Animation Magazine MIPCOM issue

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FROG BOX

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Les Films de l’Arlequin

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Your #1 Connection to the Global Animation Community

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November 2020

Volume 34, Issue 9, Number 304

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Frame-By-Frame

Television/Streaming

Opportunities

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16 A New Home for Grown-Up Animation

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Stuff We Love November at a Glance

Our monthly planner returns with a twist in “the new normal.”

Magical Girl Friendship Squad and Wild Life are the promising new kids on SYFY’s TZGZ late-night block.

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Features 10

Flight of Fantasy

Over the Moon, Disney veteran Glen Keane’s feature directorial debut, centers on a delightful young heroine and her imaginative journey.

By Ramin Zahed

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Imagining a Colorful Moon

Production designer Celine Desrumaux discusses building the city of Lunaria for Over the Moon.

Shorts 14

A Masterful Loop

Erick Oh unveils Opera, a stunning and ambitious new short about the human condition.

Cover: Directed by Glen Keane, Over the Moon premieres on Netflix on October 23.

MIPCOM: French animation studio Blue Spirit brings its new series Splat & Seymour to the market. november 20

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Swashbuckling with Santi

Nickelodeon makes a splash with its high-energy preschool show Santiago of the Seas.

By Ramin Zahed

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Joyeux 15e Anniversaire, TeamTO!

With several new top-notch series in the pipeline, the acclaimed French animation studio celebrates 15 years in the business.

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Studio Spotlight

Mercury Filmworks founder and CEO Clint Eland offers his take on 2020’s animation landscape and insights into the new work-from-home era.

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A Spellbinding Adventure

Expect some enchantment from Federation’s latest animated offering: Presto! School of Magic.

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10 Things I Love About China

An acclaimed American TV animation producer and creator reflects on his positive experiences in the often-misunderstood country.

By Josh Selig

28 Animation Execs: Notes from a Crazy Year We caught up with some of the top international animation content execs to find out about what they’re looking for and how they’re faring in 2020.

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Autonomous Animator

How to be prepared for your next Zoom meeting with a development exec.

By Martin Grebing

VFX 41

Tech Reviews

PolyCloth ClothBrush for 3ds Max and Tool Chefs’ Atoms Crowd.

By Todd Sheridan Perry

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Building the Saga of a True Warrior

VFX supervisor Sean Andrew Faden reveals some of the digital tricks of the new live-action Mulan.

VR 44

Reliving the Immigrant Experience

Randall Okita brings to life the memories of his grandfather through his innovative VR project The Book of Distance.

Day in the Life 45 Managing director Jerome Alby shares a typical late-summer day at Parisbased Mediatoon Distribution.

Virtual MIPCOM’s Newsmakers

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E ditor ’ s N otE

Postcards from a Virtual World T

hese are strange days indeed, and we all need a little uplift to keep us going and to believe in the possibility of better times ahead. Thank God we all love animation, because in this art form, there seems to be an endless supply of optimism, laughter, joy and love. Our cover story this month is Netflix and Pearl Studio’s charming feature Over the Moon, which we’ve been eagerly covering since we heard that one of our favorite animation talents, Glen Keane, was directing several years ago. I guarantee that this beautifully crafted and imagined movie will fill your heart with warmth and leave you with a stronger belief in everything that this medium is able to achieve.

We also had a chance to catch up with TeamTO, which is one of the favorite indie shops around the world. The French studio is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and we were delighted to chat with its talented co-founders, Corinne Kouper and Guillaume Hellouine. Following the animated ventures of this brilliant husband-and-wife team through the years has been one of the distinct pleasures of my job here at the magazine. It’s good to know their studio is thriving even during a challenging year, and we see great things ahead as they bring their latest new show Presto! School of Magic to the markets this fall.

We all know veteran children’s animation creator Josh Selig for bringing us so many hours of top-notch entertainment with shows like Wonder Pets!, 3rd & Bird, Small Potatoes, Oobi and Super Wings. He also knows a lot about co-producing animation with Chinese partners, so I was excited when he decided to write about all his positive experiences in the country. It’s always great to hear Josh’s personal perspectives on working around the world, and this wonderful piece is no exception.

This issue also features some fun virtual MIPCOM-related pieces which provide you with a different look at what some of our favorite animation executives and content buyers look for in new animation pitches. We also have our usual collection of highlights and news bytes which bring you the latest news about the global toon market. Of course, nothing can replace the immediate impact of human connection in person, but until the world goes back to the way it was before that awful virus wreaked havoc upon us, we’ll always have online coverage and the digital and print issues of this magazine!

Ramin Zahed Editor in Chief ramin@animationmagazine.net

“We want to beat Disney in family animation.

That’s going to take a while. I mean, they are really good at it. We’re both very focused on building out our animation group and, you know, it’s a friendly competition. We both want to do incredible stories for consumers and we want to be able to raise the bar in that area.

We know that they will be a challenger and a competitor for the next 50 years.”

— Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

Image: Reed Hastings cartoon courtesy of VentureBeat

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November 2020

Vol. 34, Issue 9, No. 304 Info@animationmagazine.net

President and Publisher: Jean Thoren Accounting: Jan Bayouth EDITORIAL

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Stuff We Love

STUFF TO READ

The Art of Soul [Chronicle Books, $40] Find yourself in animated filmmaking heaven with this guide to the making of Pixar’s new original. This comprehensive 168-page hardcover reveals the behind-the-scenes story of this unique movie about a music teacher’s disembodied soul (Jamie Foxx) tasked with training a reluctant soul-in-training (Tina Fey) while trying to get back to Earth and pursue his dreams. Original artwork, illuminating details and exclusive interviews bring life to Soul’s afterlife, with a foreword by Fey and introductions by director Pete Docter and writer Kemp Powers. Soul and its 2020 sibling Onward are also included in the new, expanded edition of The Art of Pixar color-scripts collection, out the same day from Chronicle. [Oct. 20] Be Gay, Do Comics [IDW Publishing, $25] This massive queer comics anthology from The Nib is packed with dozens of tales from the LGBTQIA experience from personal stories to historical flashpoints to cutting satire about modern gender and sexuality politics and the evolving fight for equality and representation. The 250+ page tome (also available on Kindle and comiXology) features work by more than 30 incredible indie cartoonists, including Hazel Newlevant, Joey Alison Sayers, Maia Kobabe, Matt Lubchansky, Breena Nuñez, Sasha Velour, Shing Yin Khor, Levi Hastings, Mady G, Bianca Xunise and Kazimir Lee.

My Neighbor Hayao: Art Inspired by the Films of Miyazaki [Cernunnos, $30] Celebrate one of the most inspiring and influential living legends of animation and see the worlds and characters he’s created through fresh eyes with this enchanting tribute, compiled by Spoke Art Gallery. You can page through loving commemorations of Miyazaki’s whimsical sense of adventure, deep reverence for nature and championing of strong female characters, created by more than 250 artists/fans in an array of media — from painting and prints to sculpture and embroidery — which attracted more than 10,000 visitors to Spoke’s exhibitions in San Francisco and NYC. [Oct. 6] Steven Universe: End of an Era [Abrams, $35] In this eagerly anticipated follow-up to his bestselling Art & Origins, Chris McDonnell returns to Beach City to reveal new concept art, storyboard, background paintings and exclusive interviews with the creative crew behind Cartoon Network’s Emmy-winning series. This installment covers season four through to the critically acclaimed finale, “Change Your Mind,” and beyond—- with a special focus on creator and showrunner Rebecca Sugar’s elaborate lore-crafting process. [Oct. 13] STUFF TO WATCH

B: The Beginning Season One [Shout! Factory/Anime Ltd., $30

Space Ghost & Dino Boy: The Complete Series

BD] Production I.G’s action-suspense series, directed by Kazuto Nakazawa (Parasite Dolls) and Yoshinobu Yamakawa (Little Busters!), grippingly blends visually stunning sci-fi fantasy and gritty crime procedural storytelling into one genre-bending tale acclaimed by anime fans worldwide. Get caught up in the mystery with dogged former detective Flick — who returns to the beat to catch the mysterious vigilante executioner Killer B, then soak up enriching bonus features. The Blu-ray Combo Pack also comes with a mini-poster and two art cards, or opt for The Ultimate Collection (LE, $160) and truly throw yourself into Cremona’s bloody streets with a 160-page book, OST on CD and more. [Oct. 6]

[Warner Archives, $25 BD] Grab a bowl of your favorite sugary cereal and cozy up by the TV’s glow to enjoy this 1960s Hanna-Barbera adventure through space and time. Follow the futuristic escapades of interstellar lawman Space Ghost as he battles with Brak and Zorak, then hop back to the Stone Age as Dino Boy, Ugh and Bronty turn some primeval foes into fossils. This nostalgic seven-hour compilation, available for the first time on Blu-ray, also features the six-part Space Ghost arc “The Council of Doom.” [Oct. 13]

The Wonderland [Shout!

Osamu Tezuka’s Cleopatra

Factory, $17 | $27 BD] A mysterious alchemist whisks a young girl away to a fantastical world and reveals she is a goddess destined to return the natural balance to order and save this magical realm from an encroaching industrial terror. Tale as old as time! Director Keiichi Hara (Miss Hokusai, Summer Days with Coo) worked with Russian illustrator Ilya Kuvshinov to craft the colorful characters and extraordinary landscapes that viewers are swept through in this complex and unexpected coming-of-age fantasy. Set includes commentary, cast interview and featurette with voice star Mayu Matsuoka. [Oct. 6]

[Discotek Media, $25 BD] Japan’s “Godfather of Manga” is best known for kid-friendly favorites like Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion — and it’s likely to stay that way. However! In the interest of a fully-rounded animation education, we must inform you that his MST3K-worthy X-rated flop is finally available on Blu-ray in Region 1. Directed with colleague Eiichi Yamamoto, Kureopatora is a 1970 time-travelling sex romp which sends three humans from the distant future back to Roman-occupied Egypt to unravel a nefarious alien plot known as the “Cleopatra plan.” But that’s just a sliver of the sex, violence, bodyswapping, historical chicanery and sci-fi peril that make up this odd quirk in the anime time continuum. [Oct. 27] — Mercedes Milligan

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November at a Glance Our monthly planner returns with a twist as “the new normal” sees the return of popular festivals and highly anticipated premieres — though not quite the way they used to be.

