedy, laughter and drama. This undoubtedly comes from my Italian origins and from all the films of the ‘50s or ‘60s in which we often talk about serious things with a lot of irony and fun. This speaks to children, but also to adults.”

The film’s stylized presentation feels like an evolution of the minimalist style of the director’s previous feature The Girl without Hands As Malta notes, “Chicken for Linda! was written before The Girl without Hands. When I saw that

film, I thought the time had come for this new project. There was the possibility of playing fully with the lines and the colors, with all that animation can offer as a palette.”

To match the form of the project with its rebellious themes, Laudenbach wanted to stay away from a classic animated film format with a big budget. He explains, “The style developed for The Girl was quite relevant, we pushed it a little further towards something more pop. We also needed it to be inexpensive, in order to maintain a free, non-consensual tone.”

To do so, they worked with a small Franco-Italian team at Miyu’s studio in Paris, with less than 10 animators and a few trainees. Laudenbach says, “This created a very family atmosphere, very artisanal, everyone looked at everyone’s work, each being in charge of a complete sequence. It took about 12 months of animation. Being gathered in the same place and being a small group meant comfort and quality of work.”

The team also did extend a bit further than Paris. “Two people in the south of France did the sets: Margaux Duseigneur and Antoine Marchalot. Even if they haven’t come to Paris

often, the smallness of the team means that everything is fluid,” he adds.

“Duseigneur’s very colorful style was all we needed,” says Malta. “She worked out a kind of non-figurative color script from the screenplay, which was the basis of all the backgrounds of the film.” Laudenbach adds, “They might look like paintings made by a child, but they’re actually very elaborate. She also had to think of all her compositions according to the principle of having a single color per character, which was a very strong constraint and sometimes complex to manage.”

The decision to use a single color per character also linked back to reducing cost, but this

choice also had thematic purpose. Malta notes, “It reinforced the playful aspect — one color, always the same, per character, also allows you to play with the trace. The characters can be realistic when they are close up, but very abstract when they are far away. There is also something childish in this approach, with a color that does not stay in the trace, that overflows.”

That childlike approach had some roots in older design work. Malta notes one source of inspiration as the work of Bruno Munari, an Italian designer of the ‘60s and ‘70s. “He worked a lot for children and with children, mixing theory and play. His work is remarkable.” She adds, “If

his book Fantasia were given to all students in art school, teachers could retire!”

Their chosen fluidity of approach extended to sound as they recorded on location in schools, apartment landings and outdoor spaces. Malta notes, “The actors are not just voices, but characters interpreted freely, moving, jumping, running. This is to create a feeling of life, from the meeting between the written page and the reality of filming without camera.” Laudenbach explains, “Coupled with a use of foam props to help guide the young performers, the method allowed the dialog to be alive, with improvisation, stolen moments, presences and breaths.”

‘We wanted to make a film that is accessible to children, like the jam jar placed a little too high on the kitchen cabinet: you have to make an effort to reach it.’

- Director Sébastien Laudenbach

BRILLIANT BRUSH

STROKES: The story of a grieving mother and daughter is brought to life through Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s distinctive, abstract designs and Margaux Duseigneur’s lovely backgrounds.

Beyond the sounds of movement and voice, Chicken for Linda! also contains a number of songs, with Clément Ducol on composition duties. Malta notes, “The songs were written from the start We had composed small pieces of music because we needed a melodic support to write the texts, but we did not let Clément hear it, who was free to compose as he wished.”

Bittersweet Melody

The songs also echo the film’s bittersweet approach to memory. Malta describes the

film’s final song: “For the father’s song, we also wanted something quite contrasting, to talk about death on a playful tune, like in All That Jazz by Bob Fosse.”

That playfulness was key — even with more esoteric references to La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie). “We chose the opening of this one because it’s a very well-known and catchy tune, and it’s an Italian composer,” explains Laudenbach. Malta elaborates, “And Linda’s cat is called Gazza, ‘magpie.’ Moreover, it’s a tune so well known that it can be used as hold music

when the policeman calls for help as any citizen would. It made us laugh. Overall, we had a lot of fun writing and directing the film.”

That sense of fun is keenly felt in the craft of Chicken for Linda! a film that takes the perspective children seriously, without being overly serious. ◆

Chicken for Linda! is one of the feature films screening in competition at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in September. GKIDS will release it in U.S. theaters later this year.

WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER: The movie, which won the top prize at Annecy in June, will be distributed in the U.S. by GKIDS in coming months.

Dan Harmon and his team dive into the ‘evergreen playground’ of Greek myths with Krapopolis.

- By Jeff Spry -

Formative Greek society and its fictional pantheon of gods, goddesses and monsters might seem like a curious arena for a new animated TV series. But this month, Dan Harmon, the man who gave us Community and Rick and Morty, is traveling back in time to channel the ancient age of Hellenic civilization with his new FOX show, Krapopolis

Kicking off its 13-episode debut season after FOX’s NFL doubleheader broadcast on Sunday, September 24, Krapopolis is set roughly 5,000 years ago during the primitive Bronze Age and chronicles the lives of a dysfunctional family of flawed humans, lofty deities and beastly creatures trying to keep order amid one of Earth’s first cities without strangling each other.

The stellar main voice cast includes Hannah Waddingham (Deliria), Richard Ayoade (Tyrannis), Matt Berry (Shlub), Pam Murphy (Stupendous) and Duncan Trussell (Hippocampus). Guest stars appearing this season

Popular Gods and Monsters

The buzz around this new show, spawned from the twisted minds of Harmon, executive producer Steve Levy and supervising director Pete Michels, is quite high, as evidenced by a sneak peek screening at San Diego Comic-Con in July that was forced to turn away more than 500 disappointed fans.

The genesis of Krapopolis’ hilarious chaos occurred five years ago while FOX was undergoing a regime change and they were shifting personnel around. Discussions arose concerning who they’d like to work with in the near future, and Rick and Morty’s crew came up.

“They wanted to try moving in a different direction in animation and were tired of the same old development cycles,” Levy tells Animation Magazine. “Fortunately, we were on their list to meet with [FOX chief] Michael Thorn, who had worked with Dan 10 or 15

years ago developing a project. He always enjoyed working with Dan and thought he was brilliant.

“So, he brought us in and we all had a very holistic conversation about how we could work together,” says Levy, who has two Emmy nominations for his work on Rick and Morty “Then, they made us an offer for an exclusive primetime animation deal. Out of that we started development with FOX and we had four or five ideas we went in with. Michael was the one who said, ‘Dan way back when, you’d pitched me this crazy idea for a show about people in ancient Greece. Would you ever be willing to unearth that dinosaur of a project and figure out a way to make it work for FOX Animation?’”

According to Levy, Dan Harmon has always been mildly obsessed with Greek mythology and the teachings of famed author Joseph Campbell and his story structure models. “Campbell and his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces is all derivative in studying

are Ben Stiller, Joel McHale, Susan Sarandon, Dave Franco and Chris Hardwick.

mythology,” says Levy. “Playing in ancient Greece and mythology was always something Dan wanted to do so badly, but just couldn’t figure it out. He’d sold multiple projects through the years taking place in ancient Greece, but nothing ever took foothold.”

Besides an old Jay Ward segment of Peabody’s Improbable History and the 2020 Netflix adult toon Blood of Zeus, few animated series have explored the rich world of Greek history. The element that attracted the Krapopolis team most was that these Greek legends and lore are universal. It may not be a religion that people regularly subscribe to anymore (not that we know of!), but it’s certainly one that’s still studied internationally

by scholars, historians and artists.

“It’s everywhere,” Levy adds. “It’s referenced casually in regular television or books. There are plays still based on ancient Greek mythology or are contemporary tellings of old myths. Something that’s important to us as creatives is focusing on character and humanity. And I think you see that a lot in Rick and Morty and is the reason why that show is so successful.”

He adds, “Even though we go to crazy places much like Krapopolis with all the gods and monsters, there’s still that humanity that grounds us. It’s entirely relatable whether it’s thousands of years ago or today. People are still people and they’re still going to be petty or selfish or still trying to make the world a

HYSTERICAL HISTORY: Krapopolis , which has strong blockchain and audience-voting components,

better place. We just felt like it was a very evergreen playground to do a lot of cool commentary on contemporary times through the ancient Greek myths.”

Another Toon Veteran

Supervising director Pete Michels (Family Guy, The Simpsons, Inside Job) had collaborated with Dan Harmon before on Rick and Morty, so he was intimately familiar with his work and has always been a great admirer.

“I’m also a history buff and when they said it was ancient Greece and it’s a historical comedy, I told them I’m on board,” Michels recalls. “I’m always watching archaeology shows and reading archaeology books. I think it’s ripe for

Dan Harmon

features the voices of Hannah Waddingham as Deliria, Richard Ayoade as Tyrannis, Matt Berry as Shlub, Pam Murphy as Stupendous and Duncan Trussell as Hippocampus.

'Playing in ancient Greece and mythology was always something Dan [Harmon] wanted to do so badly, but just couldn’t figure it out. He’d sold multiple projects through the years taking place in ancient Greece, but nothing ever took foothold.'

— Executive producer Steve Levy

HOT SPOT:

First announced two years ago, Dan Harmon’s new show Krapopoolis will premiere this month, positioned nicely between The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers on Sunday nights. The show has already been picked up for two more seasons.

storytelling and it fits perfectly with animation. Everybody knows about Zeus and Athena from studying mythology in high school. Doing a modern spin and giving them a certain personality that we’re familiar with today is fun. I mean they’re all pretty self-centered and narcissistic, and they have all these weird hang-ups.”

Being that Rick and Morty is untethered by traditional network television restrictions airing on cable’s Adult Swim, there were subtle content guidelines and restrictions for Krapopolis

“It’s funny because both shows are TV-14,” Levy explains. “You’d think that Rick and Morty is TV-MA but it’s actually not. The difference is Adult Swim is cable and FOX is network. So, there’s a bit more restriction, and also Rick and Morty airs past a certain hour, whereas Krapopolis is airing in primetime."

“We certainly wrote a lot of stuff that S&P and FOX had to say, ‘Ohhh, I don’t know,’” notes Levy. “We absolutely can’t show nudity or say certain words. But they don’t want us to sacrifice any joke or creative endeavor because they’re having to tell us not to do these things. They find a way to work together to make it palatable for both sides so that no jokes are lost. Which is great because we’re playing in an incredibly violent world where incest existed more prevalently and all these crazy things. We want to be true to what the mythology was telling us and not shy away from any of the unfortunate taboos of the time. To

shine a light on them and show the world how far we’ve come, or how we’ve not come very far at all, as a people.”

As supervising director and bona fide ringmaster of the entire Krapopolis production, Michels and his creative unit were dedicated to delivering a certain unique animation style and tone.

“We knew we wanted to make it look different than other shows on FOX,” he reveals. “Since it was a Dan Harmon show we didn’t want it compared to Rick and Morty. We wanted to have textured backgrounds, but also wanted to have a shorthand. Like with The Simpsons and Family Guy, it’s a little bit more flat color. It takes less time to do but we wanted something easy like that without getting too crazy. The look of Disenchantment and Adventure Time was something we all liked.”

“For the characters themselves, since it was an adult show, you don’t want to make it too cartoony or round and bouncy. We wanted it to be more like a sitcom. More like these are real characters and real existing people. The animation style is not very squashed and stretched. Kind of like what we did with The Simpsons Halloween shows where you can take liberties with the characters and morph them and change them and do different things with them.”

Concerning the actual animation duties, season one is being done by Saerom and NE4U, two acclaimed animation studios in

Seoul, South Korea.

“It’s hand drawn. Even though we’re using Storyboard Pro for storyboards and Photoshop for the background and character designs, it’s being animated in Harmony,” Michels says. “They’re not rigged 2D characters. They’re all being drawn by hand. It’s not the same studio that Rick and Morty are using in Vancouver. Title sequences are done by Dublin, Ireland animators and we also had Toon City in the Philippines do an episode. So, we’re kind of all over the place."

He adds, “Animation is tedious in its details. Looking for those little moments. Making sure the visual gags are playing — because you can easily lose a gag if you’re not staging it right or timing it right. We do have a great team of board artists, designers and editors and we make sure everybody is on the same page and up-to-date with the newest changes.”

Levy says he’s very pleased with all the support the show has received from FOX. “Their belief and passion in Krapopolis led to them pushing hard for the show to get one of the best time slots, which obviously comes after Sunday night football,” he notes. “So, for Krapopolis to air after the NFL is a huge honor that says so much to us as creators. Our network really believes in this show. That gives us wind beneath our wings.”  ◆

Krapopolis premieres September 24 on FOX.

'We knew we wanted to make it look different than other shows on FOX. Since it was a Dan Harmon show we didn’t want it compared to Rick and Morty. We wanted to have textured backgrounds but also wanted to have a shorthand.'

