Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

(Click any image to enlarge.)

There are those who are Irish, and those who
decorate their windows as if they were Irish.

A day to spend in the New York Tavern.

Thanks for the photos from Queens by Steve Fisher.

_________________

-Brendan and the Secret of the Kells seems to be the animated feature to watch in 2009. Over the weekend the film was the big winner at the Berlinale at this year’s Cartoon Movie in Lyon, winning best European director and best producer.

More than six hundred participants voted for the Cartoon Movie Tributes which recognise companies or personalities exercising a positive and dynamic influence on the European animation feature film industry. Irish animator Tomm Moore was named best European director of the year for his feature debut which had had its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Generation sidebar last month.

This film was directed in Ireland by Tomm Moore at his studio (partnered with Paul Young) the Cartoon Salon. His codirector was Nora Twommey. The film was produced in cooperation with the French company, Les Armateurs, the company that produced the wonderful The Triplettes of Belleville. The €6 million budget was raised from a number of European countries.

You can see a one-minute trailer on line here.

You can see three good clips here.
(Thanks to Koen De Koninck for the lead.)

Here are some reviews:
Variety
______Space is distorted so that everything looks deliberately flattened, yet there’s a very high level of craft deployed throughout to build up patterns within patterns. This may be the perfect film for children whose parents are art historians specializing in pre-Renaissance periods.
______That ‘s not to say others won’t enjoy it, but finding an aud is going to be a challenge for marketing departments. Despite the many participants from across Europe listed in the credits, the pic’s most fruitful territory is likely to be Ireland, and even there, competition with Hollywood fare will still be tough.

The Irish Times
______The story does have a neat arc and the voice-work is first rate, but the thinly drawn characters are sometimes upstaged by the bold images and by the fine, insistent music from Kíla and Bruno Coulais. Moreover, the desire to pack in so much research seems to have occasionally overpowered the need to create a clean narrative line.
______These are quibbles. The Secret of Kells remains a surprising piece of work that should appeal to smart children and open-minded adults. Chemically befuddled students may enjoy it even more.

Screen Daily News
______Director Tomm Moore and his team really excel themselves in these forest sequences, where Irish monasticism meets Busby Berkeley. At times, motifs from megalithic passage graves and Celtic jewellery float in the background like micro-organisms under a microscope, or fall in the form of snowflakes. Perspective is flattened out, and Brendan and Aisling are framed inside branches, just as Biblical characters were framed inside the opening letters of illuminated manuscript pages.

- Now on to Japan

- Studio Ghibli has teamed with Toyota to start a new animation training system for young people. Beginning April, 20 new employees will be sent to Aichi Prefecture in western Japan for a two-year course to learn animation techniques while being exposed to robotics and other Toyota technologies. Miyazaki and other veteran Ghibli animators will give lectures to the group.

The intent is to give students an appreciation for the traditional handcrafting skills still found at Toyota. This training, Ghibli producer and former president, Toshio Suzuki believes, will make them a better fit with the Studio Ghibli aesthetic.

It’s an unusal path, but the goal seems to be for the students to learn the hand-drawn art form in conjunction with the latest cg technology. I don’t think there’s anything comparable in the US.

Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed