Michel Ocelot

Crazy day yesterday. Very busy morning , then Adrien Merigeau the art director for Song of the Sea visited. He was a bit sick but we had a good chat and a nice lunch to get going on the BGs for that project. We got the train to Dublin where he got the news from Ross that the Irish Film Board has approved the funding for his short film we are trying get made -" Old Fangs".
Happy, happy days!
The guy on the train beside us was wondering why we were yelping and giving high fives and stuff . We had to explain.

Anyway Michel Ocelot visited Dublin last night and showed his absolutely gorgeously designed feature Asur and Azma.
Its really visually stunning.
The Irish Directors Guild had him over for a talk about his work and I have not seen him since 2003 or 2004 or so when we still financing Brendan. At that time he showed me some stills for Asur and Azma , the film looked just like the concepts as I remember them.
I remember he did'nt like the designs we had for Brendan at the time - too American and "Disney" he said, I thought he was right actually and as Didier Brunner had said the same thing I started to redesign them that weekend - it was an Easter Long weekend, I remember gettinga ll buzzed up to go in a new direction at that stage, ahhh far off days of youth and yore.
He's an awful nice guy, very funny and straightforward with a great attitude to animation and filmmaking in general.
He said he made notes for Asur and Asma for a year while working on other films and then wrote it in 2 weeks.

Janey.

He says the dialogue always changes from the script to the storyboard as he finds the characters often say too much or it does'nt feel right once they are actually drawn up and facing each other on screen. Its a good approach I think.

Anyway it was a good night , because we had some drinks afterwards with Barry O'Donoghue and the Barley films bunch. They also got a Frameworks this year so happy days all 'round.