original animation drawings

APB to anyone who worked on Brendan , I have all he folders from the scenes animated in Kilkenny and Brussels , here in the studio, with the original layout posing and clean up drawings.

I am gonna recycle the whole lot very soon as we are moving to a different space and just wanted to give anyone who wants their original drawings back the chance to let us know.
I can't afford to post them out so anyone who wants it will have to pay for whatever it costs to get them to you .
Let me know as soon as you can.
Its a pity to recycle all those drawings but sure thats life .

I already have boxes and boxes of stuff going back years and years so I really need to clear out!

Just to be clear I have nothing that was cleaned up or animated in Kecskemet ...just scenes sent back from Lightstar in Brazil after clean up and inbetween was finished..

I really think we'll go to digital 2d for the next production....;)

OMG! So Excited!

http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/volumes_13_16.html

The mastah.

(thanks for the heads up Darko!)

jean baptiste ven damme

i just love that name.
at the annecy presentation i took a moment to enjoy it and said it a few times.
some guys are just born lucky eh?
sounds good with a microphone.

cool name, killer drawing skills, sideburns that rock so bad the Kilkenny girls all melted in the presence of their awesomeness.

oh yeh.

jean baptiste van damme,
so hot right now,
jean baptiste van damme.

;)

http://thedoberman.deviantart.com/gallery/#_popular

online

http://www.animationinsider.net/article.php?articleID=1754&document=1

mad - just found this article.

oslo chat

http://www.animationconversation.com/

those nice fellows in Oslo interviewed me back then. here it is.

UPDATE - emmm just a note to warn you that I swear like the proverbial sailor in this and also have an annoyingly goofy laugh

editing finished + annecy

it was so hectic again this week , my head is spinning.
In Paris we finally locked the editing. Kinda scary , thats it.
Some retakes still to come for a few scenes and some changes on the last sequence
based on the screening but other than that the visuals are done.
Its kinda weird. I'll have to find a way to show all the cut stuff some day too.

on Wednesday when the editing was finished I traveled to Annecy , its such a beautiful part of the world and the festival is so exciting. I really hope to go for the whole thing next year hopefully less tired and able to see more and enjoy it at a leisurely pace.
Met plenty of old friends and it was good old craic. It was great to meet the old Skunkers and Joost and Eric of KACHING cartoons for a few scoops.
The presentation went well maybe a bit too much stuff crammed into the time we had but I think it was interesting for people in general.

Even have my mug in the latest Animation Magazine so thats kinda cool.

The Richard Williams exhibition in Annecy was very impressive and I'm looking forward to getting the DVD of his masterclasses he is bringing out. At the Belgian party after the presentation I met to lucky sould who have been working with him on it in Bristol.

Unfortunatly our presentation clashed with his so I did'nt even get to see that.

Rene Broca and Christelle Rony were very nice and helpful and it was really great to be asked to go to Annecy, Big thanks to them!

dublin airport my old friend

just for the craic heres a post from my old friend the surfbox coin operated terminal in dublin airport.

heading over for some final editing and also the annecy presentation.

basically hope this is the last week long trip for a looong while.

need to catch up on a lot of stuff in kilkenny.
like my marriage, sleep and plenty of neglected cartoon saloon stuff....

still its all good - annecy in the sunshine ...happy days...sure even annecy in the rain is fairly deadly!

woah

last week I -

drove at 2am to airport with sleepy wife and son , went to Brussels checked Viking attack with Frits, had meeting with Vivianne, met Benoit by accident - hi Benoit , went to Liege saw Chi Rho page , had champagne , had lots of Beers hi Damien, Celine, Eric , Serge , Iwan and co, sleep a bit , went to Paris made some editing updates , went to sleep, woke up, had shower, flooded my hotel room, went to Les Armateurs , met Paul and Ladies from Irish Film Board and Buena Vista , got drunk , staggered home, slept a bit , went to screening, got some nice feedback , ate nice dinner, walked around all happy about everyone liking it , thought about all changes suggested, found a veggie restaurant, ate more, slept a bit, went to sound studio, spotted effects , missed plane, ate a bit , hung around a bit, best wifey in world drove to Dublin , drove home from airport at 2 am.

