snaps from the iphone

kitchens at the abbey
dinner at the abbey!
delphine and delphine in paris at screening of all new french trailers!
me about to go french tv
marie laure has cool boots
trish and paul move a lot when they talk!
breakfast in Auvers (Annie had Celtic Hearts playing as well!)
Dinner in the abbey
jean paul at the entrance to the abbey
Didier Brunner and Jean Paul
Dinner on "Disney day"
Yves and me strangely happy at Vincent van Goghs graveside
Jean Paul at the abbey
screen at the abbey
audience at the french premiere (can you spot Michel ocelot?)
Mireille in Angouleme (she approved this pic)
fontevraud abbey
premiere in Angouleme two gurning sound designers!
Elsa (from Paris) and Elisabeth (from Kilkenny) at the screenings for Image par Image
Richard the Lionheart
Marie Laure and Frits in Brussels

snaps from my iphone

fontevard abbey
tv crew at metropole brussels
cinema in paris suburbs
floor at fontevard abbey
my bed in brussels metropole hotel
abbey gardens
b+b in auvers
viviane interviewed for belgian telly
metropole hotel
me in metropole hotel

auvers beautiful b+b run by annie
viviane van fleteren belgian producer in metropole
sign for screening at the abbey
alain, director of the cinema in paris suburbs
cocktail party dundrum for disney day
monks dorm turned cinema in fontevard abbey
angouleme , busier than i've ever seen it!
paris premiere
angiouleme comic festival
opening night of image par image

Image par Image

The last day of the trip I was totally and utterly wrecked! But it was great !
As part of Image par Image the Val D'oise animation festival we showed the film in the suburbs of Paris.
The kids that came (from local schools) are from a very depressed area of Paris and usually would not get to the cinema much. They were such a fantastic audience, laughing at every joke, jumping at every shock. Very attentive and excitable! No parents at these screenings so the energy was different again.
It was great to answer there questions, one chain of questions made me laugh -
"Is it a real Book?" Yes (gasps)
"Is it a real place ?" Yes ( oohhs)
" Is it a real film?" (laughs!)

Anyway their questions and observations were really honest and informative and it was good to see they engaged and "got" the film even with no frame of reference for the subject matter etcetera. They just bought into the story of Brendan and thats as it should be.

My translator was the very nice Elisabeth Geary who spotted my Kilkenny colours on my luggage right away and realized we were both Kilkenny cats. It was nice on the last day to have someone with the same accent to chat with! She was a great help translating for me during the Q+As afterward the screenings and at the opening film that night.

That night we had the Opening night screening , more for teachers , adults and cinema owners.
We had slightly more cerebral questions then!

Yves and all his team deserve big props for the work they do with this festival, making unusual and beautiful films available and accessible to kids who wouldn't usually find them, also giving the films a chance to be discovered by showing them for months after they have finished their commercial run.
I stayed in a very pretty little B+B in Auvers near where Van Gogh is buried. I will definitely return I can take time to appreciate it better!

Merci Beaucoup toute le monde!
J'espère que chacun en France aime le film !

Poster in Paris

today I was in a taxi and one of those rolling posters on a newstand rolled around and there was the poster! yeay.

3 clips from the French version

http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/three-new-clips-for-tom-moores-brendan-and-the-secret-of-kells/

These clips were released as part of the press kit here in France.

They are in French (it was great to meet young Robin Trouffier the

French voice of Brendan today)

Aislings' song is still in 

English and in Irish even in 

the French version, sung by Christin Mooney ;)

Fontevraud, Angouleme and then Paris Whew

Its one of the "blurry" trips again, kind of like the L.A. trip where everyday is so packed its hard to know when I am never mind where I am.

Anyway the Abbey at Fontevraud was fascinating , we had some time in the morning to take it in and its really beautiful. The history of the place is amazing but its so peaceful and quiet.

I could'nt have imagined a better place for a screening, really appropriate . The projection was actually  in an old dormitory where the monks would have slept as it turned out. 

 It was totally packed with kids from all around the area and we had some great feedback. 

It was lovely to get questions that showed that the kids and their parents really engaged in the subject matter. They noticed lots of details in the design and were very curious about everything. Big thanks to Zoe (who used to live in Athlone but is now back in Fontevraud ) for helping me with the translation!

The projection was really good , it was kind of romantic to hear the whirring the film thru' the gate during the movie as the projector was just set up at the back of the room.

It was a pity to leave but Jean Paul and I had to go to Angouleme for the screening there.

Lots of the crew from Spirit were there as well as the guys from Piste Rouge and Lily from our Kilkenny team. 

I think a lot of them were seeing the completed movie with sound effects, music, final editing    and compositing for the first time. 

And of course in French too as the animatic was with the original Irish voices all thru' production. 

It was a cool to have it playing in Salle Nemo in the Comic Book museum with some pages from the comic on display as well. During the screening Gilles Ciment, an old friend of the production who is now the boss of the comic book museum there in Angouleme showed me around the exhibition. I don't think I have fully digested everything yet!

The comic book festival was in full swing and I have never seen Angouleme so busy!

Amazing stuff on display. And I am reaffirmed yet again in my determination to get my French up to a level where I can really read the BD easily!

Mireille Ciment who was Head of Development in Les Armateurs during most of the development and production of Kells invited me to stay with her and Gilles at their place.

The first time I met them they were living in Paris and I was bowled over by Gilles' comic book collection which covered all the walls of a small room and was carefully catalogued.

This time they have a beautiful house and I was sleeping in the library which is now even more full of comic books. But I was too knackered to really get a good look thru many of them ;(

It was a very short but lovely stay as I had to get the train to Paris at 8.00am this morning. 

When I arrived with Didier Brunner the French producer and Jean Paul , the first screening which was mainly for the French crew had already begun. 

I just had time to introduce the second one which was mainly families but included a special guest - Michel Ocelot!

I ran back up stairs then to meet the crew at the end of the first screening. It was so cool to sneak in and see them all watching the film they had put so much work into almost two years ago. It was great to see everyone again and I think all of them were quite pleased with the result overall.

Then I went back to end of the screening for families and had about an hour of questions! 

Again it was great to get questions from the younger kids , mainly about Aisling and the Vikings of course. Many of the parents had questions too and I was lucky to have had Pascale , the interpreter who has been working with me a lot recently on hand to help me answer all of the questions.

Its great how many people appreciate the themes and ideas behind the movie.

Fabrice was in Brittany at a screening  yesterday too and he had a very similar reaction from the audience there, so its great that its being discovered. 

Anyway we had lunch with Didier and his family and some of the team from Les Armateurs and now I am just checking up on how things are going with Song before I collapse! 

I am determined to document this whole process and I took loads of photos too.

 Its a mad old time . 

Tommorow its a couple of interviews for France 2 and a radio station at the Irish Cultural Centre here in Paris and then on Tuesday there will be three screenings before a Festival opening in the evening. Whew.

On Wednesday I am back in KK just for a couple of days before we go to Berlin.

Anyway I know I am meeting Manu the music producer and Delphine from Les Armateurs in the very yummy veggie restaurant "Les Potager du Marais" tommorow at lunchtime! 

Nice!

le abbaye fontevraud

Well, here I am blogging from the beautiful and fastinating abbey of the fontevraud order .
Tommorow we will have screening in the old monks refectory.
I just had dinner with Jean Paul from Les Armateurs and Xavier, our host. Xavier is an expert on both animated films , especially Japanese ones and also Mediaeval art. He saw the presentation Ross Stewart and I gave in Annecy and asked Gebeka the French distributors abouta screening here. I am in great company actually, since Michel Ocelot as well as several Japanese and European animation directors have presented their projects here in the past.
The buildings are very impressive , sort of Romanesque a bit like Mellifont Abbey in Ireland, but on a much grander scale. Apparently Richard the Lionheart is buried here so we have some good mediaeval company too.

Today was spent doing interviews with journalists for papers, magazines and tv as well as some internet sites. It was interesting, as the French journalists are very like the Belgian ones , they have very intelligent and interesting questions , very "film theory" type things.
Its great how many people catch all the levels of visual symbolism we tried to work into the film and appreciate the research we put into it.

The days are starting to blur , we will have the screening tommorow and then go to Angouleme for another one. I am told an illuminator will be at the screening tommorow in the Abbey!

I got a hold at last of the first comic book all printed and shiny! It looks great and its very gratifying to have a real "BD" in my hands after all these years! I think its cool to have the little prequel story at the start as a bonus, and it does seem to read well going from the last page of the prequel straight into the goose chase which is the second sequence of the movie. The prequel sort of takes the place of the prologue part in the movie.

Anyway, I also recieved the Cd of the soundtrack which is beautifully produced with the illumination that Lily Bernard made to show Brendans "first attempt" as the decoration on the actual Cd. There is a nice leaflet inside with some of the scene illustrations and so on. I also had a look at some of the promo material that Gebeka have prepared for schools . it really nicely produced stuff, I'm building up a great collection of souvenors!

Anyway I'll stop blabbing now, we are recievings oem beautiful compositing from Digital Graphics for the Song of the Sea trailer these days and I am trying to keep up with that stuff between everything else! Poor Fabs is getting his baptism of fire as AD right now as my point of contact on stuff while I'm away!
So its still very busy on many fronts.


I had to post this funny conversation from the Jameson Dublin Film Festival blog - this must have been Pauly in the jacks !

"UPDATE:
I think I may have the winner of the best “Overheard at the Festival” remark already.
This was overheard by me in the men’s room at the Festival Launch Party in the Odeon Bar on Monday.
Man 1: Last time we spoke you were working on some cartoon. How did that work out for you?
Man 2: Not bad, it’s the closing film of the Festival.
Man 1: Oh!"

Jameson Dublin Film Festival

Our premiere has been announced! The Gala screening at the close of the JDIFF on the 22nd February.


Tickets are €18 and available from the Savoy as well as online here: http://jdiff.ticketsolve.com/events/events_for_show/702433

Hope its a great night for all!

brussels

Here i am in Brussels in a fancy suite in the Metropole hotel -
this is by far the swankiest hotel i've ever stayed in! jacuzzi, chandeliers, all that fancy smancy stuff.
Sweet.
just wish Liselott was here too :(
but it was lovely to meet Marie Laure and Frits tonight in Groupil le fol.
that cafe with the dark smoky rooms paintings and drawings on every spare inch of wall and squashy couches is one of the reasons i love coming back to Brussels.
they do these fruity wines....mmmmm

anyway a busy day of interviews and promo stuff tommorow so i'd better sleep a bit.

btw some local and non-kells related news-

i have to mention that the first kilkenny vegetarian society no meat and greet was a great success last night!
A much greater number of vegans,veggies and curious omnis showed up than we expected !
got to sample some excellent veg homecooking! nice!
the "bring back black sabbath bean cassarole" being a favourite for sure....
looking forward to the next one already!

trailer on you tube

Well, sitting here in Dublin airport and thanks to a comment from a friendly blogger in the last post I discover that the Disney trailer is on You Tube.
Well , if you want to see that version its there on everyones favourite video portal!

comics printed

Gaaah! Just found out the 1st comics are printed and in Paris. Oh man, i wish i had one to take a look at how they turned out.
But i have to be patient.
They will be available at the Angouleme comics festival.
Hooray!

you never know until ye go

http://www.operations-irlande.com/Brendan/?WT.mc_id=fr_hpb_1901_Brendan

Herr Erlinghauser

http://erlinghauser.blogspot.com/


Animation supervisor, Layout poser , plain old Poser , Animator , illustrator, German.

travelling around

well, I thought this year would be a little more settled than last but looking at all the various promo stuff to do in France, Belgium and Ireland it seems more and more likely that I will once again be to Dublin Airport what Tom Hanks was to that other airport in that movie about him being in an airport all the time. sigh.
Still its all for a good cause it has to be said.

The Dublin launch seems likely to be the Dublin Film Festival screening and I hope it will possible for us to do something in Kilkenny soon after but before the official release.