— Supervising director Peter Michels

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Beyond the Land of Ooo

Fionna and Cake find themselves in brand-new worlds in Max’s eagerly awaited Adventure Time spinoff show.

- By Karen Idelson -

Fans of Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time series, which aired on Cartoon Network for 10 seasons (20102018), have a lot to look forward to this year in Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, a 2D spinoff series coming to Max with many of the same crew along for the new journey. The first season features 10 22-minute-long episodes, which allow for longer stories and are geared to a slightly older age group, also targeting kids who grew up with the original show.

Fionna and Cake, the two main characters of the new show, appeared in the original series about once a season. They were developed when character designers began experimenting with the main characters of the first series: Finn and Jake. They switched the genders of the originals and even the species of one. Jake, who started as a magical dog, became Cake, an ordinary house cat. And Fionna and Cake seemed like the right fit for a tween audience. The creatives on the new series were excit-

ed to be working on a series aimed at a slightly older viewer than the original series because it gave them more room to explore ideas. In the first  Adventure Time, it was often necessary to be cautious about how certain themes were explored, and they were writing two 11-minute stories per show. This series gives them more freedom and they’re crafting a single 22- minute tale.

Exploring New Possibilities

“You get some pretty interesting, weird patches from working around things like that, but you feel like you’re tap dancing around something,” says executive producer Adam Muto. “I think we were looking for ways to explore stories and characters that can be pretty different than Finn. He started the [original] series very bombastic and completely selfless. We were looking for a way to tell stories about a character who’s in a completely different place and who is not quite as willing to be selfless, does not live in a magical world and

is not a highly skilled fighter.”

The show creators wanted to center the show on a more normal character. “We also wanted to see where she’d go if she kind of knew about that magical world from the first series which had been denied her,” explains Muto. “I think that starting point for Fionna is so different than any episode that we have done before.”

The exec producer also points out that Jake was a kind of endlessly powerful magic dog that could stretch and do anything. Basically, he was mostly limited by his own laziness. “So, we took all of that potential and just turned Cake into a normal house cat and used that as the starting point,” he notes. “We also had one season to kind of plot where it could go, because that’s Max’s approach — which was a lot different than how we designed the series on Cartoon Network.”

As with the first  Adventure Time, Rough Draft Korea and Saerom Animation were the partner studios on the project. Both shops are

based in South Korea and the episodes were split between them. Most of the Cartoon Network STudios team was based in California, but some animators were as far away as Russia and Japan. Approximately 50 crew members worked on the pre- and post-production side. Since production started in 2021, during the height of the pandemic, most of the work was done remotely until the studio reopened in 2022. At that point, most on-site work was limited to animatics, picture editing and post. About 90 percent of the work remained remote.

The show stars Madeleine Martin as Fionna and Roz Ryan as Cake. Both actresses voiced the same characters for the first series. Supervising producer Sandra Lee was happy to bring back the original performers, since it gave a sense of continuity to the spin off series. Viewers can also look forward to music and songs by Patrick McHale, Rebecca Sugar and Amanda Jones.

Lee and Muto were also interested in having a sense of the individual animators in the work. They wanted their 2D series to look truly handcrafted.

“I think in this show, in particular, we asked them to keep the animation close to the storyboard as opposed to just hooking it up to

like, the main model,” says Lee. “So, you know, each section they can actually see the different styles of artists as well. You can see characters changing a little bit in style from one section to the next, but I think that’s one thing I loved about Adventure Time. That really kept the charm of it. I think that was a lot of fun, and I like that people can watch it and recognize who worked on one section.”

Muto adds, “Each episode is in a pretty different alternate universe. All of them called for their own sort of color palette and approach to the backgrounds. So, it was challenging because there wasn’t a ton of reuse. Each episode is basically its own new world, a new version and, once you get into it, almost every episode is in a different alternate universe.”

Making Magnificent Backgrounds

Compared to the original series, the backgrounds have become a lot more complex as well. Muto says they are so elaborate that they needed a lot of hands working on it. “We could do really hyper-saturated, simple grass fields … but it feels like it wouldn’t sort of work the same way,” he explains. “I think there is this level where we must make the backgrounds more sophisticated without it feeling like a com-

OLDER AND NOT-SOWISER: The 10-episode first season of Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake targets an audience that’s slightly older than that of the original Cartoon Network series.

pletely different show. And that’s kind of a challenge that Sandra’s department has to handle.” The two producers were thrilled to find so many great artists spread across the world to work on this new show. Working during the pandemic kept them in many remote situations and they’re looking forward to having audience feedback on the work they’ve been doing for the last few years.

“It’s hard to know how it’s going sometimes and how it goes over with the audience because we are somewhat removed from that, to a degree,” says Muto. “We get direct feedback at places like Comic-Con and people might have social media posts, but you’re generally not trying to engage that directly while you’re working on it. You keep it at arm’s length. I’m proud of what we’ve done cumulatively. It’s really hard to keep an episode or a show feeling like it’s the same project because you end up replacing so many people when you come back to something years later. It’s interesting to see what new people will bring. You try to hold on to as much of the old DNA as you can and build something new for audiences to discover and enjoy when they come back to it.” ◆

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake premiered on Max on August 31.

‘We were looking for a way to tell stories about a character who’s in a completely different place and who is not quite as willing to be selfless, does not live in a magical world, and is not a highly skilled fighter.'

— Executive producer Adam Muto

Strange

Out of This World

Planet creator Nathan W. Pyle answers a few of our burning questions about his charming new Apple TV+ animated show.

The summer of 2023 was possibly the perfect moment for the new animated series Strange Planet to launch on Apple TV+, since interest in extraterrestrials and their experiences on Earth has never been higher. The clever 2D series is based on Nathan W. Pyle’s popular webcomic, which became a global hit on Instagram. The new animated series, which premiered in August, offers a hilarious look at a distant world of blue aliens.

Featuring the voices of Hannah Einbinder, Danny Pudi, Tunde Adebimpe, Demi Adejuyigbe and Lori Tan Chinn, the show is co-created an executive produced by Pyle himself and the always-busy Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty, Community). The show is executive produced by Alex Bulkley and Corey Campodonico for ShadowMachine (BoJack Horseman, Tuca & Bertie), Lauren Pomerantz, Amalia Levari, Steve Levy and Taylor Alexy Pyle. We had the chance to chat with Pyle about his new show recently:

Animation Magazine: First of all, congrats on

the launch of your new show. Can you tell us a little bit how your webcomic evolved into an animated series?

Nathan W. Pyle:  Absolutely! I started drawing Strange Planet as a webcomic in 2019: I did one comic a day for a whole year, and it became pretty popular. Back then, it was just me and my wife. I’d tell my wife Taylor about an idea, and she might pose for a reference photo. Eventually, I got to pitch the TV show idea to Dan Harmon and Steve Levy, and they liked it, ShadowMachine liked it, and then Apple liked it. It became a work in progress over the past three years, and now it’s airing on Apple TV+ this month. It did happen kind of magically, and I’m so thankful for all the help I’ve gotten along the way. It’s very gratifying to hear from people who follows the strip on Instagram and Facebook, because it did all start from pretty basic media social media beginnings.

It’s funny that you ended up pitching the show to Dan Harmon, because your work first got attention on his show Community. Can you tell us about that connection?

Oh yes, I had designed a shirt for Threadless that ended up being worn by Danny Pudi’s character (Abed) on Community. He was really sweet about highlighting artists that he liked through his wardrobe on that show. On the season six finale of the show, he wore a shirt that I had drawn, and it was a real full-circle moment for me when we were able to cast him on our show. It was really fun to have that actually materialize.

You studied theology in college and taught high school theology for two years before moving to New York to pursue your artistic career. How did that tie in with your interest in comics, aliens and animation?

Well, the common thread there with theology is that I’ve always been interested in what else is out there. I think we’ve all seen the images of deep space that have come out recently. I just think the number of galaxies out there is much higher than we can even fathom. I think there’s so much mystery about who else and what else is out there, and that was a big part of my interest in theology.

When it came to animation and illustration and comics, I would stay the interest all began with The Muppet Babies. I grew up on Muppets, and I think the Muppet Babies was the first time I realized that here we had an iteration of The Muppets where they all live in the same place. So there were multiple lines of lore about these characters. I found out that this version was different from  The Muppet Movie, where they all don’t live in the same place. I loved Kermit and DuckTales and TaleSpin. Again, you had Chip ’n Dale who became the Rescue Rangers. They were all modular and could be plugged into a new show, and they’d be detectives. I just love that about animation, and how many different iterations of the same characters we could have.

What do you love about your animated series which captures these hilarious creatures, holding a mirror to our own crazy lives on Earth?

I love this planet full of Beings who all go to therapy, and I imagine that they’re all quite emotionally vulnerable and honest. They just

enjoy existence because there’s so much to enjoy about being curious, about learning from each other and experiencing new things. And of course, facing your fear at times. We are so proud of this world because I think it’s a very inviting world.

We’ve been so fortunate to be around artists and animators who are so talented and what they make is a level that’s so far beyond what I can draw as a webcomic artist. It’s almost like a just it’s like a three-dimensional version of it. The folks at ShadowMachine on the West Coast, which is the studio that did  BoJack Horseman  and  Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, are so incredibly talented. Apple is also really great at world building, with shows like Severance and Silo. So, it’s been really fun for me to be part of that. We’re also making a new world for people to step into.

As someone who’s been drawing cute blue aliens for the past few years, what is your take on the recent revelations about UFOs? When you look at the number of galaxies

seen in just that tiny little portion of the sky from the Webb deep space telescope, I think there are obviously beings out there. To think that any of them would want to visit Earth is quite an honor, I don’t know if that’s actually true or not. But if they do want to visit earth then then that’s that is truly remarkable because we are one of many planets and to be visited by any other beings has to be quite a feat for sure. I’m fascinated to find out more.

Excellent, and one last question: What do you hope animation fans will get out of your show? I think talking about your emotions is actually what Beings do well, and that’s something we can aspire to. To be able to be honest about our emotions and to think of a world that’s slightly better than ours, that’s something we can all aspire to, and that’s what I hope people get out of our show. ◆

Strange Planet premiered on Apple TV+ in August. New episodes debut Wednesdays through September 27.

Nathan W. Pyle

ALIEN MUSINGS: Dan Harmon and Nathan W. Pyle’s new Apple TV+ show Strange Planet offers amusing observations on the absurdities of human lives.

That Looney Duck Is Back in Stop-Motion!

Director Max Winston tells us everything we need to know about his new short Daffy in Wackyland.

- By Ramin Zahed -

The new stop-motion Looney Tunes short, Daffy in Wackyland, was the toast of the town when it premiered at Annecy last June. This month, the clever project is also one of the titles competing at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. We were lucky enough to chat with the director Max Winston, who is best known for his award-winning 2008 short I Live in the Woods. The talented stop-motion wizard has also worked on a wide variety of shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Uncle Grandpa, Tumble Leaf and Ask the StoryBots and Henry Selick’s movie, Wendell & Wild. He kindly told us about this new adventure featuring the popular waterfowl created by Tex Avery and Bob Clampett back in 1937.

Animation Magazine: First of all, congrats on your latest Looney Tunes baby. Can you tell us how you got involved with this project?

Max Winston: Pete Browngardt (the showrunner of Looney Tunes Cartoons) and I are old friends. We met years ago as storyboard partners on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

at Cartoon Network. He has gone on to make his own cartoon shows, like Uncle Grandpa, which I have been lucky enough to sometimes be involved in. I made a stop-motion short for an episode of Uncle Grandpa that was well received, so Pete kept me in-mind when they were starting up the Looney Tunes Cartoons, and eventually approached me about mak-

ing my own stop-motion Looney Tunes short, which was an absolute dream come true!

When did you start working on it?

Funny question, actually! I started storyboarding it a couple months before COVID exploded. So, this ended up being my … “pandemic project.” continued on page 26

Was it always going to be in stop-motion and involve Daffy and the Dodo?

Yes, it was always going to be stop-motion from the start. That’s become my “specialty.” Pete wanted a few of the shorts to be in a different style, so they approached me to make one of them. I had some ideas for characters I’d like to work with, but when Pete suggested “How about Daffy? How about The Dodo? How about Daffy in Wackyland?”, it was basically like every word that came out of his mouth was better than the last. Porky in Wackyland (1938) is one of my favorite cartoons, so revisiting that wacked-out world in my own way just totally clicked for the both of us.

What did you love about working in stop-motion with these classic characters?

To me, the original Looney Tunes is some of the best American art ever made, in any genre. So, to have the opportunity to give my own take on the look and approach to these characters was an honor. This is actually the first stop-motion Looney Tunes short ever made. Being the first one was kind of a high bar for me to attempt to set. Looney Tunes is a big inspiration for my art already, so to convert these characters into stop-motion was an opportunity that I jumped at since I had been wanting to do such a thing for quite some time.

