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.