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The 44th Cinanima Int’l Animated Film Festival returns to Espinho, Portugal. [cinanima.pt]

10-15

1622

15-19

Germany’s Interfilm Festival is steaming ahead, with tons of films, talks and more. Contingency plans are in place for a paywalled online version.

Kid-focused KUKI will be available to schools online Nov. 8-20, in theaters Nov. 14-15. [interfilm.de]

CTN Expo’s virtual CTN-Live puts the focus on artists and their careers for Animation Week. This year’s theme is “Revive and Thrive.” [ctn-live.com]

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Relight your creative spark at the incandescent indie animation fest GIRAF in Calgary, AB. [giraffest.ca]

27Dec 6

After offering fascinating virtual Q&As, Making Ofs and screenings all summer, U.K.’s Manchester Animation Festival goes into full swing. [manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk]

The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special premieres on Disney+!

Inspired by (but not a remake of) the infamous 1978 TV special, enjoy a bricktastic brand-new story centered on the Wookie planet of Kashyyyk and set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker.

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Fans will finally be able to experience Pete Docter’s Soul in U.S. theaters today. The animated afterlife adventure stars Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Questlove, Phylicia Rashad, Daveed Diggs and Angela Bassett.

This is also the day to see how Hulu has updated Steven Spielberg’s iconic ‘90s toon Animaniacs. The reboot launches with 13 episodes starring Yakko, Wakko, Dot, Pinky and the Brain, all voiced by the original actors.

Organizers of the London Int’l Animation Festival are forging ahead with plans for an in-person 17th edition -- but even over VOD, expect to discover incredible films from the U.K. and around the world. [liaf.org.uk]

TBA

More high-stakes magical effects, shape-changing daemons and stunning CG environments await in His Dark Materials S2, coming this month from BBC/HBO.

Got tips for December? Email edit@animationmagazine.net. www.animationmagazine.net

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F eatures

Flight of Fantasy Over the Moon, Disney veteran Glen Keane’s feature directorial debut, centers on a delightful young heroine and her imaginative journey.

By Ramin Zahed

E

ver since it was announced that beloved and Artt Butler, and includes memorable songs producer Peilin took us on a little tour in China, Disney veteran Glen Keane was set to di- by Christopher Curtis, Marjorie Duffield and and we visited this wonderful little water town rect his first animated feature, Over the Helen Park and a score by Steven Price (Gravity). that became the town for Fei Fei. People would “I love characters that believe the impossi- invite us into their homes and we got to have Moon, animation lovers have been eagerly following the development and production of the ble is possible,” said Keane during a recent in- dinner with a Chinese family in their home. I project. Produced by Shanghai-based Pearl terview. “I like that in my own life. We all face had never known what it was really like in ChiStudio and Netflix, this beautifully conceived impossible odds in our life, now more than na, and the people were so warm and friendly.

CG-animated feature follows the adventures of ever, and nothing can stop a character that sees And what was, I guess the most inspiring to me, a young girl named Fei Fei who builds a rocket the goal. For Ariel, it was to live out of the sea was how everything happens around food and ship to the Moon to the dinner table.”

‘It’s something that I learned from the Nine Old Men at Disney. It’s so much about sincerity prove the existence of a legendary Moon GodA Final Gift in the eyes of the characters. So much of the performance is about animating the moment dess. Once she arrives at Chou mentions that of discovery when an idea happens, and you can truly see it in their eyes.’ her destination, she the film was Audrey — Director Glen Keane ends up on an unexpectWells’ final project beed quest, and discovers a whimsical land of somehow, and for Fei Fei it’s to build a rocket to fore she passed away from cancer in 2018. “She the Moon. I felt like I had to do this movie. I get was so excited about that idea, about a strong fantastical creatures.

The film, which is premiering on Netflix this that girl.” girl that loves science and was interested in Keane, who received an Oscar for directing doing that,” says the producer. “But beyond that, month, is produced by Gennie Rim (Dear Basketball) and Peilin Chou (Abominable), co-directed the late Kobe Bryant’s short Dear Basketball, she really connected with the story thematicalby John Kahrs (Paperman) and written by the adds that there was something very exciting ly because she was going through her own late Audrey Wells (The Hate U Give, Under the about discovering a country like China through journey in her life. We didn’t find out until a Tuscan Sun). The film features the voices of the perspective of this young protagonist. “I year or so of developing the project with her newcomer Cathy Ang (Fei Fei), Phillipa Soo, think there’s something wonderful about tell- that she was sick and didn’t have a lot of time Robert G. Chiu, Ken Jeong, John Cho, Ruthie Ann ing a story from the point of discovery where left. And so she really, really wanted to leave Miles, Sandra Oh, Margaret Cho, Kimiko Glenn you are learning something new,” he said. “Our this movie behind as a love letter for her own www.animationmagazine.net

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F eatures

A Remarkable Heroine: Fei Fei character designs by Glen Keane.

able to bring this type of story and the culture also, which very much is a part of who I am and how I grew up.”

Keane says working with Netflix, Pearl and Sony Imageworks offered much creative freedom in terms of the film’s visual styles. “Netflix is a really unique studio in that there isn’t a house style,” he explained. “There’s a leaning into each creative’s personal vision. We did this film at an amazing speed. We were the first ones in this little Netflix animation studio.

Within four or five months, had the entire movie up with the eight songs written and storyboarded. Everything was happening really fast.

There was this confidence that this was going to stick. This was our film.”

Asian Authenticity

Chou points out that while the film’s characters and experiences are very specific to China, overall the movie is universal and globally relatable. “Audiences will get to see a real Chinese family, real characters with depth and the same longings and desires and hopes for Glen Keane and Pellin Chou Gennie Rim their children and themselves as everyone around the world. We’re all just people and daughter and her husband to talk about what connected in that same way. So I hope people happens when people pass on, that love still will see that and feel connected to that. In a really lasts forever. We were really fortunate way, it’s kind of like being able to visit China that she was still with us at the first screening. through an animated film and really experiSo she really got to see a version of this film, ence the people and the culture.” which she absolutely loved.”

“It’s actually been an incredible journey,” Of course, the character of the film’s imaginaRim says. “We followed Glen’s creative process tive heroine is one of its main draws. “She reand talked about the storytelling and the freeminded me so much of the other characters I dom of creativity. I think had animated throughit’s definitely a Glen Keane ‘Audiences will get to see a real Chinese family, real characters with depth and the same out my career. When my film through and through, producer Gennie Rim longings and desires and hopes for their children and themselves as everyone around the and he’s had so much supand I read the script, world. So I hope people will see that and feel connected to that.’ port from both sides. I we felt compelled to think we’re just all really do it. This is Audrey — Producer Peilin Chou, CCO of Pearl Studio excited to see the world Wells’ swan song. It experience this film in tells such a beautiful this way.” story. So, this movie beBoth Rim and Chou emcame one of the first animated projects set phasized the importance up at Netflix.” of working on a movie that offered an honest Keane says he knew and original representathat he wanted to draw and design some of the tion of Chinese families characters in the movie. and culture to the U.S. and “Disney gets so deeply the world. ingrained in you after “I definitely grew up at a you spend 40 years time where I never saw there,” he says. “I was anyone that looked like looking at the designs myself in U.S. movies or on and thinking, it’s almost television,” says Chou. “So, there, but there needs it’s meaningful to me to be november 20

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F eatures DIY Rocket to the Moon: The movie features colorful space flight sequences following Fei Fei and her brother.

Lower left: A brief but memorable 2D-animated scene tells the backstory of the legendary Moon Goddess.

to be something more. I had seen Brittany Myers’ work on the internet: She had done a wonderful painting of Ariel. There was something different and better about her approach. She was pushing and stretching things in a new way. So I started to imitate her way of drawing and I liked what it was doing for me.”

“Our producer Gennie asked me if I’d like Brittany to work on the movie with us,” Keane recalls. “She has a way of building the right team. So we brought her and Jin Kim, with whom I had worked on Tangled, and we designed these characters. They are three-dimensional, soft characters that feel like they have blood in their veins. It’s something that I learned from the Nine Old Men at Disney. It’s so much about sincerity in the eyes of the characters. So much of the performance is about animating the moment of discovery when an idea happens, and you can truly see it in their eyes.”

“There was a moment where Peilin was saying, we want you to make this movie your own, and we know you love hand-drawn,” Keane recalls. “But after doing Tangled I realized how much drawing is infused in CG if you want it to www.animationmagazine.net

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be. It can be the foundation to everything that you do. So, we decided to take all the power of drawing and design, the beauty of the lighting and the design and colors and textures that CG can bring. We decided to do it in CG. Now I look at the film and cannot imagine that we could have done it any other way.”

A Voyage to Remember Keane says he has always been drawn to movies that incorporate human flight. “My favorite animated movie is Peter Pan,” he notes.

“There’s this wonderful moment when Peter Pan takes Wendy, Jonathan and Michael out of the window of their home, and they fly across London. That idea that you can fly has always been a big part for me. I have flying dreams! As I read the script, the idea of building a rocket to the Moon really captured my imagination. I feel like animation is like that. It takes you on this ride that everyone is going to believe it.”

Comparing Fei Fei’s trip to the Moon to Dorothy’s magical journey to Oz, Keane adds, “Our movie is the same kind of adventure. I love the fantasy, the imagination, the desire to make

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believe, but deeper than that it was something that Audrey was writing from this deep, heartfelt need. Our main character is going to the Moon to meet a Moon Goddess, and just like Dorothy, she has to go through this experience to be able to deal with the problems she is facing at home.”

“Gennie and I got to do this wonderful film with Kobe Bryant, Dear Basketball, which expressed something that was so personal and such a life message for him,” Keane says. “For this movie, Audrey Wells wrote this story knowing that she wasn’t going to be around much longer, and she put this movie in our hands to communicate that message. It’s such a privilege, and we took that very seriously, wanting this film to be as entertaining, fun, emotional and deeply applicable to our own lives. I would love people to come away from the movie singing the songs — that are truly wonderful — and valuing the importance of love and cherishing the people in your life.” ◆ Over the Moon premieres on Netflix on October 23. november20

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Imagining a Colorful Moon

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roduction designer Celine Desrumaux has become an expert in wild voyages and animated trips to the Moon. The talented French artist who worked on Fx Goby and Hélène Leroux’s George Méliès-inspired Back to the Moon, was working on John Kahr’s acclaimed VR short Age of Sail in Montreal when producer Gennie Rim surprised her. “She proposed coffee and showed up with Glen Keane!” she says. “In a way, you could say she’d set us up on a blind date to see how we got along. It’s really important that a director and production designer have good alchemy, they really need to trust each other. It’s essential in that creative combination!”