The mad thing is on the day of the release in Ireland (March 6) I will be in Cartoon Movie pitching Song of the Sea.

But maybe thats as it should be.

Anyway heres a colour rough I made for thr cover of the Aisling comic yesterday.
Like the first one its an adaptaion of the second half of the movie using production artwork but with an extra bonus "prequel" about Aisling at the start.

Chee WOW wah

Today we went to the premiere of Beverly Hills Chihuahua in Dublin. Disney invited everyone to bring their dogs. That was crazy but the dogs were all very well behaved , we brought little Poppy (our beagle/jack russel cross) and she even seemed to enjoy it. Anyway the trailer for Brendan played as part of the trailers at the start! It was so great to see it advertised like that with all the other Buena Vista releases . Mike McGrath sounded good too I think on the V/O.

Paris screening 2

Well, it seemed to go well, the kids enjoyed it I think.
We got some really great comments, questions and observations from some of the
youngsters in the audience afterwards.
it was a relief too that even some of the younger kids said they enjoyed the "scary" bits.
as usual, i think as adults we underestimated how sharp and on the ball kids are.
i had some really intelligent and interesting questions to deal with.

Bruno Coulais was there and he was happy with finished product too!

the team from digital graphics in liege came down to see it en masse also.
it was great to see them all.

Fabrice and I gave the making of talk at 6pm and it seemed to go down well too.

celluloid dreams have a good strategy in place starting with the premiere in Berlin.
we are planning a lot of screenings around france this month too.

so a few more interviews today and then off to liege with fabian.

Paris with the Moore Clan

Drinking "Barrys" tea with my family here in Paris!

had great meal in Le potager du marais - great veggie restaurant.

Tommorow morning before the screening meeting with Celluloid Dreams to discuss strategy for international releases ...hold on UK, US and every where else we still hope to get out there after the Irish, French and Belgian release.

Ok wish us luck with the screening and making of presentation tommorow!

night!

buy skunk fu toys you know you want to

www.flingzgames.com
www.fuflyerz.com

screenings and premieres

Well, this week I am off to the Paris screening and then up to Liege to work on Song trailer with the fine folks in Digital Graphics.

And its a busy old time these next few weeks with screenings in various places, theres the Dublin Film Festival on the 22nd February, and Brussels Anima on the 26th February.
Theres is an advance screening in Brussels on the 6th of Feb.

Theres a screening in Berlin near the start of the Festival there also.

Its all fierce busy.

Brendan O'Reilly

The other night I met up with Ross Stewart for a quiet one to conspire on our plans for a Kilkenny Branch of the Vegetarian Society (you heard it here first folks!) and who should walk in to Cleeres pub but David O'Reilly.
It was great to see him after so many years.
These days David is one of the most talented animation directors going -

http://www.davidoreilly.com/

But back in the days of yore when we had our studios in Young Irish Filmmakers, David spent a lot of time hanging out with us. He was but a teenager back then but already very good at the old drawing.
We chatted a bit about all his hours scanning and inking and painting and even doing a bit of inbetweening and stuff on the original "Rebel" trailer from 2000 .
In that incarnation the Brendan character was based on David as you can see from the modelsheets above by Barry Reynolds. Barry also animated a scene of "David-Brendan" with Pangur Ban which is in the "Rebel" promo video too.

When the film was rewritten in 2003 we started redesigning everything to suit the new story and approach and I post an early concept of this new approach by Ross Stewart above, maybe the last concept we did with the old Brendan design in mind before he got reworked into the final version .

Anyway poor David never got credit for all that nasty scanning, inking and painting so I hope this post sorts that out!

7th January

Every year for as long as I can remember my birthday (7th Jan) co-incided with some dreary back to work/school/college type date. It was always the first day back or the last day before "real life started again after the holidays.

Still , this year its a bit better.

