Vive le Blog!

It’s easy to feel a bit sorry for the last pitchers of Cartoon Movie. After two solid days of pitching you might assume that by the end of the event deals already have been made, hands already have been shaken and the purse strings are tightening on increasingly lighter wallets.

Of course this isn’t in fact the case. Another great thing about Cartoon Movie is the after care paid to participants. The event doesn’t end as soon as the red light has flashed on the final pitcher. The evening gives way to a meal on a grand scale, where further discussions can take place, subtly smoothed along with the aid of some fine French wine.

If I thought the Centre de Congress had a grand hall for their meals, then I was wrong. For the final meal of the event animation delegates gathered at the aptly named Hotel de Ville, Lyon’s city hall, and a venue so overwhelmingly spectacular, with grand, sparkling chandeliers dripping from the extravagant ceilings that it makes the Great Hall of Harry Potter look more like the shanty towns of Slumdog Millionaire.  Odd to think that in such a refined setting, steeped in historical, cultural significance there are serious discussions taking place over films containing wisecrackin’ CGI reindeer and the ‘Babes Balls and Muscles in 3D’ of Ronal the Barbarian.

It’s not just in the form of extravagant lunches that Cartoon Movie offers help. When you collect your welcome pack on day one, each individual is issued with a pass to get them into the various screenings efficiently.  Each pass has a barcode, which is scanned on entering the cinema. This way the Cartoon Forum gets an exact record of not only numbers in attendance of each session, but also the exact name and details of each audience member. This might sound rather ominous and dystopian, but these statistics are offered to the pitchers, and this invaluable information allows them to see exactly who might be interested in their work and follow up any possible opportunities.

During the shuttle trip to Hotel de Ville I realised I was sitting next to Anita Killi, the hugely talented animator behind ‘Angry Man’, the short that swept the boards not only at Annecy in 2010 (taking home the three of the main awards), but also many, many other festivals the world over. In fact, ‘Angry Man’ was eligible for the Oscar nomination pool six times. Krilli, it turns out, was the most awarded director of any film during 2010.

Not that you would know it meeting her. She is modest, self-effacing, and very friendly, describing herself as a mother, farmer and animator, in that order. Based in Norway, she runs a farm, and is totally self-sufficient. I wonder how she manages to juggle not only two children, but farming and animation all at the same time, surely three incredibly time consuming duties. She concedes, stating that she recently decided she wasn’t going to milk cows any more.

Killi is at Cartoon Movie just to observe. She says that producers have been trying to talk her into developing a feature film, but as her short took six years to complete she seems unsure if that is a path she wants to follow right now. Indeed, despite enjoying her visit, she is here at the insistence of the Norwegian film board. The film board representative was very keen to have her attend, stating that if he could not find the funding to send her to Cartoon Movie, he would pay for it out of his own pocket. With such a keen interest in Killi from Norway, it will be interesting to see how long we have to wait before she starts work on her first feature.

I take my seat at the meal next to another influential creative. What are the chances of that? Well, pretty high given the event is packed to the rafters with them. The director of Brown Bag studios, the twice Oscar nominated Cathal (not pronounced ‘Carl’) Gaffney. We decide to create an animation based on the best – and worst – pitches we have seen during the festival, regurgitating popular themes that reappeared over the past two days. After some deliberation we settle on a steam punk CG romp with an underlying environmental theme. ‘Stereoscopic Victorian Eco Warrier in Space in 3D and 2D were available’ is the working title. (Tagline: He’s Mean and he’s Green). Budget: 7 million Euros, so pretty cheap, I think you’ll agree. See our poster scrawled on the back of the menu, that Gaffney pitched winningly to the table.

Gaffney’s Brown Bag are the company behind the resurgence of Noddy, and CBeebies hugely popular Octonauts. Have bagged their second Oscar nomination they have opened an office in LA, and the project they brought  here, for ‘NightGlider’, is just one of three features they currently have in concept at the moment. They are big, and, on the cusp of entering the feature marketplace are due to get bigger. And with ‘Stereoscopic Victorian Eco Warrior from Space in 3D and 2d where available’ things simply cant fail for them.

Described as a kind of ‘speed dating’ exercise, Cartoon Movie has hopefully paired up producers and distributers, and played matchmaker to many future working relationships. With the upsurge in interest, the higher attendance figures and the increased number of projects put forward for consideration, the organisers have strongly considered adding an extra day to the proceedings in the future. Commendably though, they have resisted to date, and promise to continue. Cartoon Movie played host to 56 projects this year, and they consider that this figure is already more than enough feature films to be in development in Europe. It’s good point, and as tempting as it must be to increase the numbers, already things are saturated. Only the best projects are selected to make it through this far to Lyon, and it is great that Cartoon Movie act as a quality control.

