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.