Tommorow I start all over again.

funny belgians

dublin airport again

yawn.

drove up at 2.30 am to be here in plenty of time.
checked in.
bags have kilkenny colours tied to them this time.

here I go!

This is a big week. Finalise the compositing in Belgium.
Finalise the editing. Show a cut to distributors and investors.
If needed edit again based on their comments.
Meet with Piste Rouge sound designer about the sound effects and mix.
Paul will be over to help with that. He and I went thru' the Avid project spotting the important stuff on Saturday.
Noras temp sounds from 2006 are a good starting point anyway.
Meeting Bruno again to see about getting the music recorded soon....

here I go....

if at first you dont succeed

try try again.

hokay off to Brussels and Liege on Monday. Really gonna try not to lose my bag this time:)

Then Paris for some final editing, some sound design stuff.
Have to show the latest cut to the distributors and the Irish Film Board.
Gulp.

Then back home . get sorted for Annecy.

Gulp.

Come to Annecy folks! Myself , Ross Stewart , Serge Ume and Toon Roebbens are doinga presentation of our work in progress (but almost finshed , honest!)

hooray.

editing

Fabienne the editor sent me the close to final edit today via Hobsoft.
I was supposed to be there with her working today but if you've been following my adventures you'll know I'm grounded until Monday!
Anyway it was quiet cool because although we ares till busy with the Chi Rho page and the attack sequence compositing its almost completely there as a movie - well pictures anyway, its still the temp sound effects and music since 2006 so thats kinda weird.
But since I was here Nora and Ross Stewart and even Baby Oliver gathered around the Avid and had a watch.

Feels like a big ,big part is almost over after a loooooong journey.
I know sound is 50% of the viewing experience and it would be foolhardy to imagine there are no big adventures ahead during the sound design and scoring process, but y'know I'm mainly a pictures kinda guy and the pictures being almost wrapped is very satisfying.
Everyone says its looking really great and Didier and Ivan at Les Armateurs are reportedly very happy with it.

The buzz in Cannes was very positive by all accounts.
The Celluloid Dreams brochure has some great images in it.

:)

Praise be!

Wow.

Thanks be to all thats holy!

The Fedex guy just got here and my passport and computer are in tact.
So glad the computer is in working order.

so, via internet I am working with Serge and his team in Belgium today.
No beer , but we are at least still productive this way.

Not the same as being there, but not bad!

Better try and get my presentation for annecy sorted now.
There won't be another chance I think.....

nightmare update

back home ,

Lovely Liselott just made it up as I was preparing my application for a new passport.
Then Kairen in the studio called to say someone in Nice had called to say they had my bag.
So fingers, and indeed all extremities crossed , the bag will find its way back to me this week.
I am supposed to go to Brussels again on Monday...so hopefully.

Thanks for the kind words fellow bloggers.

Its a tough old week, supposed to be finishing everything for the Chi Rho page this week as well as tidying up the editing on Friday. Tight . tight . tight.

I think I can keep up via internet and Hobsoft and all...but its not the same as being there...

oh boyoyoboy

dublin airport nightmare

Am stuck in dublin airport.

Picked up the wrong bag getting off the coach this morning at 4.30am.

Now have lost my bag , my passport, my credit cards, my computer even.
I do however have a bag of womans clothing. hoo boy.
Better leave that at lost and found.

What a nightmare.

Where ever you are out there fellow traveller! - Please send my stuff home when you realise you've got 'em!

Purrrrrleeeaasssee.

sigh.

gotta try and get an emergency passport today some how... wish me luck blogosphere!

folimage show how its done again!

http://www.celluloid-dreams.com/current_slate/all_films/mia_the_migoo/trailer/

most gorgeous thing I've seen in a long long time.

practically perfect in everyway, am absolutly dying to see this.

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.

editing

Some interesting stuff is evolving at the editing, more than I expected as we felt we had all the editing done up front when we locked the animatic.
Sequences moved, split up , rearranged. Small changes can make a big difference.
Some scenes I just love and that we fought so hard to get right suddenly seem unneccsary or get trimmed.
Its interesting anyway. All feels "right" even if sometimes a bit painful. Especially to cut something well animated and so on.

ahh sure story,story,story and all that.

I find myself saying " oh we cant possibly cut that" and then seeing ...hey actually that works better.