As I left on the shuttle for the airport, a distributor approached a producer in front of me, apologising for missing their pitch, and admitting that they had heard great things about it. We were treated to own personal pitching session on the way to the airport, which continued as the bus pulled into departures and we went off to our own various check in desks. No doubt the conversation carried on as they jetted off into the sunset. A great movie ending for Cartoon Movie.

A coach met us outside the hotel this morning and took us through Lyon to the event’s main venue at the Centre de Congres. Lyon really is a beautiful city, and as usual at these events, I spend too much time inside darkened cinemas and not enough time sightseeing. My opinion of Lyon from inside a bus is that it’s marvelous. I have all day on Saturday hanging around Lyon before my plane leaves late in the evening. When I initially heard this in the UK I was a bit fed up at the prospect of hanging about, but now I can’t wait to wander around the place.

However that will have to wait. On arriving at the Centre de Congres at 9am we all took the escalator downstairs like a bunch of Morlocks and went off to attend the ‘Croissant Show’. Fortunately this wasn’t a French museum dedicated to the croissant, although I’m sure one probably exists. It was in fact a short event laid on by Cartoon Movie were all delegates congregated in a huge hall and were treated to breakfast. Imagine the great hall out of Harry Potter where they all have their feasts over large, long tables. It was something like that, only with magically self refilling baskets of croissants and urns of coffee instead of roast Hippogriffs and Snozcumbers and whatever else it is those fuckers eat.

The brilliant thing about this meeting is that there was a huge cinema screen at the front of the hall and we were played short trailers from everything that was to be screened during the morning. This is a great idea. I’ve never seen it at a festival before, and it works fantastically. Too many times I’ve taken a gamble on clashing programmes at a festival, having no idea about either of them, and gone for something that was not suited to my taste (usually to find out the program I snubbed goes on to win Oscars and be sent into Space as an example of the great achievements of man for alien races to discover).

The programming here is really well thought out. Well, for me, anyway. This could be coincience, or it could be clever timetablng, but none of the UK projects clash in the program. I noticed that programs that do clash tend to be quite diverse as well. Not many – if any – traditional animations are pitched against one another. A few whizz bang 3D CGI films are, but that’s down to the sheer number of them which no doubt makes it inevitable.

A brief talk from the president of CNC proceeded the trailers, noticeable for his utter respect for animation – and animators – to such a degree that he requires his departments to adjust their working practices around animation studios, rather than the other way around. Also, he acknowledged that preproduction was ‘particularly long’ and, amusingly, referred to it as occasionally being ‘financially delicate’. I’m not sure if the translators were having a laugh, as I’m sure he meant to say ‘fucking expensive’.

First up was a feature in development – 1884: Yesterday’s Future. This is the film that has Terry Gilliam attached, and he made an appearance. On video. Pre recorded. So not as exciting as the live-in-the-flesh cameo I had hoped for. It’s directed by Tim Ollive, a director who has worked with Gilliam for years, dating right back to the Python movies, and the style is very much in keeping. Utilisng a very interesting mix of live action puppetry against green screen (replaced with grubby backgrounds of Victorian London), this has Steam Punk stamped all over it, mainly in the form of zeppelin red busses.

Live action facial features are projected onto puppets heads, with some of the characters appendages being rendered in GGI. This lends the film a very unique look, being a strange hybrid mix of 2D, 3D and live action puppeteering, all composited into one. The story – a plot about ensalving the whole of Europe – combines to make this a fascinating project.

Further in development screenings followed, including ‘Phantom Boy’ a thriller from the same crew behind the stunning ‘A Cat in Paris’. Visually sumptuous, with heavy Piccasso influences abundant in not just character design, but also in the deformed perspective of the backgrounds. While acknowledging the similar look to the last film, the directors stress a very different story. However, even if this is a fraction as good as ‘A Cat in Paris’, it’ll still be great. And things seem to point to it being better. Shame we have to wait until 2015 for the scheduled release date…

The pitch – if not the film itself – of Ronal the Barbarian was the resolute winner of the day. Headed up by the incredibly dry director Philip Einstein Lipski, of Denmark, his nonchalant  manner was hilarious. From the trailer, the story seems to echo elements of ‘How to Train you Dragon’, but this is possibly just about the subject matter of Vikings and Barbarians – oiled up and  dressed in very tight leather. Lipski referred to the film as ‘How to Train your Fashion Designer’. A more adult film than we are perhaps used to seeing rendered in CGI, it’s tagline is ‘Babes, Balls & Muscles in 3D  - for the whole family’. If that doesn’t sound likely, I doubt Lipski cares. “We’re from Denmark. We are insignificant in all ways. That is why we made this film. Being from Denmark we have nothing to lose”. I think he probably has everything to gain, as well. Hopfully we’ll see this film released soon.

Lunch followed, and was great. But this isn’t a gastromony blog. It wasn’t chips, put it that way. Another trailer session set us up for the afternoon.

