Casting an Indie Spell

Features

Casting an Indie Spell

Arcana Studio’s Sean Patrick O’Reilly talks landing a theatrical release for Pixies, his first animated feature. By Tom McLean.

It takes tenacity and persistence to get an independent animated movie both made and distributed theatrically. Just ask Sean Patrick O’Reilly, the writer and director of Pixies, which arrives in theaters June 5 via Vertical Entertainment and hits the home video shelves at Walmart in July.

O’Reilly produced the movie through Arcana Studios, which he founded in 2004 to publish his comic-book series Kade. Since then, Arcana has published more than 300 graphic novels to become the largest comics publisher in Canada. In 2012, Arcana made the move into animation with the 13 x 22 min. TV series Kagagi, followed immediately by Pixies, adapted from O’Reilly’s comic of the same name.

Animation Magazine: What prompted you to move from comics publishing into the animation business?

Sean Patrick O’Reilly: Arcana has a mountain of intellectual property that is fully developed with great stories and engaging characters that already have a fan base. The key was to identify a slate from the library that would work for animation and just take it a step at a time.

Animag: In what ways are comics publishing and animation different and/or similar?

O’Reilly: The preproduction process in comics and animation is almost identical. Start with a story, move to script, then the collaboration between writer/director and artists begins, continuing to storyboards. With comics, next step is to color in Photoshop, solicit with Diamond, send to the printer and distribute. However, I didn’t go straight from comics into animation as I had motion comics that were an intermediary step.

Motion comics take regular comic-book panels and add simple scan and pans in After Effects. Voices are added, then sound effects, even visual effects, and I realized after doing a Pixies motion comic, I had a very good looking Pixies animatic.

Learning all about the animation process was a massive learning curve. I was very lucky and hired some key people who got me through the beginning.

Animag: Where did you find financing and partners?

O’Reilly: I started early with a group of visionary investors. Humbly, it was not a massive amount of money, but they were amazing and incredibly supportive. Canada’s Movie Central was our first sale followed by the Middle East and Vertical Entertainment for the U.S. I had a lump sum, lots of preproduction done — thanks to the comics — and was immediately in production.

Animag: What were the major creative challenges?

O’Reilly: The pixies. Originally they looked like an elf with red or green pointy hats, as in the book. It’s amazing how many elfs with red-green pointy hats there are on this planet, and that was the majority of the criticism of the comic. Publishing a story first is a great way to battle test material, especially if you listen

to your readers. The art director, Todd Demong, took the idea of a pixie and mashed it up with a bee. Gary Yuen, our amazing senior character designer, then modeled the first pixie and it really was like having a newborn. I have four kids so I do know what it feels like. With this “bee birthed Pixie,” the Pixies’ entire culture, their dwellings (skeps), their ability to go unseen for so long and a number of other creative hurdles were instantly overcome. Animag: Where was the animation done? How long did it take? O’Reilly: All animation was done in Burnaby, B.C., near Vancouver in Canada. It took a lot longer than it should have, to be honest. I had to balance the cash flow and payroll between tax credits and acquiring good employees is not an easy task especially when I’m losing those good employees to other studios. The entire process for animation was under two years. Animag: How did you end up with a deal for theatrical distribution? O’Reilly: I met with Vertical Entertainment at AFM and they came to the meeting already Sean Patrick O’Reilly aware of the graphic novel and its success. We had a deal relatively quickly and they have been amazing to work with. Pixies is in premier theaters on June 5th. Animag: What lessons did you learn from previous animation projects that you tried to apply? O’Reilly: I’m in production on Howard Lovecraft & The Frozen Kingdom (our next animated feature film) and with our established team, a tighter pipeline, more confidence and a lot more experience, we’re off to an amazing start. Howard will be released in October 2016. It is H.P. Lovecraft for kids and to my knowledge is the first Lovecraft-themed feature film, and definitely the first animated Lovecraft movie. [