I'm learning loads.

hooray

oslokilkennydublinbrusselsliegebrusselskilkenny

Right then, that must have been the most mental week of carbon emissions I've ever been responsible for.

The very lovely and nice Yaprak Moreli pictured above with her sweetheart Arre invited me to talk at the Frame by Frame animation conference in Oslo last Saturday. So of course , off I went.
It was very interesting and my speech was a lot of fun as I was publicly humilating myself by trying to operate a mac at the same time as giving a potted history of the production and the Saloon. But the Scandanavians turned out to be a much friendlier bunch than they appear in the film. In fact everyone was very friendly and interesting. I met the guys from Qvisten studio at the wrap party for their very cool feature "Kurt turns Evil" a nicely designed and animated CG film turned in on schedule and for a measly 3 million. Thats the way to do it I say. Fair play to them all.

I was delighted to meet me old ballyer comrade Olve Askim after 10 years . A grand old night was had by all as the picture above proves. As you can see neither of us has aged a day since we parted company in 1999!
Anyway it was an early start on Sunday, back to Dublin, then Kilkenny, one day at the studio catching up on piles of production problems and checking scenes, meeting our accountant for the usual scary low down , and then off to Dublin town for the class Paul, Fabian and I had agreed to give as part of the Cinemagic festival. We gave some Dublin 10 year olds a brief sneak peak of a work in progress sequence of Crom Cruach. "Looks fake" said one, "Thats because hes in a parallel world" said another (quite perceptive without any story context I thought), one little girl said she could "see tha' in the cinema alrigh' .
Anyway that evening we had the animation directors guild commitee meeting and a screening of Paul Bolgers film "Happily N'ever After". I interviewed him afterwards and its always comforting to here production horror stories from other peoples experience, makes me feel less unusual!
Paul showed me some development work hes doing on a new project and I have to say I'm all giddy about seeing that one come to fruitition. Its nice that theres another Kilkenny based director too, us bogmen have to show them whats possible beyond the pale.

Next morning it was a 4.30 am start to Brussels and I met a very nice Iranian taxi man . In my bleary eyed state I was still in animation nerd mode and ended up leaving him the name of Marjane Satrapis "Persepolis" , as he seemed very interested in it...

Well Brussels was a little fraught at first but we found solutions and I was mighty impressed with the work Gilles in WTD had done on Crom since my last trip , Frits , Toon and Mikeal all doing some nice work on the Viking attack too .
I have to say Digital Graphics in Liege are doing some excellent work.
My hat goes off to Serge and his team, who no sooner had they finished the mammoth task of ALL the ink and paint for the movie went straight on to help with the compositing. After my trip they have agreed to even more work on some really tricky sequences. Celine , Damien , Eric and Ewan and all the the team are doing really class work on the mist cat and snowy sequences.
They will also work now , with Toon, on the Chi Rho sequence at the end of the film.
Celine had a lovely idea of having all the characters and animals in the Chi Rho page seem to be alive and busy until the camera rests on them , at which time they "settle" into their formal poses as part of the page. I hope we can pull it off as its a charming concept for the final sequence

So on Friday night I finally made it back to my own bed and glad I was of it.

While I was away Spirit finished all the compositing of their scenes and I have 115 scenes to check tommorow. I've been keeping up with them on Hobsoft and with just a few small retakes I think we can finish up all the compositing in Spirit these next few days.

Katia is starting a new production in Paris tommorow , and I am having to give more and more time to new projects in the studio.
Its really a crazy place we are in now, but I feel the end is near and its a huge relief.
With a bit of luck, this will be the last month working on the images and the summer will be given over to the sound design, music and final editing.
In the mean time I have plenty to keep me busy with the comics and Song of the Sea , so no rest for the wicked as they say.

Nice sunny day today, start of May, a vegan barbeque and nice woodland stroll with the dog, the missus and the young fella. Roll on summer.

T

catsuka

Just a quick reply to Tsuka,

I am delighted there is interest on catsuka forum about the film of course;
Its very encouraging.
The source of the cartoon ,movie teaser was the Belgian coproducer who submitted with the permission of teh other producers to that site in Wallonia.
Just noone told me.

Oh well. Just hope the longer and hopefully nicer one they are planning for Cannes will get its debut here!

Anyway am in Walking the Dog in Brussels now and we are starting to see some very nice stuff here .
hooray.

T