Coincidentally, Desrumaux had already planned a month-long vacation in China when she found out that some members of the art team would be taking a research trip in and around Shanghai. So, in March of 2018, she joined the team for a week to explore some of the classic Chinese water towns. “I am always interested in projects that are collaborative in every respect,” she says. “It was inspiring to get to know everyone with their different backgrounds. The movie gave me a chance to work with a fantastic and talented team — and Glen Keane — how can you say no to that?

Desrumaux says the character of Fei Fei caught her attention right away upon the first reading of the script. “You could also tell the relationships between the characters were really powerful,” she adds. “I knew I would learn a lot from Glen, from his talent and all his experience. I also knew he wanted to be surrounded by a team that was fresh and that would challenge him. I’d already worked with Gennie and John Kahrs on Age of Sail and was excited to work with them again. I also know they put art center stage. Last, but not least, the world of the Moon (Lunaria) was a great design challenge with huge potential.”

The production designer says working with Keane was an amazing experience. “Watching him draw is hypnotic and relaxing,” she says.

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F eatures

Magical Moonscape: Desrumaux and her team were inspired by the iconic album cover of Pink Floyd’s The Other Side of the Moon and the work of Spanish painter Joan Miro.

Celine Desrumaux

supported me, always encouraging to go beyond our comfort zone, and to show up with strong ideas. They really deferred color and lighting to me during production — -which is my favorite part, too! Glen was always open to hear thoughts and, on many occasions, art and design influenced story and layout For example, the way I wanted to place the lighting influenced the position of the characters on the set.

The Other City of Lights Her biggest challenge? Creating the magical world of Lunaria. “Any artist that is tasked with creating an original world that is magical and wonderful will say that it is both exciting and scary at the same time,” she says. “Instead of having a city made with millions of detailed homes and buildings, we chose to have a city of lights, made of abstract shapes and vol-

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umes of color. The less details you have, the more perfect every frame’s composition should be. Every exterior shot of Lunaria was art-directed.”

The team used real-world references to create Fei Fei’s beautiful town. “Wuzhen and Nanxun were our real-life references for that town,” Desrumaux says. “I took lots of photos on my trip through China that fed both the design and animation team. For Lunaria, everything started with the album cover for Pink Floyd’s famous The Dark Side of the Moon! We wanted something as bold and colorful as this cover. The art of Joan Miró also became our main inspiration. His paintings were a wonderful source of dynamism and color. There was also the simplicity of early Chinese paintings and artists, old 1950s animated films, architecture (such as The Paris Philharmonic), and, of course, imagery of Chang’e!”

Now that the world gets to see her handiwork, Desrumaux hopes everyone will enjoy the film’s magical moments and inspiring visuals. “I think every person who worked on this movie really put in a lot of heart, and you can definitely feel that in the movie,” she concludes. “I think we made it ours, this movie has a special flavor. From the deep and subtle acting in animation that made us fall in love with the characters to the colorful lighting that made us wish we were there with Fei Fei. Lunaria is a truly unique and very colorful world.

We can’t wait to share the movie with everyone!” ◆ www.animationmagazine.net

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A Masterful Loop Erick Oh unveils Opera, a stunning and ambitious new short about the human condition.

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alifornia-based, Korean filmmaker and painter Erick Oh is best known in the animation world for his award-winning shorts (Heart, How to Eat Your Apple, The Dam Keeper, Gunther), his work on Pixar movies such as Finding Dory, Inside Out, Monsters The Human Condition: Erick Oh’s powerful short consists of a day and U n i v e r s i - night cycle that can be played on an ty and Brave and infinite loop. the Tonko House series Pig: The Dam Keeper Poems. This fall, he which he refers to as “all talented artists and launched a hugely ambitious short titled Op- friends who are playing significant roles in era, which has been getting a lot of festival the industry.” They used TVPaint Animation Pro attention. The nine-minute film, which con- to animate, Photoshop to design and paint sists of a day and night cycle that can be and After Effects for the final composition of played on an infinite loop, will also be the the project, which played at the Hiroshima, Zacenter of a public installation exhibition in greb and Ottawa animation festivals. He says the feedback that he has received from his Seoul, Korea in early 2021.

“I first came up with this core idea and mes- friends is that they all say they’ve never seen sage in the year of 2017, which was filled with anything like it before. so many iconic political moments in our recent human history around the world,” Oh tells An Expanding Universe us in an exclusive interview. “In January 2017, “Although the approach seems different Donald Trump became the president of the from my previous projects, I’m using one of my U.S. and a few ‘I wanted to expand and deepen the experience by creating a months later in March, the presiworld that reflects different parts and stories of our life. This dent Park Geunidea naturally led me to design a structure that captures every hye in Korea was detail of our everyday life in different classes.’ impeached.