Did anything change drastically in the development process?

Certain things did change drastically; mostly the time I — thought it would take me forever to finish it, haha! Story-wise, not too much changed from my initial storyboards. With projects like these, where I’m given pretty much total freedom, I don’t exactly plan out everything beforehand. By that I mean, I don’t design all the settings, environments, etc. at the start. I come up with them as I go along in the production, which keeps things fun and

interesting to me and leaves room to explore and experiment. So, many parts of the short, I didn’t know what they were going to look like until I was starting to set up those shots for the first time.

What was the toughest part of your Daffy venture? The biggest challenge was trying to really get that Looney Tunes “feel,” in terms of the look, the acting and the overall vibe. Although I was given complete freedom, I wanted it to exist as a classic Looney Tunes short, rather than something I’ve created completely out of leftfield and just plopped Looney Tunes characters into. So, just really trying to make the short feel like a classic Looney Tunes short come to life in the third-dimension; that was tricky.

How many people worked on it? Can you give us details about the puppets and the sets?

At my studio, RatBat Studios, there were (at most) a few people who worked on it. Not trying to sound like a psychotic auteur, but I did most of it. The writing, storyboarding, puppet and set fabrication, animation, lighting and photography was all me. A friend of mine, Brent Johnson, sculpted and 3D printed Daffy’s beaks based on designs we came up with. That was a big undertaking, as Daffy has about 44 different beaks for this short. Josiah Clements helped with some fabrication and even animated a couple shots. Clay animation maestro Rich Zim did a fun clay-animation shots that I think people will really enjoy. The team at Warner Bros. handled the sound effects and music on the short and did an amazing job.

Early on, I had a few meetings with the Looney Tunes Cartoons story team to come up with gags and brainstorm. Besides that, it was basically me in my studio poking away at this short for quite some time. So many materials were used, it’s hard to list. Foams, clays, resins, vinyl, furs … every other thing under the

sun. If a material looked interesting, I used it somewhere. The puppets were around 12 inches tall, and we only had one puppet of each main character. I actually had to re-fur Daffy halfway through production, because he was starting to look kind of gnarly after being touched thousands of times.

What is your favorite Looney Tunes shorts of all time (besides yours)?

I’m a big Bob Clampett fan, so, I’d probably have to go with The Great Piggy Bank Robbery That one has been a huge inspiration for me throughout the years. The animation, design, humor, frantic pacing … it’s hard to beat!

What are you working on next?

My company, RatBat Studios, did an animated sequence for the Apple TV+ show The Afterparty, which should be airing soon. Besides that, a couple other projects that must remain top secret for now! I’m also looking forward to making the time to develop and pitch our own original concept for a stop-motion miniseries; a haunted erotic thriller for adults!

What kind of advice would you give your younger self now that you are much wiser? Oh boy. I feel like I could use some advice from old-man me now, ha! I guess I’d tell my younger self that people aren’t likely to pursue you to make something great for them. You have to pursue them and create these opportunities. No one’s going to do it for you. Waiting around, wondering why people aren’t knocking on your door goes nowhere fast. If you want something, you have to vocalize it! Tell people! Scream it atop a mountain! ◆

The sixth and final season of Looney Tunes Cartoons is currently streaming on Max. Daffy in Wackyland is screening at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in September.

FLABBERGASTED FOWL: Daffy Duck, who made his first appearance in Tex Avery and Bob Clampett’s Porky’s Duck Hunt in 1937 (insert), has a new stop-motion adventure in Max Winston’s Daffy in Wackyland

Flesh and Fantasy

Director Flóra Anna Buda’s acclaimed short 27 explores an isolated young woman’s rich imaginary life.

- By Ramin Zahed -

Flóra Anna Buda’s highly original and fluidly animated shot 27 continues its festival run month this month at Ottawa, after winning top prizes at Cannes (Palme d’Or) and Annecy (Cristal for Short Film) earlier this year. The Hungarian artist’s keenly observed 2D short follows a young woman who lives in her dreams to escape her dreary everyday life. One night, she has a drunken bicycle accident after going to a psychedelic party on a factory roof.

“I first came up with the idea back in December of 2019 when I moved out of my parent’s place at the age of 28,” Buda tells us. “I was struggling with another script that wasn’t working very well and started drawing for myself. After I drew three images, I saw some sort of connection between them. I started fantasizing about making a pornographic film that is about a woman who still lives with her family at the age of 27 and how that would look. My producer Emmanuel-Alain Raynal immediately supported the idea and we started working on it right away.”

Buda, who also grabbed attention for her 2019 short Entropia, began work on 27 in early 2020 in Viborg, Denmark, during the Open Workshop artist residency. She spent a year and a half on the script, animatic and the designs. “Then, we went to CICLIC residency with part of the team where production started and lasted another one and a half years,” she recalls. “So, in total, it took three years to make this short. Though I wanted to approach analog aesthetics, the film was made digitally with TVPaint and Photoshop.”

Honest Conversations

The director says crafting the dialog was the most challenging aspect of the short.

“This was the first time I wrote dialog and I really wanted to be able to write something natural, and it was a process to get into a state of mind where I could imagine realistic conversations. However, that was the most rewarding part as well. But I also really enjoyed painting the backgrounds and making the design — and, actually, all parts of the process had periods that I really loved.”

Buda was studying leather design and fashion when she realized that drawings were more about the movement, the character and the graphic style than the dresses. “I also wanted to be a film director when I was a child, so I just came back to the original idea,” she says. When asked about her artistic influences, Buda singles out director David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet). “He managed to start with animation, go through live action and fine art and music, and that is something that I find truly inspiring!”

She hopes her latest short can start a con-

versation. “I hope some will feel seen and understood, and that some will feel negatively about it and start having debates with others, so they can shape each other’s opinions.”

The artist leaves us with one final thought about her future projects. “I will keep working on understanding my past and where I come from,” she notes. “Currently, transgenerational traumas are one of my interests.” ◆

21 is one of the narrative shorts competing at the Ottawa International Animation Festival this month. You can learn more at floraannabuda.com.

‘I started fantasizing about making a pornographic film that is about a woman who still lives with her family at the age of 27 and how that would look!’

-

Director Flóra Anna

Buda

WOMAN ON THE VERGE: 27 , which won the top prize at Annecy, is also competing at the OIAF this month.

Celebrating a Japanese Powerhouse

Polygon Pictures has big plans for the future as it looks back at 40 years of stellar animation production.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Japan’s powerhouse animation studio Polygon Pictures, best known in the U.S. for producing stellar productions such as Knights of Sidonia, Kaina of the Great Snow Sea, the hot new animated Netflix series Mech Cadets and providing animation for shows as wide-ranging as My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Transformers Prime and Lost in Oz. We recently had the pleasure of interviewing the studio’s rockstar CEO Shuzo John Shiota, who brought us up to date on his company’s past and future.

Animation Magazine: Can you tell us a bit about the history of Polygon?

Shuzo John Shiota: Toshi Kawahara founded the company in 1983. It was quite rare for an individual without significant funding to start a CG animation company back then, given that SGIs were quite expensive back then. In fact, even though Toshi touted the studio as a CG studio, we didn’t have a graphic workstation until about five years after its founding.

In 1988, Polygon started the Big Bang Project, which aimed to develop a fully rounded application called Mesozoic, capable of modeling, animating and rendering a dinosaur. This was quite audacious, given the CG at the time could only express hard surface objects like cars and cans. The final output apparently impressed James Cameron and ILM, who were seeking solutions to animate shape-shifting Terminator, T-1000.

In 1995, Polygon created Rocky and Hopper, two Rockhopper penguin

brothers, which starred in a hair mousse commercial for Shiseido. The brothers eventually sold 150 million USD worth of merchandise, raking in royalties for Polygon.

Since the early 2000s Polygon sought opportunities in the U.S., as CG animation was not well regarded in Japan back then. After landing production for Disney TV’s My Friends Tigger & Pooh in 2005, Polygon has been a regular in episodic television production, getting multiple Emmys for programs such as Transformers Prime and Lost in Oz.

Since 2014, Polygon has returned to Japanese domestic market by producing anime programs such as Knights of Sidonia, BLAME! and, more recently, Kaina of the Great Snow Sea.

Can you tell us how you became involved with the studio?

It was purely accidental. I quit my job with Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steel manufacturer, in 1996, and a friend of mine who had quit the same company prior invited me to consult for Polygon. I had no prior knowledge (frankly, nor much interest) about CG or animation, but I was in need of a job, and was impressed with what Toshi and the company were doing at that time — setting up a joint venture between Namco and

Shuzo John Shiota

MEMORABLE

SHOTS: Among the many beloved projects Polygon has helped produce over the past 40 years are: (from top left) Knights of Sidonia , My Friends Tigger and Pooh , Mech Cadets , Star Wars: The Clone Wars , TRON: Uprising and Transformers Prime

Sony

What do you think is the secret to the studio’s success over the years?

We’ve been true to our mission statement, which is: “To do what no other has done, in unparalleled quality, for the world to see and enjoy,” and we’ve been very lucky with the people we’ve worked with over the years.

What is your take on the animation scene today?

Frankly, with the slowdown of the North American market since last year, this year has definitely been exciting, but in a bad way. I do think that the tides will turn, and as with all challenges, it will create new opportunities in the long run.

I am also very encouraged by the huge interest in all things Japanese (like manga, anime, games and pop), and since we’ve always been in the middle, connecting the west with Japan, we are in an advantageous position.

How many people are currently employed at Polygon?

About 400 including our sister companies, Polygon Pictures Malaysia and Polygon Studios India.

What is one thing the animation community (our readers) don’t know

about Polygon?

We have nearly 20 translators and interpreters in house,  as more than 15 percent of our staff is from non-Japanese speaking countries and about 50 percent of our clients are overseas.

What are some of the challenges ahead?

Per above, the slowdown of the North American animation market, coupled with the writers’ strike, continues to be a challenge. But as mentioned, all challenges present us with new opportunities.

How do you see the global animation scene in 2023 and beyond?

The viewing behavior for animation is rapidly changing, perhaps benefiting those of us who have been producing in Japan, as animation is becoming more and more for older skewing audiences, and the look and style is getting much more diverse.  I think we are in an advantageous position in this change of tide.

What are some of your proudest moments throughout the years?

I guess being awarded the Emmy: The jubilation felt at the ceremony is one of my proudest. ◆

For more information, visit www.ppi.co.jp.

Computer Entertainment to create an $80 million dollar feature film.

Pixelatl 2023 ‘Dares to Believe’

Festival CEO José Iñesta gives us an exclusive sneak peek at the this year edition of the animation event in Guadalajara.

The booming Mexican animation, video-game and comic-book festival Pixelatl is scheduled to rock Guadalajara once again this month (September 5-9). The popular event will feature informative panels and project spotlights as well as many opportunities to meet like-minded industry professionals and enjoy the many cultural offerings of the metropolis. We were quite pleased when the festival’s ebullient founder and CEO José Iñesta gave us an exclusive sneak peek at the 2023 edition of the event:

Animation Magazine: Congratulations on what promises to be another fantastic year for Pixelatl. As always, we are dying to find out what you and your team are cooking up!

José Iñesta: There are many highlights this year, but I want to draw attention to all the talent that we bring from video games, illustration and comics to the event. We work in industries that overlap and support each other. That’s the reason we try to blend many topics with artists from different techniques and backgrounds, so that when together they start thinking about new possibilities and ways of telling stories in no ordinary ways.

Regarding content, I’m personally excited about the panel for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, which will be led by Pilar Flynn, one of the most important Latino leaders in the industry. Tristan Oliver’s presentation is something that I’m looking forward to. We need to remember that Pixelatl is a place where old

and experienced artists meet young peers and emerging artists. We have amazing talks and workshops with famous veterans, but we also showcase emerging talents. We will see Works in Progress presentations of the upcoming Cinema Fantasma feature, Aztec Batman, and Rey Misterio (a high-profile animated series about a famous lucha libre idol).

What makes this edition of the festival special?

What makes this edition special is that we will have a special program dedicated to the history of Mexican animation in Mexico. The spotlights that appeared in Annecy this year will be part of our program as well. The local community will be able to take part and rejoice

MAN OF THE HOUR: According to festival director José Iñesta , Pixelatl has grown exponentially over the past few years.

about our history and tradition of this art form that is now well received worldwide. Also, something that is very close to my heart is the theme of this year’s event: “Dare to believe…” We are going through major political turmoil worldwide. New technology is changing our way of life and ambitious CEOs are gaining enormous amounts of money by saving costs or merging and downsizing studios. But we are forgetting what our industry is about. It’s not about making huge profits or margins. It’s about stories! Stories that connect people, not technology. Technology and profits need to be the means but never the end. We need to focus our attention to stories and bring new characters and themes that resonate with us and our audiences. We originally came up with the theme long before this summer’s actors’ and writers’ strikes and the global attention to the unfair treatment of our community. But we need to believe that stories are the path to connect and to better our world. So we need to continue to work together as a team and support each other in this time of turmoil.

