hey and ho and hi

so - another week or so whizzes past faster than you can say something that does'nt take very long to say

Got thru' very little boards , its getting slower and slower as we get busier and busier.
Anyway its still going forward and the current system with remi doing a layout pass on the boards Nora and I do is working really well.

Finally got some closure on the main part of the Irish finance which is nice, its a drip by drip process but we are in a much sturdier place now.
So that was nice.

Emm,deadlyBgs by Stewie , Adrien and Lily this week - starting to see the more creative Bgs that are part of the more lyrical parts of the film that I'd been looking forward to and now I'm on the forest part of the boards its fun to be opening up outside of the confines of super tight continuity issues that we had to respect "inside" Kells itself as a location.
Its funny, at this point I almost feel like I could walk around that space, and although theres loads of artistic license in the style we picked, it feels consistant when I scroll through the 100 or so Bgs or "scene illustrations" that we've done so far.

Eve, an intern from France, has done a beautiful job on a layout test Remi set for her and we are hopeful she will be able to join our team for a while this summer.

Raining cats and dogs these days you'd swear it was'nt summer at all.

We are probably recording the voices the last week of this month now - trying to get Mick and Brendan Gleeson into the studio at the same time is tricky as they are both busy. We hope to bring the kids who will play Brendan and Aisling down for a workshop one of the weekends between now and then.

Martin has been cleaning up the modelsheets for Cellach recently -looks classy. But Barrys drawings are so tight that its kind of easier than normal he says. Theres no redrawing going on between the rough and the clean its just all about the line. He's a bit of an illuminator is our Martin!
The thing with good crew, I can't say it enough, is it makes it seem almost easy somedays!
Remi often spots important stuff on the boards too or suggests really cool alternatives that I did'nt think of when I was plowing thru' a second pass of a scene.

Theres a lovely frisson of jealousy and awe and a bit of gratitude and probably loads of other stuff when you see people taking your stuff and going further and making it better than you would have on your own. I know Disney DVDs are full of this kind of praise and it usually makes me cringe but there you go, its just a fact.

I was at a "artists day" today in the Castle in Kilkenny- just a networking kind of day with workshops and all. I did a writing workshop, one of the speakers was a novelist that used to write for tv, He wrote on that great puppet show from years ago that I loved as a kid - "Spitting Image". Its mad the heads there are around Kilkenny. Liselott and Nora and Mike were there too. |The castle is a class space, big old beams and stone walls. Maybe in a year or so we'll have a preview screening there or something! Teddy Newton from Pixar gave a talk there last summer as part of Feile Beochán - the Irish animation festival that Ross John of the Murrays ran with Kairen Wailloch.

Didier Brunner the French Producer, Fabrice Ziolkowski (all round cool cat and screen writer) , Bruno Coulais (the composer from France) are visiting this week. Sure it'll be great craic.
Probably won't get much boards done.

We recieved some ink and paint tests from Belgium yesterday , looks great to see some coloured animation. Nora, Martin and myself will head over there week after next to see the crew there and work thru' some smaller issues that are easier sorted face to face.

Sin é muintir le Dhia,

Tá alán obair agam inniu , bhfeidir go scriobhfaidh mé cúpla rudaí eile amarach,

Slán anois,

T