I went against better judgment and decided to sit through a pitch for a Christmas film  - ‘Niko 2 – Family Affairs’. I hate Christmas, and I bloody hate sanctimonious, saccharine, sentimental, shit filled Christmas films. Especially ones with cute wise crackin’ flying reindeer in like this one seemed to promise. But I thought it might be good to fuel some venom. Of course, all the cuddly nonsense was left at the door, as the film makers got down to business of business, and tried to flog their film. And do you know, it actually didn’t seem all that bad after all. The first film apparently did incredibly well, the team who worked on it seemed genuinely enthusiastic (I was hoping for crazy, suicidal types, like the depressed character who works in ‘Christmas Land’ in an old episode of the Simpsons) and the script appeared to be genuinely very good. It even made me think I’d quite like to see the first film to get up to speed on the characters. Perhaps I’ll download it for flight home. That’s the Yuletide spirit right there. My grinchlike heart has grown three times in size! Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

I almost ended the blog on that note, but I really should mention the ‘Projects in Concept’ that actually rounded the day off. Seven films in various stages of concept were put forward over the course of two hours. These varied from inspiring work that seemed like obvious shoo-ins for funding and backers, to a rather shoddy presentation for a film that looked like a hippy from the sixties had barfed up an acid trip onto the screen. Pitches of note included the unashamedly rotoscoped ‘Dome’, a German comedy about creation called ‘Prototype’, and a stunning looking film called ‘The Silent People’, in a visual style reminiscent of  ’Secret of the Kells’ and a story that had definite Miyazaki hallmarks. I’m putting together a list of what makes a good pitch at Cartoon Movie, and I made a few notes from this one!

More hastily written coverage tomorrow…

Night night.

*Deep inhale in*

*BIG BLOW OUT*

There. That was me just digitally blowing the digital dust and cobwebs off this blog.

*Cough cough!! Sneeze!*

Ooh, bugger, I just got some digital dust up my nose, and now there’s all digital snot down my shirt. Sorry about that.

I’ve been packed off to France. I’m in Lyon, for the opening of CARTOON MOVIE, the big event hosted by MEDIA. It’s a “co-production forum for European animated feature films.”

Yes, I have little idea what that means, yet, either. It’s my first time to one of these events. It’s also my first time to Lyon, and so, inevitably, the first thing I did was get lost. When I went up to a French man to ask for directions things played out like this:

Me: Excuse me, I’m lost. Do you speak English?

French Twat: Yes I do but I’d rather speak Spanish.

Me (thinks): I’m going to call you a twat on the internet later.

Kapow! Take that, Frenchie! (Naturally I actually replied with a simpering apology for not being able to speak Spanish either)

So anyway, I’m here. The sun is out and I’m lovely and toasty from my warm French welcome. Nothing too exciting has happened yet. I’ve been away already this week, and so I had to set off at 2.45am this morning, which is a bloody stupid time that nobody should ever have to wake up at. I flew into Amsterdam and then onto Lyon. The second flight was a smaller ’shuttle bus’ type flight, and was, I suspect, populated only by animators, as it was an odd mix of very shy and retiring types and a few ‘whacky, zany jokers’. Or ‘wankers’, for short. If I sound like I should cheer up and am being a miserable sod, I should remind you I’ve been up since 2.45am.

On the second part of the flight it turned out that I was sitting next to a twice Oscar nominated animation house owner. He very kindly bought me a coffee and introduced himself as Carl, and we had a good chat all the way into Lyon, me and Carl, my new mate Carl. We reached Carl’s hotel first, so I bade my new best friend Carl a big ‘Bye Bye Carl’ bye bye. Naturally the first thing I did when I got internet access was to look him up on Google and realised that his name is not Carl at all and I had heard it wrong and been using the wrong name all along.

Terry Gilliam is here, apparently, so I have my eyes open for any big feet that may suddenly appear from the sky and crush me. So far I have collected my ‘Welcome Pack’ – a black, shiny PVC bag with vaguely bondage-esque undertones, and with a strap that is slightly too short, like when your mum sends you too school on the first day with a pair of trousers on that you suspect are too short, but it’s not until you get to school and everyone laughs and calls you a twat for wearing too short trousers that you fully realise the full extent of the error.

However, my too short bondage bag contains all the information of the screenings and presentations of the event that I need to know, so I have spent much of the afternoon getting up to speed with events and trying to fit in. Now all I need is the address of the local S&M club for sado-machoists who have been dressed by their mums.

More news tomorrow. Proper news, too, I hope. This is more me just trying to get back into writing about stuff I’ve been up to, today. Thanks for indulging me. The program looks great and there are some really interesting projects in development and being pitched. Hopefully I’ll get to see a future biggie here…

(Incidentally, I know that blogs are old hat and everyone uses Twitter now, so if you find yourself getting bored of any of my postings and losing concentration, please read it 140 characters at a time before taking a break to look at some videos of cats on YouTube before returning to read another 140 character chunk. Also, try ignoring any vowels to help. Thnky)