How much has the event grown since the

move to Guadalajara in 2022?

We were pleasantly shocked about the growth of Pixelatl. When we moved, we grew 30 percent. Let’s see how this year turns out. We are expecting the same amount of people as last year — around 3,500 people.

What is your take on the thriving animation scene in Mexico?

The most exciting thing happening in Mexico right now is collaboration. Some state governments have created special incentives for the animation industry. Schools are developing amazing talent, and studios have the capacity to participate in international projects with very good quality. On top of that, there is a lot of collaboration not only in Mexico but throughout all of Latin America.

You played a big part at Annecy this past year — how did that make an impact on your event in 2023?

We got a successful spotlight in Annecy this year. Now we need to capitalize that attention into new projects and original content. Also, it’s important to get the government interested in developing new incentives to support

the industry. Finally, students who are eager to continue their development need to know that there is a huge community worldwide looking for talent and ideas that they can bring to projects and studios.

What is your best advice for newcomers to the world of Pixelatl festival this year?

The most important advice I can give is to not hesitate. It’s a big event with multiple activities happening simultaneously. Try to learn about the program ahead of time so that you can go to what interests you more. Also, don’t hesitate to ask for help. Everybody in the community is eager and willing to help newcomers. Finally, participate in the social activities, like the GIF contest, the live drawing sessions, the artists drawing duel and other fun activities that help us get to know each other in a relaxed environment! ◆

For more information about this year’s event, visit pixelatl.com.

CAVALCADE OF TOON TALENT: Sanjay Bakshi, Pilar Flynn, Alberto Vázquez, Roc Espinet, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Jack Liang and Tristan Oliver are among the animation luminaries slated to appear at Pixelatl this month.

After returning to in-person activities last year, the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) has settled back into its annual routine. Last year’s OIAF was an emotional ride for staff and attendees alike. People were happy to be with people. Can you imagine!? There is hope for humanity after all.

Let’s start off with this year’s special retrospectives and special screenings. We got a biggy this year: Masaaki Yuasa (Mind Game; Night Is Short, Walk on Girl) is coming to town as a five-part retrospective of his features and TV work. I’ve long loved his mind-bending work fueled by explosive visuals and intricate explorations of identity and time. Attendees will also get a chance to learn directly from Yuasa during a one-on-one session at the OIAF’s Animation Exposé.

Guest curator and Animated Shorts jury member Alla Gadassik has put together a unique screening that focuses on the history of ink in animation. Featured animators include Winsor McCay, the Fleischer Brothers, Norman McLaren, Ryan Larkin, Michele Cournoyer and more.

We’re also putting the spotlight on the

Mindgames Galore at OIAF ‘23

Ottawa International Animation

Festival’s longtime artistic director gives us the scoop on on this year’s must-see screenings and events.

- By Chris Robinson -

beautiful work of Chinese animator Xi Chen, along with the splendidly bizarro, under-the-radar work of Canadian Justin Tomchuk. Tomchuk’s screening will be presented a bit differently: His films will play throughout the Festival in one of our more intimate screening venues.

Similarly, we’re celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the National Film Board of Canada’s Hothouse program. The program has hatched several notable animators including Alex Boya, Alexandra Lemay and Oscar nominee Patrick Doyon. Two Hothouse works will be shown before each of the seven feature films in competition.

Speaking of the competitions…

There are seven features, including an animated documentary called Knit’s Island, set inside a video-game environment. It’s a thought-provoking work that looks at how gamers come together and maybe aren’t all that isolated. You can also catch the double Annecy winner Chicken for Linda! and the surprising Unicorn Boy, a truly indie feature from the U.S. about identity.

Moving over to the five short competitions, the first thing you’ll notice is that short films are getting longer (over 20 minutes). I think

this is the lowest number of films we’ve had in the competition. That’s a testament to the strength of these ‘mini-features,’ but I also hope that this doesn’t become a trend. That said, viewers will want to check out these beauties. (No naming names though; I would hate to influence the jury.)

As always, attendees get the chance to meet competition filmmakers and ask them questions about their work during the Meet the Filmmaker sessions. These sessions tend to be both comical and inspiring. Over on the youth side of things, we have the always intriguing Films for 7+ category, but we’ve replaced the preschool category (those kids should be playing outside) with a category for films aimed at teen audiences. The teen winner will be voted upon by, well, teens.

Over on the Industry side, Pitch THIS! (presented with Mercury Filmworks) is back. Animation Exposé, which features a day-long series of talks by artists from your favorite shows and movies. Aside from the aforementioned Masaaki Yuasa, Cartoon Saloon’s co-founder and creative director Tomm Moore (also an OIAF jury member) will share how his personal drawing practice influences his professional work. Hilda creator Luke

Chris Robinson

The 2023 poster was designed by filmmaker Matthew Rankin.

Not to Be Missed at Ottawa!

Pearson will sit down with Andy Coyle to discuss adapting Hilda from graphic novels to a Netflix animation series.

The centerpiece of OIAF industry activities is The Animation Conference (TAC), a threeday event that brings together producers, recruiters, distributors and international and local animation studio folks for boozy boat cruise … I mean … lots of eye-popping talks and panels (and yes, we’ll be talking about

that old chestnut, AI)!

And of course, every day there’s a party. Sure, the screenings are the priority, but the parties are essential for building a sense of community. All the usual favorites are back: The Opening party (presented by Nelvana), Salon des Refusés (presented by Bento Box), and the famous Animator’s Picnic presented by Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios featuring the pumpkin carving

contest (and no mac and cheese!). Jam-Filled Entertainment will also be hosting the Sweet Antics Party to celebrate its 16th anniversary.

Oh, and there will be owls … lots and lots of owls. Well, here ends my self-serving and totally unbiased report of what to expect at OIAF23. ◆

OIAF23 runs September 20-24. You can get all the details at animationfestival.ca.

Matt Kiel’s Unicorn Boy

Interface series by Justin Tomchuk

Masaaki Yuasa’s Mind Game is part of the director’s retrospective.

Early works such as Fleischer’s Betty Boop shorts are featured in a program focusing on the power of animated ink (Dots, Lines, Washes: Animating Ink).

Varya Yakovlena’s Oneluv and Daniel Gies’ Return to Hairy Hill (left) are two of the shorts in competition.

Meet the Euro Toons of the Future!

Cartoon Forum 2023 puts the spotlight on 77 new projects from the continent.

If one were to judge the health of the European animation industry by the number of quality projects presented at Cartoon Forum this month, things are certainly looking up. The four-day pitching and financing confab, which takes place at Toulouse, France (September 18-21) will spotlight 77 TV series or specials, out of 120 original submissions. According to organizers, the selected projects represent 475 hours of content with a total budget of €398.5 million ($433.1 million USD).

Once again, France is the most-represented producing country, with

Interesting Facts & Figures

French companies attached to 33 of the projects. Sixteen European countries are represented in this year’s selection, with other top contributors including Ireland and the CEE region (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland & Ukraine) with eight pitches each; Belgium, Germany and the Nordics (Denmark, Finland & Norway) with six each; Spain with five and Italy with four. Greece and The Netherlands are both backing one project each. In addition to the European countries, Canada, China, North Macedonia and the United Kingdom appear as co-producers.

Î Content for Children dominates the lineup, accounting for 58% of titles, followed by Preschool (22%), Adults (14%) and Family audiences (6%).

Î 24 projects (31%) are already co-productions, among them 13 projects (17%) involving two or more countries.

Î 18 new companies (23%) have not pitched at any Cartoon event before.

Î Four projects previously pitched at Cartoon Springboard made it to Cartoon Forum: 9 Million Colors by Bionaut (Czechia), Apocalypse Mojito by Passion Paris (France), Exit Tales by Storyhouse (Belgium) and Happily Never After produced by Helium Film (Czechia) and co-produced by Reynard Films (Denmark).

Î Project produced in the territory (Toulouse/Region Occitanie) are Pil’s Adventures (TAT Productions) and School Monitors (Xbo Films).

U.K. in the Spotlight

A special initiative for this edition is Animated U.K. Meets Europe, lead by U.K. broadcasters to encourage co-productions between European and U.K. producers. A total of five new projects in development from U.K. creative voices with a U.K. broadcast partner will be pitched in a 90-minute session (an addition to the official program). Each project will be actively looking for collaboration with a European co-production partner.

The five projects selected by four U.K. broadcasters (BBC, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Sky) are:

• Duck & Frog (Sun & Moon Studios)

• Huggy the Hugasaurus (Yamination Studios & Threewise Ent.)

• Magic Animal Friends (Coolabi Productions & Paper Owl Films)

• Pleasure Beach (Nexus Studios)

• The Wolfbjorns (BBC Studios Kids & Family Production)

You can find out more at cartoon-media.eu/forum.

SCADFILM presents

Sept. 28–30

SCAD ATLANTA

Join professionals and industry titans from top studios across animation, gaming, visual effects, and more for three days of exclusive events, all presented at SCAD Atlanta’s new SCADshow theater.

Explore the festival at scad.edu/animationfest. @scadfilm | #SCADAnimationFest

The Hot Sheet: 13 New

Shows to Catch at

Cartoon Forum (Sept. 18-21) & MIPJunior (Oct. 13-15)

20 Dance Street

Producer: Cottonwood Media, in assoc. with Opéra National de Paris

Distributors: Federation Kids and Family, and ZDF Studios

Type of Animation: CGI

Adapted for TV by: Christel Gonnard

Target demo: Kids 6–11

Format: 26 x half-hours

Delivery: Q1 2025

Status: In Development

Synopsis: This heartwarming animated drama series centers around 11-year-old Maya, who leaves the Caribbean to join the prestigious Paris Opera Ballet School, unaware her destiny is about to change forever in the most unimaginable way.

Stand-Out Qualities: What makes this show unique is its realistic 3D CGI animation which incorporates dance scenes performed in motion capture by professional dancers. The 20 Dance Street universe also uses light in a special way that provides a strong rendering so that the dance studio (for example) almost becomes a theater stage.

Exec Quote: “With over 20 novels published to date since 2016, we are delighted to be adapting Elizabeth Barféty’s best-selling book series for TV,” says David Michel, producer and CEO of Cottonwood Media. “The compelling CGI and emotive storylines in 20 Dance Street create an immersive experience for kids on a par with any live action drama series, and at times, they might even forget they are watching an animation.”

Website: cottonwood.tv

Hold on Gaston!

Produced By: Dandelooo

Created by: Aurélie Chien Chow Chine, Chloé Sastre & Romain Gadiou, adapted from the book series Les émotions de Gaston” by Aurélie Chien Chow Chine (Hachette Enfants)

Distributed By: Dandelooo

Format: 52 x 11’

Type of Animation: 2D

Synopsis: Welcome to Corneville-la-Joie! In this peaceful village surrounded by green hills, life is really nice. This is the home of Gaston (and his friends), a young unicorn whose magical rainbow mane changes colors according to his emotions!

Target Audience: Upper Preschoolers

Delivery Date: Q4 2025

Stand-Out Qualities: This educational comedy series based on the hugely successful children’s book series Gaston’s Emotions, teaches children to identify emotions and manage them effectively. The series offers humor, social and emotional skills, expression and understanding of emotions and collective life, diversity, tenderness, strength of family and friendship ties, magic, dreams, music, nature, mindfulness and problem solving.

Exec Quote: Emmanuèle Pétry Sirvin, producer & head of intl at Dandelooo, notes, “This unique comedy will help kids to understand their own emotions and how to deal with them in a fun way. The series is full of creativity and with the cuteness of Gaston with his charm and humor.”

Website: dandelooo.com

A Mouse Called Julian

Format: 52 x 11’ series + 26-min. special

Target Audience: Preschool & Family

Type of Animation: CG

Created by: Developed by Mercury Filmworks based on a book by Joe-Todd Stanton

Synopsis:  A Mouse Called Julian is the tale of a mouse who is perfectly happy avoiding other animals. They seem to just get in the way, and sometimes even try to eat him! But one day, Julian has an unexpected dinner guest … When the fox tries to sneak into Julian’s burrow for a tasty bite of mouse, it finds itself stuck headfirst in Julian’s front door! At first alarmed and wary, they soon find themselves having a lovely dinner together, and it’s not long before each realizes that they have found a lifelong friend.