It — Director Erick Oh was, indeed, the year of chaos, and I had to tell a story that iconic black and white characters, which were documents this part of humanity which actu- introduced in some of my old films like How to ally has been repeating in human history nu- Eat Your Apple (2012), ‘O’ (2015) or animation merous times, in different forms and cul- poetry series on Instagram,” Oh points tures. This piece fearlessly touches upon out. “Which means, this still lives in the same diverse issues like racism, terrorism, religion, world and deals with some metaphors and natural disasters, war, education, economy and symbols I enjoy using, such as an apple, fish, more in different parts and classes in our so- clock, key, tree and so on. With those, I wanted ciety. And after all, everything continues loop- to expand and deepen the experience by creing eternally.” ating a world that reflects different parts and Oh collaborated with a team of 32 artists, stories of our life. This idea naturally led me to

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design a structure that captures every detail of our everyday life in different classes. In those structures and numerous different locations and levels, people live and survive, interacting with each other.”

The director says he was deeply influenced by Hayao Miyazaki’s movies when he was very young.

“Then I fell in love with Masaaki Yuasa’s unique, quirky sensibility, which definitely became a huge influence in my career,” he says. I also became a huge fan of Michaël Dudok de Wit — again, a huge influence in my art and life. I should mention some of the early Pixar movies like Toy Story, Ratatouille, WALL•E and more. My childhood was filled with Disney and Ghibli animations. I’ve been always dreaming about making animation since then. Even when I went to a fine art program in my college where I spent most of my time on painting, I somehow always knew that I’ll become a filmmaker one day. Then I made my first independent animated short all by myself in my room as my graduation project, and that whole experience certainly encouraged me to pursue animation.”

Oh is a strong believer in using animation to express an artist’s personal voice. “Animation is a medium after all,” he says. “Which means, after all, what really matters is what you want to say through your animation. In other words, your own personal voice and vision is one of the most important qualities. It will define who you are as an artist and help you find your way to be successful with your goal eventually!” ◆ For more info, visit www.erickoh.com.

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A New Home for Grown-Up Animation Magical Girl Friendship Squad and Wild Life are the promising new kids on SYFY’s TZGZ late-night block.

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f you’ve been paying attention to the adult animation scene, you already know that SYFY channel has made a big jump into the arena by beefing up its late-night animation block, TZGZ. The cabler, which began its foray into animation by airing reruns of fan favorite Futurama in 2019, introduced its first two original shows Magical Girl Friendship Squad and Wild Life in September.

As Jon Cotton, SYFY’s VP of short-form animation and alternative formats, tells us, “Animation allows us to tell so many great sci-fi stories in cool and original ways, so it was really a natural fit for our network. We kicked off our soft launch with Futurama and followed it with a couple of new acquisitions. We are also introducing more shows in the next few months. This late-night block allows us to focus on shorter-format content created by emerging talents as well as some established creative forces.”

Cotton says he and his team are looking for the best comedies from the most unique voices they can find for TZGZ (which is named after the letters in the alphabet that come right after SYFY). “We are proud of the roster of writing, animating and producing talent that we have put together,” he notes. “It’s a cool collection of young talent, many of which are creating their first TV shows, which are really funny and entertaining science fiction projects.”

Sailor Moon Meets Broad City One of TZGZ’s promising new titles is Magical Girl Friendship Squad, which is created by Kelsey Stephanides, who is also the showrunner. Produced by Brooklyn-based Cartuna studio, the series centers on the adventures of a little red panda named Nut (voiced by Ana Gasteyer) who joins forces with two directionless 20-somethings and gives them magical powers to save the universe. The voice cast includes Quinta Brunson, Anna Akana, Matteo Lane, Christine Baranski, Eric Bauza and Helen Hong.

Stephanides, who worked on Adult Swim’s Ballmastrz: 9009, before her show was picked up by Cartuna, says she was heavily inspired by one of her favorite anime shows, Sailor Moon, www.animationmagazine.net

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Magical Girl Friendship Squad

‘Animation allows me to work with these amazing artists that I love, and it’s a limitless medium. If you can think of it, you can draw it.’

— Kelsey Stephanides, creator, Magical Girl Friendship Squad

as well as Comedy Central’s acclaimed comedy series Broad City. “The origins of the show go back about five years ago, when I was taking a production class and we had to pitch our own show,” she recalls. “My professor at New York University was James Belfer, who is the CEO of Cartuna. He liked my pilot pitch and we ended up making the show Origins, which eventually evolved into the SYFY series.”

The move to SYFY allowed Stephanides to envision the show as a 15-minute format (six episodes are featured in the first season). “We had more production time and a full crew to develop more characters and take the artwork to the next level,” she explains. “We now have a show with about a hundred people working on it, while in the Origins show we had less than 20. We can take more time to punch things up, and deliver more fully realized stories and art style.”

The team at Cartuna uses Adobe Animate to produce the storyboards and animation, while the backgrounds are done in Photoshop, character design is produced via Photoshop and Animate, and compositing is done in After Ef-

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fects. While the studio is based in Brooklyn, the animation team comes from all different parts of the world and they all work remotely.

“We thought we had a lot of challenges before, but then the pandemic happened, and we had to change the way we worked and adjust to working remotely from our homes,” Stephanides admits. “We faced the same problems as everyone else and had to learn as we went along: The computers weren’t fast enough, or sometimes your Internet blanks out, or your voice suddenly turns into a robot voice during a Zoom call and it screeches into people’s ears! But all the challenges endeared us to each other as we were going through a hard time together.”

