picture from la screening

thanks to Jamie Kezlarian Bolio for these pics from the La screening on facebook!

La Screening. Halifax Screening etcetera

hello there,

am just back in ireland after the madness of doing Canada and Norway in two weeks.

I know Kells screened in LA yesterday and also in Halifax.
I saw some positive posts about the LA screening on the Animation Nation message boards.
Anyone who has seen Kells at a festival or screening , please do post a comment on how it went down here.
Its great to get feedback from these screenings especially when I cant be there.

Its playing soon in Jersey I hear and Singapore I believe also. Anyway, let me know what you think if you were there!

Cartoon Forum

Good times for the Iriosh here in Norway. David OReilly winds Cartoon Dor and Brown Bag films wins producer of the year. Well done lads!

Norway

So here I am in Norway at the Cartoon forum. My flight from Vancouver to dubin was over booked so I ended up just making it here in time, after being bumped to a later flight.
Still, I had an extra day in Vancouver with Sean, Tony , Ross and co.

The screenings lastw eek in Canada, Amsterdam and Johanesburg were a success by all accounts.


Yesterday we saw some beautiful Fjords and tonight is the ceremony for the Cartoon D'or of which i am a jury member for.
My fellow judges Serge and Kari and I have a press conference in a few minutes ...

I am so jetlagged its not funny but still standing!

Vancouver

Is as pretty as reported. We had a stretch limo from the airport to the hotel.
Sweet .
Catching up with some old Canadian friends today before the screening.
Apparently Brendan Gleeson is in town , a couple of people said he was in the Irish pub we went to last night.
"The Irish Heather" pub is sponsoring the screening tonight and we had a fine if somewhat jetlagged pint or two there last night.

Denmark Screenings

http://www.buster.dk/b/a2.lasso?fid=4&s=2009003&aa=247&e=1

Check it out folks, the Northmen are'nt so bad after all...three screenings of Kells and even a chance to meet co-director Nora Twomey herself while you are at it!

Dinner with Docter

Had dinner last night after the UP premiere with Pete Doctor and Jonas Rivera, really nice fellas.
Pete had almost completely lost his voice from the publicity campaign trail though.
I have some souvenir scraps of paper with Carl Fredrickson on one side and his kind answers to my questions written out on the back!

Anyway it was very nice of Trish and Ruth to invite me and the family along and its almost exactly a year to the day that we had lunch with Pete in Emeryville. Time is just flying.

I gave him and Jonas a signed print and some original art from the comics and a copy of the DVD so hopefully they will let us know what they think of it.

It was my second time seeing Up, this time in 3d. I cried in the same places. And laughed at the same stuff. Its that good.

Right so, tomorrow its off to Vancouver ....

US distribution

Some months back Empire film group picked up Kells for Us distribution in Cannes.

They agreed to put the full contact information on this blog and anywhere else it might be useful.

If you want Kells in your area or for your festival or whatever here are contact details!-

No harm letting them know if you want to see it on a big screen near you....


Empire Film Group, Inc.
Attn: Eric Parkinson
24568 Piuma Road
Malibu, CA 90265
www.EmpireFilmGroup.com
EmpireFilmGroup@aol.com

Jean Baptiste ven Damme

two old pieces of Kells development art by JB and an amazing recent piece.

I still can't understand why this guy is not rich - so talented...and a lovely fella - check out his latest fantastic stuff at the link below... woudl'nt you love to see this stuff in glorious 3d Cg? Or on a comic book cover? or both?
I know I would.

http://thedoberman.deviantart.com/

Canadian screening in Vancouver

http://siggraph.ca/festivals/information.php?SPARKA09#20090916-F1

Check it out we are opening the festival! Class.

Stewy and I will be there and hope to see some of our Canadian friends from Skunk Fu!
days over there.

We are doing our "making of" presentation too with loads of concept art and early designs and stuff to show.

I will have to shoot back to Europe for the Cartoon forum in Norway before the end of the week unfortunately but Ross will be around for the whole shebang.

My own designs ....

I recently decided to dig thru' the years of development art .
I want to seperate out my own work to make a portfolio site for myself as a designer and illustrator.
Also, I think it would be nice to make a limited run of an Art of book to sell on the saloon website.

Anyway heres some charcter designs I did back in 2004 and I still like them in a lot of ways.
It looks like we might have had a bit more malleability in Brendan's face if we had stuck with this approach...

Festival screenings coming up -

International friends - see Kells in your neighbourhood!

Irish FF in Cape Town & Johannesburg (August 26 to Sept 6)

Fantoche in Switzerland 2009 (Sept 8 to 13)

Bergen Animation 2009 (Sept 10 to 13)

Bologne Cinematheque 2009 (Sept 27)

Copenhagen Buster 2009 (Sept 17 to Oct 2^nd)

Lund 2009 (Sept 17 to 26)

Frankfurt Filmmaker’s fest 2009 (Oct 4 to 6)

Sitges IFF 2009 (Oct 2 to 12)

Tel Aviv Icon 2009 (Oct 4 to 10)

Warsaw IFF 2009 (Oct 9 to 18)

Singapore Animation 2009 (Oct 14 to 21)

Kolkata 2009 (Nov 10 to 17)

Sofia 2009 (Nov 13 to Dec 3^rd)

Cologne Children FF 2009 (Nov 21 to 29)

London Children FF 2009 (Nov 21 to 29)

Turin Sottodiciotto FF 2009 (Nov 26 to Dec 5)