Stand-Out Qualities: The positive messaging in the story is a standout. It’s about the importance of friendship and taking the time to look at people a little deeper. The series includes the warmth, texture and charm of a traditional 2D show with the added depth of CGI.

Exec Quote:  Heath Kenny, Mercury Filmworks’ CCO, tells us, “A Mouse Called Julian is one of three original series in development at Mercury Filmworks that are based on acclaimed literary works that deliver a wealth of creativity with which to bring the stories to life. This series delivers engaging characters and storylines and it’s a powerful celebration of finding friendship in unexpected places. A message that will resonate with kids all over the world. A Mouse Called Julian also marks our expansion into CGI production, and we look forward to presenting it to buyers at MIPJunior.”

Delivery Date: 2025

Website: mercuryfilmworks.com/work/a-mouse-called-julian

Joy Eternal

Format: 13 x 11’

Target Audience: Teens

Type of Animation: Cut-out and Digital/Traditional 2D

Created by: Juha Fiilin

Produced by: Fiilin Good Films (Finland) and pre-production and production from CarpeDiem Film & TV and Mago Productions (Spain).

Synopsis: When brave 16-year-old Joy tries to take down the murderous mega-corp H&H, she fails twice, resulting in the death of herself and her parents. In the afterlife, she teams up with geeky security intern Oogle to destroy H&H in the afterlife. She also discovers that she can levitate if she suppresses her emotions!

Stand-Out Qualities: This visually rich and imaginative animated series explores themes of loss, grief, environmental crisis and the power of never giving up. Joy is a strong and determined character who is willing to stand up for what she believes in, even when it’s difficult. The series is also full of humor and adventure, and it offers a unique social commentary on the world we live in. Etienne Aubry (Rick and Morty) is the animation director and Benoît Godbout is the consulting director.

Exec Quote: “We are really excited to see Joy Eternal come to life on YLE platforms this fall!” says YLE producer Salla-Rosa Leinonen. “Many teens and pre-teens watch animation made for adults, but now we can finally offer an animated series really made for them with lots of attention to details.”

Website: pinkparrotmedia.ca

What’s Up Eesha?

Produced by: TeamTO

Exec Producer: Corinne Kouper

Creative Development Exec: Mary Bredin

Director: Loïc Espuche

Target Audience: Preschool, 4-6

Format: 11 x 52’

Type of Animation: CGI

Synopsis: Eesha is an imaginative penguin who loves to create, but she frequently finds her plans disrupted by her rambunctious fun-seeking friends. Set in whimsical Snowtop, this series follows the twists and turns of an arctic community’s unexpected adventures as they learn to live together, with all the comedy, silliness and occasional miscommunication that comes from a group effort!

Exec Quotes: “In this series, there are no villains, just the occasional conflicting needs. Even when Eesha is in need of some alone time away from friends, she makes sure never to offend them. After all, even if they’re a bit clingy, they are her best pals!” says Loïc Espuche. Adds Mary Bredin, creative development exec, “We are surrounded by lots of bad news these days which even kids feel. So, stories about how a positive little penguin works with others to find a happy and perhaps unexpected solution feels like the show we need for these times.»

Website: teamto.com

The Invisibles

Format: 26 x 7’

Target Audience: Kids 6-9

Type of Animation: 2D and CG

Created by: Lotura Films

Synopsis:  What do you get when you mix humor, friendship and just a touch of science? This entertaining and educational show follows the adventures of loveable micro-organisms set in a visually attractive, fantasy world. Young audiences will explore some of the hidden corners of our planet along with The Invisibles and learn about the values of empathy and teamwork along the way.

Stand-Out Qualities:  The show beautifully mixes humor and entertainment, while teaching kids about science.

Exec Quote: “We strongly believe that we were able to find a bridge to connect the world of science (an invisible world) with young viewers at home through great adventures and comedy,” says series producer Miren Berasategi.

Delivery Date: 2026

Website: loturafilms.eus

OCT 27-29 2023

Pasadena Convention Center (Pasadena, California)

THE ULTIMATE GATHERING OF ANIMATION ARTISTS!

LightBox Expo (LBX) brings the artists and creatives behind your favorite animation, along with games, films, TV shows and illustrations, all in one roof! At LBX, we aim to ignite your passion, fuel your imagination, and propel you to new artistic heights!

LBX provides a vibrant space for artists to congregate, meet and celebrate their craft with fellow creatives. It’s a place for artists to share their work with the public, further their skills in their respective industries, and make meaningful connections that will help artists thrive in the entertainment industry.

The primary mission of LBX is to educate and empower artists. We offer hundreds of programs, interviews, portfolio reviews, handson experiences, presentations, demos and more to help you take your art to the next level, learning from the very best in their fields!

Follow us on Social Media

@LightBoxExpo

We hope to see you there!

For More Information & To Buy Tickets, Visit: LightBoxExpo.com

Isadora Moon

Format: 48 x 11’ and 2 x 22’

Target Audience: Kids 4-7

Type of Animation: 2D

Produced by: Kelebek Media for Warner Bros. Discovery (U.S.) & Sky Kids (U.K.)

Distributed by: APC Kids

Synopsis: Isadora half fairy, half vampire doesn’t realize just how special she is! She might have a lot to learn about the human world but with some luck (and her fairy wand and vampire skills) she’ll find her way through all sorts of astonishing adventures and to all sorts of extraordinary friends.

Stand-Out Qualities:  Based on the hit book series created by global publishing phenomenon Harriet Muncaster, with over 4.3 million copies sold worldwide in 36 different languages, the character has a huge following among children globally.

Exec Quote: Lionel Marty, Managing Director of APC Kids, tells us, “Isadora Moon is a magical, vibrant series filled with adventure, curiosity and self-acceptance. Isadora is an enchanting protagonist who is discovering her place in the world and learning how to define and embrace who she is through her heritage, a theme that resonates with millions of children around the world. We’re looking forward to introducing a brand-new version of Harriet Muncaster’s beloved characters to global audiences at MIPCOM.”

Delivery Date: Episodes available to view from September 2023

Website: aboutpremiumcontent.com

Buddybot

Format: 52 x 11’

Target Audience: Kids 6-10

Type of Animation: 2D

Created by: Vincent Souchon

Produced by: Xilam Animation

Directed by: Co-directed by Ahmed Guerrouache and Audrey Logeais

Synopsis: The series tells the story of the friendship between Chloe, an ordinary 12-year-old girl, and Buddybot, a little robot from the future. Sent by a mysterious creator, the robot comes from a time when the effects of climate change have drastically taken their toll. Buddybot wants him and Chloe to take action now, in order to instill positive change for the future. In other words: Save the world!

Exec Quote: Marc du Pontavice, Founder and CEO at Xilam Animation, says: “Comedy continues to be central to our company ethos, but it’s exciting to now use the genre as a way to approach timely and important topics. We’re sure Chloe and Buddybot’s heart-warming friendship and mission to save the world will resonate with audiences everywhere. We look forward to introducing the comical series to the international market at MIPCOM 2023.”

Delivery Date: Q3 2024

Website: xilam.com

Cracké Family Scramble

Format: 52 x 7’

Target Audience: Kids 4+ & Families

Type of Animation: 3D

Created by: Patrick Beaulieu & Denis Doré

Distributed by: CAKE

Synopsis: In  Cracké Family Scramble,  the fun antics and over-the-top adventures continue as overprotective first-time daddy ostrich, Ed, scrambles to keep control over his household. New to parenting and on his own with eight kids, Ed tries to be the best dad he can and luckily, his unlimited cartoon powers and ingenious creativity compensate for his lack of experience!

Stand-Out Qualities: This is a non-dialog, slapstick comedy based on a popular comedy franchise.

Exec Quote: “We are excited to be working with Squeeze on  Cracké Family Scramble, a fun, family-first, high quality adventure series, in which hilarious stories and physical humor centered around family life and the many challenges of an inexperienced parent!” says Edward Galton, distributor CAKE’s CEO.

Delivery Date: Available now!

Website: cakeentertainment.com

A Horse Named Steve

Created by: Co-developed and co-produced by Sixteen South and Corus

Entertainment’s Nelvana based on the picture book by Toronto author-illustrator Kelly Collier (Kids Can Press)

Distributed by: Sixteen South Rights

Format: 52 x 11’

Type of Animation: 2D

Target Audience: Kids 4-7

Synopsis: Steve is a fine horse. But he thinks he could be finer. He wants to be exceptional! With a distinctive visual style filled with slapstick comedy and an undeniable silliness, A Horse Named Steve follows our most innocent, naïve and loveable hero on his mission to be his best self.

Stand-Out Qualities:  Distinctive visual style, hilarious storylines, larger than life antics, slapstick comedy and a loveable hero who teaches children about the importance of friendship, teamwork and appreciating one’s true self.

Exec Quote: Colin Williams, Creative Director at Sixteen South, says, “With its quirky visual style and offbeat humor, A Horse Named Steve is the perfect addition to the Sixteen South stable. We hope that the laugh-out-loud antics of this endearingly self-absorbed horse will delight its young audience and see Steve galloping on to global success!”

Website: sixteensouth.tv

Super Random Stories

Format: 26 x 11’

Target Audience: Kids 5-8

Type of Animation: 2D

Produced by: ImagicTV and Scared Ghost

Created by: Mireia Hernández and Sergi Hernández

Synopsis: Lea and her younger brother Eric set out to protect the forest near their farm, which is home to magical characters and fantastic stories. The amazing world, known also to their Grandmother Angela, is slowly vanishing because people have stopped believing in it.

Stand-Out Qualities: The stories that take place in the show are universal and can be recognized and enjoyed by viewers all over the world. Stylistically, the animation offers more freedom of expression for the artists, similar to the early American animated shorts of the 1920s.

Exec Quote: Jordi B. Oliver, producer at Imagic TV, says, “Super Random Stories immediately caught our attention as we see saw in it the perfect series that bridges two generations. Through a unique and marvellous design that takes us back to the good old days of animation, we plunge into universal stories we’d like to preserve.”

Delivery Date: June 2025

Websites: scaredghost.com / imagic-tv.com

Aquila

Format: 52 x 11’

Target Audience: Kids 7+

Type of Animation: 2D

Created by: Award-winning writer and illustrator, Henry Paker.

Produced by: Zodiak Kids & Family France, co-produced by Tiger Aspect Kids & Family

Synopsis: Aquila is an animated sitcom following our hero, in a hilarious medieval world which looks a bit like the 21st Century, but somehow completely different. Our hero Aquila replies to an ad for an exciting career opportunity at the palace: to work for an unpredictable minor royal, Princess Winifred, as her personal YeMail assistant!

Stand-Out Qualities: An original comedy series, from the creators of Totally Spies! and the Mr. Bean animated series, Aquila hits the beats of a modern sitcom, set in a unique bustling medieval metropolis filled with visual gags.

Exec Quote: Tom Beattie, managing director of Tiger Aspect Kids & Family, says, “Coming from the genius mind and hand of the creator, Henry Paker, Aquila is packed with visual humor with modern-day elements that the viewers will recognize, even though it’s set in a medieval world. With great writing and funny illustrations, Aquila is an action-packed animated comedy that we know ye will all love.”

Websites: banijaykidsandfamily.com/companies/zodiak-kids-family-france banijaykidsandfamily.com/companies/tiger-aspect-kids-and-family

The Wolfbjorns

Created by: Liam Swann, developed by BBC Ignite, BBC Studios Kids & Family

Distributed by: BBC Studios Kids & Family

Format: 52 x 11’

Type of Animation: 2D

Synopsis: Animated in mockumentary-style, this hilarious but heart-warming series follows the daily lives of a quirky Viking family as they navigate the challenges of being different in the modern world. As the Wolfbjorns attempt to fit into modern society, they encounter numerous challenges and cultural clashes that give rise to farcical situations.

Target Audience: Kids 7-10

Stand-Out Qualities: An uproarious character-driven comedy with an unforgettable ensemble cast about fitting in when your family stands out. This relatable and unfiltered portrayal of an embarrassing family brims with strong British and working-class sensibilities that find inspiration from the outlandish real-life tales of the creator’s own rambunctious upbringing.

Exec Quote: Tony Reed, production creative cirector at BBC Studios Kids & Family, says, “If you’ve ever found yourself in an awkward situation, unsure how you fit in and embarrassed by your family then, like me, you’ll see a bit of yourself in Ulf Wolfbjorn. Ulf and his unconventional family remind us how important it is to laugh (sometimes at ourselves) and not take life too seriously.”

Website: productions.bbcstudios.com ◆

Funny Farm

Millimages introduces Camp Farmcreek, a charming, gentle comedy, at Cartoon Forum.