Stephanides says she always knew she wanted to work in television, but never considered animation. “I knew that I could draw, and my brother was really into animation,” she says. “Then, it just clicked. I knew the process and I could do it. Animation allows me to work with these amazing artists that I love, and it’s a limitless medium. If you can think of it, you can draw it.” november 20

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Celebrating a Human-less Planet TZGZ’s second new fall show Wild Life is also created by a team that uses animation to tell hilarious and imaginative stories. The new toon, which delves into what happens to a group of zoo animals after our planet is

ago as he found himself drawing cheetahs (the show’s central characters are a cheetah, a koala bear, a fox and a sloth). “At first, I thought it was going to be a short, but I felt so frustrated because I had so many ideas,” recalls Davies. “After a friend put me in touch with Alex and Dylan, we decided it

Wild Life

‘The heart of the show is the importance of compassion and friendship while the world is burning around you, which is a very interesting topic now.’

— Adam Davies, creator, Wild Life

finally rid of humans, is created by Adam Davies, who also exec produces along with Alex Plapinger and Dylan Dawson. The project is co-produced by Valparaiso Pictures and L.A.based Octopie studio (Magic: The Gathering, Celebrity Animal Encounters).

Davies, who is based in Baltimore, tells us he started thinking about the show about four years

would be a good idea for a series. We finished the pilot with the help of Octopie in February.”

Since Plapinger and Dawson are based in L.A., the entire writing process was done remotely, and the team worked with animation partners around the world, so the pandemic didn’t change the way the production worked that much. “It’s been fairly appropriate

that we’ve been working on a show about the end of humanity during these strange times,“ says Dawson. “The whole experience has been weirdly cathartic! Adam’s style is very unique and you get attached to it very quickly.”

Davies adds, “The heart of the show is the importance of compassion and friendship while the world is burning around you, which is a very interesting topic now. Honestly, the idea came up many years before everything around us went to crap.”

According to Davies, the production uses Photoshop for backgrounds, Adobe Animate for the animation and After Effects for compositing -- and Zoom for literally everything else! (At the time of this interview, the production teams were working as fast as they could to deliver the first season’s six 15-minute episodes in the next few weeks.)

Plapinger also mentions that he is very optimistic about the animation boom that is happening all over the world. “My hope is that it also opens new doors for fresh talent that is working in a variety of styles,” he says. “There are so many amazing people who are waiting in the wings, and I hope that new venues like TZGZ provide more opportunities for groundbreaking animation to thrive.”

“I hope the Wild Life audience will take away a new appreciation for the universe and the weird moments we all experience,” says Davies. Adds Plapinger, “We know that humans are going to F this up, but we can be friendly and compassionate towards each other in the meantime: It’s good to know that the planet will be in good hands when we’re all gone!” ◆ Magical Girl Friendship Squad and Wild Life debuted on SYFY’s TZGZ block in September.

Other TZGZ Toons The Summoner. This original show from Stoopid Buddy Stoodios and writer/actor/cartoonist Charlie Hankin is about an average 20-something and his magical alien roommate who can summon any object to his present location.

Hell Den. Produced by Shout! Studios and Rafael Entertainment, Hell Den is described as a warped twist on sketch comedy that combines original animation with old live-action and animated clips re-dubbed by members of the Dr. God comedy troupe.

Dr. Havoc’s Diary. This New Form toon revolves around a mid-level supervillain who’s having a mid-life crisis as he battles secret agents, superheroes and his wife. november 20

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Swashbuckling with Santi Nickelodeon makes a splash with its high-energy preschool show Santiago of the Seas.

By Ramin Zahed

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hoy, amigos. Get ready for a new swashbuckling hero as Nickelodeon’s new animated show Santiago of the Seas sets sail this month. Created by Niki López, along with Leslie Valdes and Valerie Walsh Valdes (the husband-and-wife team behind Dora the Explorer), the colorful show follows the adventures of eight-year-old Santiago Montes (voiced by Kevin Chacon), a kind and brave junior pirate who searches for treasures along with his friends. Of course, he also has to keep his Caribbean world safe from villains like Bonnie Bones (Kyndra Sanchez) and his Palm Crow sidekick Sir Butterscotch (John Leguizamo).

The origins of Santiago of the Seas go back several years, when Nickelodeon paired López with the Valdeses to develop the show, which highlights Spanish language and a LatinoCaribbean culture curriculum. López, who was one of Animation Magazine’s Rising Stars of 2020, says she is very pleased that her labor of love is finally making its debut. “I feel very lucky as a woman of color to have had this opportunity to have a project that is so authentically tied to my own background,” says the talented artist who was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. “We need more women and people of color to share their worlds, and I think it’s exciting for the audience who share that background to see themselves and their culture represented in animation.”

The Valdeses also emphasize the value of creating a positive role model for young audiences. “When you create a hero for preschoolers, it’s a huge responsibility,” says Valerie Walsh Valdes. “You want them to develop

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an attachment to the characters. Kids can see our hero Santi as their best friend or a mirror of themselves, which is something everyone wants today. He is brave, but kind, and has many prosocial traits and empowers kids to do good in the world.”