The first ever public screening of the Secret of Kells will take place in Forum des Images in Paris.
Its at 3.00 pm , with an audience mainly of youngsters, I am told.
Tickets are 5 Euros I think and I will be doing a short "making of" presentation at 6.00 pm
also.
I will be joined in the making of part by the screenwriter , Fabrice Ziolkowski and perhaps others.
Not exactly sure yet of the running order etcetera but more news as I know it!

http://www2.forumdesimages.fr/fdi/Forum-des-images

Disney Posters Arrived today

Hooray. We stuck one up on the office wall.
I will take a photo of it once its up in Kilkenny Cineplex.
At long last.

sunny solstice

http://www.newgrange.com/webcast_08.htm

film classification

yesterday we had a very interesting screening at the office of the irish board of film classification.
its a grand old building but we may be one of the last films screened there as it is being moved to a new office next year.

we were pleased with the "pg" rating , despite the slightly scary or intense scenes, we feel its a film everyone can enjoy.

Its very nice how Trish Long (the head of Disney in Ireland) describes it sometimes -

" an original work of art that also happens to be suitable for families and a young audience"

She plans to run trailers ahead of "Bolt" here in Ireland, which is great exposure to the best general audience we can hope for.

Is this the most nervewracking part? waiting to see if anyone will come and see it....
maybe.

Anyway today I am in Galway working on Song of the Sea, just gotta focus on the next one now....!

Merry Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone.
I made this sketch for the Aisling comic I am working on for the New Year.
I am going to try something a little bit "Mucha" for this one.
I got a big book of his stuff in Prague.
Amazingly inspiring stuff.

PAF animation festival

Am in Cyech republic typing on very strange key board in very nice university building where we gave a presentation.
Very christmassy buzz here with all the snow and son on. beautiful country.
Ok off to see the Danish film Princess now.
have been up since 4.30 this morning traveling to be here.
vegetarian options are ,,,,,,as usual..... interesting!
have learnt to swear fluently in czech.

Hooray.

Nora Twomey enters the blogosphere

http://nora-twomey.com/

hooray .

But the photo on the header does'nt really look like her that much.

Disney "family" screening

We had a screening for all the marketing people who will work on the film with Disney Ireland on Wednesday in the IFI.
Some of the band memebers of Kila were there too as well as James Flynn the exec producer and some people from Trinity college and the Dublin Film festival.
The "keeper of the book" Bernard Meehan was there too, I was sitting beside him and was nervous thru'out, afraid he would not like the liberties we took with the history to make this fantasy film, but thankfully he enjoyed it and was very enthusiastic. He (naturally) spotted all our references to mediaeval art and appreciated the research and homework we poured into it despite the fiction/fantasy nature of the story.
It was a positive day overall, thanks to Trish fro making it happen.

Today, Michael McGrath , voice of adult Brendan is doing the Voice Over for the Irish trailer.

T

French trailer

Here is the French theatrical trailer edited by Gebeka.
I hope everyone in France will go to see this movie at least twice! hehe!

I will post the trailer from Disney/Buena Vista Ireland in a few days time as well
as a link to a mini site as soon as its up and running.

Comments on comments

The movie will be distributed by Disney in Ireland branded as Buena Vista International (Ireland). No distribution is confirmed in US or UK .
Release in Ireland is March 2009.
Our sales agent Celluloid Dreams is in charge of the territories outside the co-production countries of Ireland, Belgium and France.
Benelux distribution is handled by Kinepolis.
French distribution by Gebeka.
Release in France and Benelux in February.

The comic book is published by Glenat in French in two hardback Albums. Also planned to be published in Dutch by Glenat.
No English language publisher confirmed yet .

Stay tuned for developments but thats how it stands at present.

he saved me from the vikings when I was a baby

he took me in when my parents....were'nt there anymore.

1st page coloured by Marie!

"Inking"

Full time blasting into getting the comics done now. Cant colour them all myself so Marie Thorauge is helping out there, I'm "inking" them partly with pens on paper and partly in Flash.
The deadline is looming so its heads down time.
People may remember I posted a different version of one of these pages a while back - the story changed slightly since then, so the Aisling wolf cub had to be replaced with a younger Cellach.


Also working on the poster for Disney. They are taking a very different marketing approach to the French distributor , Gebeka, so are cutting a different trailer and doinga different poster.
We are nearly there, I am learning a lot about marketing!