Indie French studio Millimages, which is best known for popular shows such as Molang, Mouk and Pirata & Capitano, is one of many global players which will be introducing new content at two of the season’s animation events, Cartoon Forum and MIPJunior. The studio’s head of development and producer Bonnie Lener recently spoke to Animation Magazine about the studio’s new series Camp Farmcreek, which is being presented at Cartoon Form. Described as a humorous, quirky series of 52 x 11 minutes, the show follows the adventures of Leo, Violet and San — three city kids who have been sent to summer camp for holidays, Camp Farmcreek.

“This camp isn’t a typical summer getaway: it’s an old farm roughly converted to a summer camp, all thanks to the one and only Hector — a farmer who’s both incredibly friendly and delightfully unconventional,” explains Lener. “It might not strike as the perfect spot for 11-year-old pre-teenagers; be-

ing surrounded by nature, farm animals and mud; and only doing activities that are a bit … rustic. Yet, the kids manage to have a blast, sometimes (well, let’s say often) getting into trouble. What they didn’t expect was that everything there would turn out to be incredibly exciting and full of wild adventures! Hector’s camp is about to redefine fun for these soonto-be teens!”

Wild & Rustic Fun

Lener says the show’s concept is universally relatable to children worldwide. “Everybody as a kid has experienced a first party, mischievous escapades, the excitement of making new friends, camping in the forest … And summer camp is the place that brings all of these ‘firsts’ together in one spot,” says Lener. “Therefore, our stories make it easy for viewers to relate even if  Camp Farmcreek sometimes surpasses reality: Everything leads to wild and crazy adventures! Combining a relatable concept with quirky stories is surely

going to captivate kids after school. Moreover, in terms of production, this concept offers great potential, with a multitude of narratives that could spread across multiple seasons, which is undoubtedly fantastic!”

The 2D-animated show seems to be perfect for the fun, light-hearted and cartoony content. “The tone is humorous, even absurd at times, with a cartoonish feel, yet not fully embracing the pure cartoon style, in order to leave room for more tender and touching moments,” says Lener. “The talented Hugo Cierzniak (50/50 Heroes, Mighty Mike) directed the teaser, and his expertise contributed to its success. We created the teaser at Millimages studios, and we want to maintain production in-house to preserve our French savoir faire. We used Flash Animate for animation and After Effects for compositing.”

The producer says Camp Farmcreek’s ability to be hilarious and transmit core values such as solidarity, tolerance and friendship, makes it a stand-out. “The stories are very much

Bonnie Lener

character driven, which naturally leads to excellent and funny storytelling,” she says. “Everyone is incredibly well-characterized, funny and has very different personalities. However, despite their differences, there is something that unites them all, and it is their love for this camp! So, whenever the camp is in danger, they all join forces to save the day. All its numerous imperfections have conquered everyone’s heart, which can be very touching at times! It’s a real family in a cheerful mess!”

In addition, Millimages is bringing several other noteworthy projects to the fall markets. Among them is an adaptation of the classic Bambi book, titled Bambi at the Grand Oak Hotel. The 52-episode show is tailored for preschoolers. “We are working on an ambitious CG sitcom project aimed at bringing Felix Salten’s iconic fawn back to our screens with a fresh and original approach, while still preserving the essence and major themes of

the book,” notes Lener. “We are also thrilled to present our new kids’ comedy series titled Watch out Wollyhood This 2D series promised to be another humorous after-school series, following the footsteps of our previous successes Corneil & Bernie and soon to be Camp Farmcreek. Additionally, we are developing Star Slingers, an innovative semi-serial project for kids/teens, which narrates the spectacular and funny journey of a duo composed of Cubbie, a pizza-loving bear, and Ozzie, a skilled sheep pilot! Our heroes decide to participate in the most-watched show in the cosmos, Who Wants to Become the Best Pizzaiolo in the Galaxy?”

An Expanding Portfolio

Lener says Millimages’ top priority for the future is to broaden its portfolio to meet the varied needs of preschool and kid audiences. “The environment today is highly competitive

and demanding,” she points out. “Each one of our projects is unique and targets a specific audience.”

When asked about the current TV and streaming climate in France, Lener says one of the main challenges is to cope with the market’s evolutions and to implement the best strategy to finance projects. “Indeed, we are facing major changes since the arrival of global streaming platforms, and their new participation in the French investment requirements,” she says. “We aim to diversify our financing partners; between historical broadcasters and the streaming platforms whose goals and interests are not always compatible. Finding common ground between these multiple partners is a key issue due to the increase in animation costs over the last few years.” ◆

Visit millimages.com for more information.

Corneil & Bernie

Molang

When Movie Monsters Take Over!

Cyber Group Studios unveils the fun new show, Erica & Trevor vs. Spooky Monsters, at Cartoon Forum this month.

Strange things are happening in Sycamore Dale! Fluorescent tentacles are crawling through sewers, werewolves are spotted on rollerblades and a giant rat has been chasing cats down the street. Monsters from old Z horror movies lurk in the shadows and haunt what used to be a quiet little town. Erica and Trevor know all this, but no one believes them. To save their town, they must send every monster back into the movie from which it escaped. In fact, they’re the only ones who can stop … The Spooky Monsters!

That is the clever premise behind Cyber Group Studios’ new show Erica & Trevor vs. Spooky Monsters, a 26 x 22-minute 2D-animated series, which is being showcased at the Cartoon Forum event in Toulouse, France, this month. Created by Julien Dinse and Cédric Stephan, the toon is the subject of a special presentation at the event, featuring director Olivier Pouchelon and co-creator Julien Dinse, as well as SVP, creative development & artistic production Pierre Belaïsch and artistic producer Maud Chougui.

A History of Forum Hits

“Cyber Group Studios is very proud of this selection, as it underscores the company’s commitment to expand its range of content to include a wider array of animation styles to appeal to audiences across a broader age range,” says Raphaelle Mathieu, the French studio’s COO. “Last year, the company introduced The Tern, an exciting new an-

ime action-adventure series targeted at viewers ages 12 and above. Canal+ announced the acquisition of the series during a press conference at this year’s MIFA Market. In 2021, we also presented our show The McFire Family, a 52 x 11’ series, which is now in production.”

Mathieu says she and her team are excited to present to the international broadcast community this fun and spooky new comedy series. “Erica & Trevor vs. Spooky Monsters marks the company’s further expansion into the comedy genre with content we hope that parents will enjoy watching and laughing along with their kids,” she points out. “We developed the series so that it has something for everyone — from audiences ages six to 96! “

According to Mathieu, comedy offers a fun way to address any topic. Erica & Trevor vs. Spooky Monsters stands out by blending comedy and age-appropriate spookiness in a unique way, providing amusement and “safe scares” while ultimately leading young viewers to confront their fears. The series never takes itself too seriously, rather the main aim is to have fun and support kids in overcoming some of their fears.”

She also mentions that the relationship between the show’s main characters — Erica the babysitter and Trevor the kid — will be very relatable to kids and parents universally. “The duo’s goal is to discover each monster’s weakness and, in doing so, tackle their own fears,” Mathieu points out. “Also, the monsters featured in the series are ‘serious,’ but they look ridiculous and funny, as

they all come straight from the Z movies of Goodman Films.”

Totally Awesome ‘80s

In addition, Mathieu says she loves the series’ ability to infuse nostalgia with a modern twist. “We expect that element to appeal to both kids and their parents,” she explains. “The incorporation of ‘80s references, like VHS tapes, and vibrant aesthetics, offer a nod to the past while also providing a captivating backdrop for the animated adventures. Viewers who are familiar with ‘80s culture will be able to immediately spot and appreciate those nostalgic elements, and those who weren’t yet born in that decade will be able to immersive themselves in that period and fully enjoy the series, too. This inclusive approach to nostalgia truly makes the show a standout as well.”

The animation veteran also mentions that the show’s unwavering focus on addressing fears through interesting characters like Trevor showcases a thoughtful storytelling approach. “This also serves as a valuable tool to help children navigate their own fears,” says Mathieu. “Last, but not least, the trailer we have produced is hilarious. The series’ visual approach is very unique. We are so grateful to have such a talented team working on the show and are hopeful it will be warmly received, both by the industry and kids around the globe.” ◆

For more info, visit cybergroupstudios.com.

Raphaelle Mathieu

SOMETHING STRANGE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Movie monsters create mayhem in Cyber Group Studios’ new series Erica & Trevor vs. Spooky Monsters

PHOTO: DYLAN PATRICK PHOTOGRAPHY INC

Built with Great Imagination

Chris Bangle Introduces Us to His Charming New Show, Arky Arch Adventures.

One of the clever and highly original shows making their debut at the MIP Junior and MIPCOM market this fall is a show about a young Roman Arch who sets out to find his true purpose and save the world from devastation. The series, which is aimed at kids, 6 to 12 is called Arky Arch Adventures and is the brainchild of Chris Bangle, a former car designer who worked for BMW for 17 years.

“I was tasked with bringing emotion to design, and to achieve this, it helps that car designers see a world of ‘living things,’” says Bangle. “I have also always had an interest in drawing cartoons too--and the original idea for Arky Arch actually started as a 50’s style comic book illustration--the innocent

my-winning producer Eric Rollman (Fox Family, Saban, Marvel), who was also smitten by the project. “Following my role at BMW, I set up my own design company, Chris Bangle Associates, based in Clavesana, Italy,” notes the show creator. “Along with our team of designers, we serve a wide range of clients from luxury goods to home electronics, superyachts, and automotive design. Arky Arch Adventures is the first of our original IP that we’ve developed into an animated television series.

need to know that the world of Inanimatti are not ‘man-made things brought to life through magic,’ but were co-created with us in one unified reality, which means everything in our world is just a copy of them,” he explains. “Of course there are many Inanimatti that don’t have parallel in our world, and that makes for some surprising original and entertaining characters.

Bangle and his team are launching Arky Arch Adventures at MIP Junior and MIPCOM this year. “We’re lucky to have Eric Rollman on board as producer to help us introduce the series to potential buyers and/or co-production partners. Our goal is to have a deal in place by the end of the year so that we can move into production in early 2024 and have it ready for delivery in 2025.”

He also notes that he’s proud of the fact that the Inanimatti characters have the power to teach younger viewers the importance of accepting diversity and change in others

cartoonist in me that was having fun. But when my team took this to create a giant sculpture, a Big Walking Arch, it became symbolic of this extreme interpretation of car design as we tried to get the most character and personality out of what is normally thought of as a static architectural structure.”

Architect of His Destiny

Bangle and his team then went on to flesh out Arky’s backstory. “We wanted to use the spectrum of ‘man-made stuff’ to stimulate imagination in kids and to inspire them to see the world like car designer’s do –– as full of living things.’ So, all of Arky’s friends and rivals are objects and architectures, each with their own personality, co-existing in this make-believe fantasy universe that we call the ‘Inanimatti,’ an imaginary reality where the ‘things’ are alive.”

Along the way Bangle, joined forces with collaborator Fiorella Marengo and Em-

Bangle believes Arky Arch Adventures uniquely optimizes the medium’s potential by turning everyday objects into relatable characters in an extraordinary world. “The series delivers immersive and edge-of-your seat storytelling, with incredibly unique world-building to create a fun, funny and dynamic adventure series that will connect and resonate with kids on every continent,” he says. For long-form storytelling, the adventures are a first and sure to be a conversation for years to come.”

He says the characters in the show look like real things instead of your typical cartoon characters. “To understand that you’d

as well as within themselves. “Arky Arch’s characters and story will inspire critical thinking as they learn to see the world and buildings around them not only as architectural constructs, but as characters with their own story to tell,” says Bangle. “With the events that surround the younger generation in the world today, a fresh perspective can do wonders. Arky’s world is about purpose— the why of everything––and will serve as a powerful and timely tool for the viewers to better navigate through anything the world tosses their way, transforming confusion and stress into a sense of wonderment.”

For more info, visit arkyarch.com

Lil Critter Workshop: Poised for Big Growth Spurts

In 2015, industry veterans Walid Omar, Lorna Henderson and Brian Chong joined forces to launch an animation production house called Lil Critter Workshop in Malaysia. “Our goal was to create fun, entertaining and marketable animation with global appeal,” says Walid. “Our debut show, Hogie the Globehopper, reached over 108 territories and was dubbed into five languages. Following this success, we ventured into digital content for kids, providing creative services from design and pre-production through to production and post. This allowed our team to explore diverse styles and requirements, enhancing our creative adaptability and accelerating the growth of our studio.”

The studio’s next show Buck and Buddy premiered on CITV in 2018, later airing on Cartoon Network Japan and APAC, winning the Asian Television Award for Best 2D Animated Series in 2021. Lil Critter is now in the latter stages of realizing its comprehensive ten-year creative and business growth strategy of which its newly launched U.K. and digital studios are key pillars.

“Coming from the U.K., it was always my aspiration to return and create, develop and produce shows from the country that shaped my formative years,” notes Walid. “We are now actively forging U.K./E.U. co-productions via our UK development studio with recent appointment Jan Stradling. Lil Critter Workshop now operates in three key areas: original TV IP creation, development and production from the UK; premium 2D animation production service for TV, and digital first 2D animation production.”

Digital Dynamos

Lil Critter Workshop recently opened a new digital studio offshoot in Malaysia to answer the rapid market growth and increasing demand for digital-first content. “We have developed a robust pipeline that enables us to track audience data and feedback and leverage a presence on TikTok and then YouTube,” notes Walid.

“This allows us to refine and adapt the content to target specific audiences effectively, which not only answers our clients’ strategic and commercial content goals, but also drives us to seek out and create properties that have the potential to thrive in this model. By embracing this approach alongside our longform and traditional animation projects, we have positioned ourselves at the forefront of the animated content landscape, enabling us to deliver engaging and impactful content to multiple audiences.”

Among the noteworthy animated projects in the pipeline is the new series Lawak Kampus: School Daze (aka LK School Daze for Western audiences), which is based on a popular Malaysian comic-book property. “This series embodies our desire to celebrate an iconic Malaysian anime comic while aiming to appeal to a global audience,” explains Walid. “We are passionate about blending Western and Asian design elements and comedy sensibilities. We affectionately refer to the series as ‘Madcap Adolescent Absurdity’ as we follow the adventures of the LK High School Class. Each episode presents relatable themes that inspire a series of harebrained situations, snowballing out of their con-

Walid Omar

trol and often ensnaring fellow classmates and even teachers in the ensuing chaos.”

The series, which debuted on TikTok in April 2023, is primarily aimed at the teen demographic. “As a digital-first property driven by social media, we engage with our audience across various platforms, implementing an ‘everything, everywhere, all at once’ strategy to find our audience and secure their validation,” says Walid. A total of 104 animated micro-shorts of LK School Daze will be released on TikTok, which will pave the way for an upcoming 52-episode series which will arrive on YouTube.

Investment in the U.K. studio and its broadcast development slate remains a top priority for Lil Critter. “We will continue to foster relationships and co-productions within the U.K. and EU as well as actively seeking opportunities for global collaborations,” he notes. “Simultaneously, we recognize the importance of digital-first content creation and distribution, which presents exciting opportunities for growth. Our Malaysian studio will play a crucial role in exploring and capitalizing on these digital platforms, ensuring our content reaches a wide and engaged audience. By addressing these challenges and seeking out strategic partnerships, we are confident we can overcome obstacles and continue our upward trajectory.”

Walid says the energy, attention to detail, and genuine passion of his team is evident in the content they create. “We have continuously evolved both creatively and technically to meet the ongoing challenges that indie studios face when aspiring to create original shows,” he concludes. “This adaptability and willingness to navigate obstacles are qualities that have helped us thrive in the ever-changing landscape of animation. Overall, it is the combination of our team’s love for the craft, the ability to fuse cultural influences, and our ongoing evolution that make our studio stand out in this competitive industry.”

For more info, visit lilcritterworkshop.tv

Rymanco’s Amazing Realms

Two new animated shows Café Automatica and Clawlolo introduce audiences to two very different, imaginative worlds.

Producer Lucy Tsoy tells us about Cypress-based studio Rymanco’s new animated shows at the fall markets.

Lucy, what animation shows are you introducing this fall? What sets them apart from the competition?

We have two TV series to announce: adventure comedy Café Automatica, and a musical comedy Clawlolo

The distinctive feature of Café Automatica is the setting: a café in space, visited by a wide variety of characters from all over the galaxy. We’re showing viewers a completely different reality with infinite potential for fun storylines. I love the odd couple friendship between our protagonists — the analytically-minded Ian and the independent, impulsive alien Agatha. This series about growing up, seeking independence, and recognizing that others have the right to be different, too.

Clawlolo is basically free therapy. There are a lot of stories about the underwater world, but Clawlolo is less about the location and more about a main character who is living his best life in perfect harmony with himself and the world around him — which is something we all aspire to.

Both shows are gender neutral. Café Automatica is tailor-made for those savvy pre-teens out there. We spotted a gap in the content scene, especially for those kids who’ve moved past the Paw Patrol phase but aren’t quite diving into the deep end with Adult Swim. Clawlolo is targeted at 3–6-year-olds, but will be a delight for everyone watching, bringing joy and a boost to mental wellbeing.

Can you tell us about the animation?

Both shows are done in 2D. The Café Automatica project has a fantastic international team in-

cluding scriptwriters from the USA, Ireland, and Italy. I am so pleased to have Irina Golina-Sagatelian as our animation director (Rick and Morty, My Little Pony, Sonic, and Carmen Sandiego). Our compositing supervisor hails from Egypt, and rigging is done in Cyprus — the main production hub, where it all comes together! Clawlolo characters originated in the imaginations of twin brothers from Hungary six years ago, when they were just 10 years old. Their father, animation director Alexey Alexeev (Log Jam) created the series using these characters and production is based in Hungary.

What do you love about these shows?

I love that we have the opportunity to release projects that achieve their original purpose, to entertain viewers. Clawlolo, has no moralizing or educational angle; it’s short, at times absurd, non-dialog musical comedy about Eric the crab, which shows us how to live life and be OK. Psychologists are always drawing attention to the issues around rising anxiety and depression among children, early development, gadgets, and isolation during the Covid pandemic, so we decided to just let kids be kids, to have a laugh and a bit of fun while watching. Happily, it was an idea that our colleagues supported. We are delighted to announce our partnership with the Canadian company, Epic Story Media, with whom we have signed a distribution agreement for digital rights.

As for Café Automatica, being the show creator, it’s tough for me to single out just one thing. Aside from the visual elements (which are amazing!), I absolutely

love the show’s cast. Together with 3Beep, a New York-based recording studio, we found the perfect voices. Ian’s voice was especially tough. Ian, just like his actor, is a bilingual Hispanic American teen, and as the story progresses, Ian will develop a deeper connection with his culture. His arc is about the search for his parents, and it was essential for us to get this story right. We make sure that even minor characters have their own mini-arcs. We wanted to show how relationships between characters change as they develop.

What were your inspirations?

I love sci-fi, so we took inspiration from Syd Mead, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune storyboard, Men in Black, and The Fifth Element When it comes to humor, our main reference is Parks and Recreation

Can you tell us a little bit about Rymanco?

Rymanco was founded in 2006 and is a dynamic film and television production company specializing in original and commercially viable feature films. Over the years, we have fostered strong relationships with production studios, scriptwriters, and directors worldwide. The pandemic left us unable to travel, but in animation production we discovered a unique opportunity to collaborate effectively with international teams.

When will the shows be ready for delivery?

We first started thinking about Café Automatica way back in 2017! Currently, we have a pilot ready and season one will be released at the end of 2024. First season of Clawlolo will wrap production in early 2024. ◆

For more info, сontact l.tsoy@rymancofilms.com

Lucy Tsoy

Clawlolo

Café Automatica

Mechamato: A Major Breakthrough for Southeast Asia Animation

Monsta’s popular series transcends geographical and cultural differences, attracting audiences in Japan and other major territories.

Ever since its introduction in 2021, the charming CG-animated series Mechamato from Monsta has gained a substantial fan base, capturing the hearts of audiences with captivating stories and diversity that resonate universally. The show’s appeal has extended far beyond its home region, achieving remarkable success in Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Asia Pacific, according to Faiz Zainal Aabidin, the director of marketing and distribution at Monsta.

Faiz says Mechamato is a major breakthrough for Southeast Asia animation. “We took a strategic approach to challenge the highly competitive Japanese market, adapting the content with preferences of their audiences apart from securing multiple broadcasters and distributors to make it available on numerous platforms across Japan.” The series can now be watched on Cartoon Network, Netflix, HBO GO, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Bandai Channel, Monsta YouTube, FOD, d-anime Store, J:com On Demand and many more to come.

Big in Japan

The success extends even further as Mechamato is set to be broadcast on the Japanese terrestrial television, Tokyo MX, starting from October this year. This inclusion in Tokyo MX’s programming further amplifies

the show’s accessibility and visibility, allowing even more viewers to experience the “Mechanize World of Mechamato”.

Mechamato made history by becoming the first non-Japanese title to win the Anime Fan Award at the 2023 Tokyo Anime Award Festival. This amazing accolade stands out as a significant milestone, surpassing more than 50 acclaimed anime titles of the year, including prominent series like Demon Slayer, Spy X Family, One Piece, and many others.

Unique Concept of “Mechanize”

Mechanize is the unique concept in Mechamato that Monsta introduced to stimulate kids’ imagination and spark their creativity growing up. The series’ main character is Amato, a boy with lots of creative ideas who masters MechaBot’s ability to mechanize ordinary objects into high-

tech devices such as turning a bicycle into a Mecha-Helicycle. Together they become the superhero, Mechamato, who fights and captures the bad robots.

Faiz points out that every episode will feature new creative mechanized devices and cool new robots for Amato and MechaBot to capture. “The show is packed with action along with tons of innovative mechanizations, surely entertaining for kids and the whole family,” he adds.

Mechamato is one of several creative IPs being produced by Monsta for audiences around the world. “Mechamato is a part of the shared universe that we created known as Monsta’s ‘Power Sphera Universe,’ ” notes Faiz. “Our goal is to expand the Power Sphera Universe, adding more creative IPs that will entertain fans around the globe with brilliant and interconnecting stories.”

For more info, visit www.monsta.com.

The Vampire at Sea Chronicle

VFX supervisor Brad Parker details the clever visual tricks and blood-curdling magic behind The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

- Trevor Hogg -

Director André Øvredal’s (Trollhunter) summer horror movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter fleshes out a chapter in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is set on a London-bound merchant ship. This “Alien set on the high seas” tale follows a mysterious terror that decimates the passengers of the ship which originated from Varna, Bulgaria. Days are safe, but sundown brings the terrorizing thirst of the vessel’s vampire stowaway, who emerges in darkness to bite a few necks before retiring to his makeshift cargo coffin.

As expected, not all the visuals could be achieved practically in this supernatural Gothic tale. This resulted in approximately 1,000 shots being digitally augmented by MPC and RISE under the supervision of Brad Parker (Loki, Ad Astra).

After principal photography, the original look of the iconic vampire went through an additional conceptualize phase. “We worked with Aaron Sims Creative, the ILM art department and a number of other people to create various images that represented what André had in mind and wanted to do in terms of the various stages of Dracula throughout the story,” explains VFX supervisor Brad Parker. “There were no new

magical elements added to him, but at the same time some creative liberties were taken. We put a lot of effort into this creature that starts out emaciated and humanoid. But then as he feeds, Dracula gets stronger, bolder and transforms into his winged self.”

Bloodsucking Features

Performing the role of Dracula onset was Spanish actor Javier Botet, who is 6’7” tall. “He gave us a great foundation for what Dracula’s locomotion could be and his basic attitude throughout these various stages in the film,” says Parker. “There was also a great prosthetic suit and face. We rifted off of that and ended up designing something that went a lot further. So, in most cases we ended up replacing what was there, but it was fantastic reference.”

Motion tests were conducted at Mr. X, which has been rebranded as MPC. “André would describe to me certain feelings or motions that he had about a scene. Then, we would look at what the actor had done and then talk about how things could be improved or tweaked or milk every ounce of drama and terror out of a moment,” explains the VFX supervisor. “We let the animators run free and

shoot tests of themselves on video cameras which were then cut together and laid over the edit of the film to see how those performances played.”

The director would then pick and choose which tests he liked best. “Once we honed in on what that performance could be, the team was able to do motion capture to get the general gist of the motion,” adds Parker. “But at a certain point, Dracula starts to move in a way that is beyond what a human being can do

IN SHIP SHAPE: The talented team at RISE had the challenging task of digitally creating the merchant ship on which most of the film’s events take place, as well as the storm and the ocean waves which play pivotal roles.

without incredible stunt rigs; that’s where hand animation would takeover. It was an iterative and creative process all along the way. Every step we were adding and adding.”

A character in its own right, is the fateful merchant ship travelling from Varna, Bulgaria to Whitby, England. “The interiors and exteriors of the boat set were gorgeous,” states Parker. “We worked with the team at RISE and they created most of the digital set and ship extensions, the water and storms. It’s safe to say that 95 to 98 percent of what you see on the ship other than the deck is digital. The way this was shot there wasn’t much bluescreen and we didn’t have anything to pull keys off of. When I came aboard the show, I looked at it and there were two paths we could take: We could either roto everything and then put the CG world behind it or obliterate the whole top of the deck, most of rigging and just keep the deck of the ship and the performers; that [second path] gave us the best look and was also the most economical.”

Only three shots in the oceanic horror tale utilized practical water. “Things needed to be heavily art directed,” remarks Parker. “They weren’t able to shoot at the time of day they wanted to. The ocean surface didn’t have the attitude or feel that André was necessarily after. At the end of the day, replacing everything was the best place to go to create a fully art directable environment for this film to live in.”

“If you compare the basic tank work to where we ended up, the film is so much more dynamic

because we’ve got these massive storms and waves,” he says. “They weren’t able to agitate the water in the tank, so it was mostly calm and there were some reflections issues.”

Parker believes that RISE has taken the water rendering and simulation technology to a whole new level with The Last Voyage of the Demeter “Not only are there beautiful simulations of the water surface and spray off of cresting waves and full interactivity of that spray, but there is also on the surface sea foam and that is fully independently simulated as well as a subsurface level of sea foam and dimensionality to the water,” he says. “Often digital water is about reflecting the light and the world down onto the surface; however, this you can actually see depth. That helped the believability.”

Avoiding the size and scale issues that would make the Demeter appear as a miniature was extremely difficult. “We went through a trialand-error phase on the size of wavelets on top of big waves,” reveals Parker. “We had LiDAR of the ship so we knew how large that was and had a general sense of the size of the storm and the big rolling waves that we might create. But it comes down to the wavelets and micro wavelets within those that give you a sense of true scale of water. We came up with this recipe that in most cases would make it look believable. It’s the same thing with atmosphere in a big open world like that. When you have a set and then the entire world around it is this massive overcast environment, playing with the

density of fog and how much you see through it, how far it transmits light, and any kind of interactivity of that fog, contribute to making something feel real or not.”

Digital Port and Boat Crash

Being on land for Varna was the most straightforward aspect of the job. “There was a great set which was heavily extended by RISE and all of the other ships were added in along with the port and water,” states Parker. “In this day and age recreating or extending something like that is simple in comparison because you’ve got this great basis for lighting and a real environment that you can rift on and extend.”

At the conclusion of the journey, the Demeter is on fire, shipwrecked off the English coastline. “A portion of that wreck was built on location, and we ended up extending quite a bit of that, but it gave us incredible reference for what the wood looks like when it’s wet, broken and in the rain at night. Leading into that, RISE did one shot in particular that is phenomenal where the boat is literally crashing ashore. It’s 100 percent digital and has full on water simulation pushing a wake forward over the sand. The boat starts to shatter as it crashes against rocks, the sails are rippling and rain is falling. Everything is fully and truly interactive. There are no cheats in the way those things were put together.” ◆

Universal released The Last Voyage of the Demeter in theaters on August 11.

‘RISE did one shot in particular that is phenomenal, where the boat is literally crashing ashore. It’s 100 percent digital…there are no cheats in the way those things were put together.’

— VFX supervisor Brad Parker

MONSTER MAGIC: Aaron Sims Creative and the ILM art department were on board to help visualize the transformations of Dracula in the movie. Right: Director André Øvredal on set with actor Javier Botet in full prosthetics. (Photo: Rainer Bajo/Universal Pictures and Amble Ent.)

Everything I Learned at SIGGRAPH 2023

- By Todd Sheridan Perry -

Now that SIGGRAPH is a couple of weeks behind us, I have a little more clarity on this event’s whirlwind of activities, panels, parties, and the well-attended expo floor at the L.A. Convention Center. Here are some of my thoughts on the 2023 edition:

 Size: While the show seems to have gotten smaller in scope over the years, there is still a lot of depth to it. The expo floor was relegated to the smaller West Hall of the L.A. Convention Center, instead of the South Hall. This resulted in a smaller exhibition space, which wasn’t quite filled. The talks and were held in smaller rooms with less capacity. To counter the problem of overbooked rooms, many of the talks were recorded or streamed in auxiliary rooms. However, not all of the panels were recorded. I’m hoping that future events will remove studio restrictions and that vendors and studios share the panels with global audiences online.

 Alliance for Open USD (AOUSD): In 2016, Pixar introduced Universal Scene Description (USD), the first open-source software that can robustly interchange 3D scenes that may be composed of different assets, sources and animations. Since then, the animation/VFX industry has been figuring out the best way to implement it. This has resulted in a variety of solutions based on the studio who is using it. The AOUSD is a collection of companies that are discussing the best practices and attempting to define a coherent methodology to span across the industries.

 Artificial Intelligence: this is and has been a topic that creates equal parts inspiration, contention, elation and terror. There were numerous talks and panels on AI ranging from utilizing the technology as an aide to artists, which is how I see it portrayed in the media (along with the idea that it will ultimately be the destruction of artists as a population). But SIGGRAPH isn’t only about artists: There are many other beneficial uses for AI and data analysis, such as letter and language recognition and assisting in processing mo-cap data. For those who are worried about losing jobs, fellow journalist Mike Seymour phrased it as such: “There were 30 VFX artists on Blade Runner There were 3,000 VFX artists on  Blade Runner 2049. Where are we losing jobs?” I would also point to one of the white papers about analyzing audience response, and then adapting animation to elicit that desired response.

 The NVIDIA Keynote: NVIDIA CEO and founder Jensen Huang’s

presentation was thoroughly intriguing, not only in terms of the new Ada Lovelace series of graphics cards — but for the Enterprise level of GPU processing stringing 256 GPUs to act as one, with more compute power, but less power consumption. The high point for me was the presentation of a real-time animation of two RC cars racing against one another. In comparison to the 2018  Storm Troopers Reflections, the race was exponentially more complex in terms of polys, rays per pixel, ray bounces, etc. Additionally, there is the integration of the Omniverse, which uses USD as a foundation, and NVIDIA is engaging many developers to tap into that ecosphere.

 Quantum Computing: Andrew Glassner of Wētā FX + Unity offered an amazing introductory course on Quantum Computing. While it might be pretty esoteric for the common man, this technology is going to take off, and when it does, it will grow fast. This talk dovetailed with IBM’s keynote back in November where they revealed a new quantum computer: the IBM Osprey with 433 qubits. It also paired well with Dr. Dario Gill’s Keynote about what’s next in the pipeline for quantum computing.

 Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs):  With all of the talk about VR, AR and 3D worlds, there is a need to populate those worlds with 3D objects .Traditionally, generating 3D models is laborious and time consuming. Put simply, NeRF, is a way to generate 3D objects and scenes from 2D imagery using neural networks.

 The Electronic Theater:  This always popular staple of the event showcased some of the best CG, animation and VFX work done worldwide. It’s a perfect reflection of how people with talent and artistic vision are pushing the envelope and using the latest technologies available to them. (If you’d like to revisit the Electronic Theater or you were not able to attend the show, Virtual Tickets are available for $25.)

I encourage everyone in our fast-evolving industry to attend this event — not simply to learn new things, but to meet our peers and those we look up to. Yes, we are a bunch of nerdy introverts, but it’s a great idea to use this week each year to push ourselves and get out of our shells! It’s certainly worth it. ◆

Todd Sheridan Perry is an award-winning VFX supervisor and digital artist. You can reach him at todd@teaspoonvfx.com.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote.

Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma won the Jury’s Choice prize for The Voice in the Hollow.

The Electronic Theater’s Boom (left) and The Diplomacy of the Eclipse won the Audience Choice and Best in Show prizes, respectively.

Adobe has integrated generative AI into Photoshop.

Surfing the Tsunami:

Suggestions for Artists and Writers on Embracing AI

- By Kevin Geiger -

In 2019 in Beijing, I delivered what I thought was a forward-thinking presentation on artificial intelligence (AI). My predictions on the disruptive potential of AI nearsightedly targeted bank tellers, insurance agents and truck drivers, but reassuringly dismissed the impact on content creators until decades later.

Cut to today, as AI disrupts virtually every industry including creative fields previously thought untouchable. It’s understandable that artists and writers, the historical purveyors of human emotion and intuition, may be skeptical of a technology seemingly poised to eat their lunch.

However, forward-thinking creators need to view AI not as a threat, but as a tool that can enrich the artistic process. As a classically-trained artist and storyteller who has recently incorporated AI into my workflow, I’d like to share some firsthand insights on the technology’s benefits.

I believe that AI’s capacity for assistance and augmentation outweighs its potential for our replacement. Contrary to alarmist clarion calls, AI isn’t designed to consume creative roles, but to complement them. For writers, AI functions as a digital assistant, providing suggestions on grammar, tone, style and content. AI can be used to brainstorm, outline, expand, analyze and polish — much as one does with a writing partner.

This doesn’t diminish the voice or the originality of mindful storytellers. Rather, it facilitates more fruitful brainstorming, drafting and editing, with the human author as the creative driver and decision-maker in the story development process.

AI can furthermore inspire creative innovation and help overcome creative blocks, as noted by Neil Tennant of British pop band Pet Shop Boys, who is using the technology to complete unfinished songs. AI’s ability to process vast datasets exposes artists and writers to new ideas while generating unusual art or writing prompts based on patterns unseen by the human eye. In experienced hands, this infusion of unexpected inspiration can foster unique, boundary-pushing work that is a far cry from the mind-numb-

ing, phone-thumbing crap most people currently associate with AI.

AI’s capability to simulate different narrative structures and artistic styles offers new creative sandboxes for writers and artists to play with. For visual artists, AI serves as a collaborative partner by suggesting content, composition, color and combinations. Those concerned about the ethics of “data scraping” can choose to feed AI platforms exclusively with their own creative input, as many of my colleagues and I do. The potential of any technology should not be judged or diminished based upon the lowest form of application. You can use a blade to murder someone or to perform a triple bypass.

Another beneficial aspect of AI is its potential for personal development. AI can analyze your creative work over time — highlighting trends, strengths and areas for improvement much as a career coach or mentor might. This objective analysis can guide your growth as an artist or writer — helping you understand your style and providing insights into your evolving creative voice.

Ultimately, artificial intelligence is a tool and you’re free to determine how much influence it has over your creative process. While AI may offer suggestions or insights, the final decision always rests with you. Embracing this empowered perspective allows you to

maintain your creative sovereignty while benefiting from AI’s capabilities.

And for those who have objections or misgivings about the fact that AI platforms are trained on the work of others, I offer this gentle reminder: so were you.

Skepticism towards AI among creatives is understandable given current media fear-mongering. But it’s more practical and beneficial to regard AI as a tool that can complement your unique human abilities and personal expression. By viewing AI as a partner in your creative journey, you can leverage its potential to enhance your work, inspire innovation, overcome creative blocks and drive personal growth.

As with any tool, the creative magic truly lies in the hands of the user. The brush alone doesn’t make the painting, nor does the pen craft the story. It’s human intention and expression that brings art to life. The mindful application of AI can help, not hinder, that process. ◆

Kevin Geiger is an award-winning creator, producer and entrepreneur with over three decades of innovation in the arts & entertainment — including 15 years with The Walt Disney Company as an animation supervisor and creative executive. For more info, visit kevingeiger.com.

“Skepticism towards AI among creatives is understandable given current media fear-mongering. But it’s more practical and beneficial to regard AI as a tool that can complement your unique human abilities and personal expression.”

HELPFUL MACHINES? The author suggests artists and executives should view AI simply as a tool to further enhance creativity.

Illustrations by Kevin Geiger

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Canadian indie animator Janet Perlman is best known for her 1981 Oscar-nominated short The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin, as well as My Favorite Things That I Love, Sorry Film Not Ready and Dinner for Two. Her latest short The Girl with the Red Beret is one of the official selections at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in September. We were very excited when the talented artist agreed to share some moments in her daily life with us. (You can find out more at janetperlman.com.)

Animation can be very demanding, especially when there’s a tight deadline. That means that sometimes I have to grow extra limbs in order to complete the work on schedule.  Photo: Judith Gruber-Stitzer

My collection of therapy toys atop my classic NFB animation drawing desk.

I’m working on the telephone man scene, from Tiny Screens This independent film combines animation with archival educational footage. The software I am using for this is TVPaint.

Dropping in at the French animation studio at the National Film Board. This is the wall of “current productions”, which includes, The Girl with the Red Beret / La fille au béret rouge, my most recent film. I am required to wear a red beret when on the premises. Photo: Rose Mercier-Marcotte

A visit with technical animation specialist Yannick Grandemont. I explain to him that this is “some kind of motion control perspective camera contraption”. Yannick is not impressed.

I am with the brilliant animator Claude Cloutier as we examine the strange harlequin romance painting that our dearly departed friend and legendary supporter of animation, Hélène Tanguay, gave to me. She really understood my aesthetic. Photo: Rose Mercier-Marcotte

A scene from The Girl with the Red Beret

Photo: Rose Mercier-Marcotte

Taking our dog Dandelion (Dandy) for a walk, we narrowly escaped being carried off in the talons of an enormous predatory bird.

Photo: Judith Gruber-Stitzer

Relaxing with Dandy and watermelon after a lovely day.

Photo: Judith Gruber-Stitzer