One-of-a-Kind Characters Leslie Valdes echoes his wife. “We have cre-

ated some dynamic and unique characters, and each one of them is very distinct and individualistic,” he says. “We never patronize our audience and have these positive, aspirational characters. The most special aspect of this show is that we have these wonderful Latino and Caribbean characters and a voice cast that is really enveloped in that culture and storytelling. I have worked on shows be-

‘We need more women and people of color to share their worlds, and I think it’s exciting for the audience who share that background to see themselves and their culture represented in animation.’

— Co-creator and co-exec producer Niki López

Brave Buccaneer: The series is centered on a kind and fearless Caribbean pirate who tries to protect his friends from the show’s villains.

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Valerie Walsh Valdes

fore that we’ve had only one Latino character, and it’s not really about the culture. On Santiago, we have code-switching and characters transition easily from English to Spanish, and it’s not a big deal. It’s a very germane way to present the culture.”

While López is based in Los Angeles, the Valdeses work from their home in New York, and the animation is split between Nickelodeon's Burbank studio and Malaysian studio Lemon Sky. The CG animation is done in Maya and composited with Nuke. The visuals were inspired by a variety of sources, including some of Lopez's favorite anime shows, such as Sailor Moon and the works of Rumiko Takahashi.

“You can definitely notice the anime inspiration — the bigger eyes and the expressive characters and mannerisms,” says López , who began her career as an intern at Nickelodeon and worked on shows such as The Fairly OddParents and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness.

“We wanted to explore a few things and didn’t want the characters to feel like stiff, plastic toys. The backgrounds are not hyper realistic, and something about the way the buildings and the skies and clouds look has a little bit of an edge to it. I love the way our partner studio Lemon Sky worked with us. The culture within that studio is so collaborative and energetic. I had the opportunity to visit the studio, and they were such wonderful, compassionate people, and so excited about the project. They truly bumped up the quality tenfold.”

The show’s writers are based both in New York and Los Angeles, and the voice recording is done in New York City. As the creators

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‘We never patronize our audience and feature these positive, aspirational characters. The most special aspect of this show is that we have these wonderful Latino and Caribbean characters and a voice cast that is really enveloped in that culture and storytelling.’

— Co-creator and exec producer Leslie Valdes

explain, post-COVID, everyone is pretty much used to working remotely from their homes.

“We had the same model for Dora the Explorer, which used a writers’ room as well as freelancers. We gave the freelancers multiple episodes in order to immerse everyone in the world of Santiago. We have been working virtually from our homes for a very long time, even before the pandemic,” says Valerie.

Leslie notes, “I think it’s the best work we have done and that the show is really emotionally involving. The artists have really captured the spectrum of skin tones on the characters, and it’s truly beautiful. Growing up, I didn’t see that in live action or animation.”

High-Energy Heroes and Villains According to the Valdeses, the show’s comedic tone is also a huge asset. “John Leguizamo is wonderful as Sir Butterscotch, and the way they’ve animated that character is hilarious,” says Valerie. “I really think our comic villainess Bonnie Bones is a standout, too. Because we are dealing with a preschool audience, we don’t want to alienate or scare them, but we were so relieved when our test audiences were captivated by the villains.”

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Leslie adds, “Dora was a very different kind of show and had a gentle pace. We were aiming for a more energetic pace, something with dramatic high and low points. You can also lose kids if the action isn’t displayed and visualized clearly. We were so pleased to see how everything came together so beautifully.

Animation is a marathon, and not a sprint. We had lots of twists and turns and challenges along the way, but in the end, it’s so great to see the vision that we had talked about over three years ago realized.”

López says she hopes young viewers will be inspired by Santiago’s engaging adventures. “I hope they all feel that they are tagging along with Santi and his friends. I want them to see that kindness is a strength and not a weakness and that they come away with a sense of community. That they learn that they should be looking after each other and always try to do what’s right. I also want the show to fill them up with energy, like a shot of adrenalin.

So, they tell their parents, ‘Hey, I’m going to play with Santiago!’” ◆ Santiago of the Seas premieres on October 9 at 12:30 p.m. on Nickelodeon.

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Angelo Rules

Joyeux 15e Anniversaire, TeamTO! With several new top-notch series in the pipeline, the acclaimed French animation studio celebrates 15 years in the business.

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rench studio TeamTO has been behind so many fantastic animated projects in recent memory that it’s hard to believe it’s only celebrating its 15th anniversary this year.

Since it was founded by Guillaume Hellouin, Corinne Kouper and Caroline Souris in 2005, the creative studio has been behind numerous award-winning shows including Angelo Rules, Presto! School of Magic, My Knight and Me, Oscar’s Oasis and the acclaimed feature Yellowbird. With studios located in Paris and Valence and offices in Beijing and Los Angeles, TeamTO currently hires over 400 employees. We were very pleased when Kouper and Hellouin answered a few of our questions on the occasion of their anniversary.

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thinking about all the obstacles and difficulties that would come our way,” says Hellouin.

“Never could I have imagined that 15 years later we would have 400 employees, two studios, an office in L.A., another in Beijing, 20 series and one feature film to our credit!”

Just like many other studios around the world, TeamTO has had to deal with all the challenges and headaches of working around the restrictions created by the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. “It has been a lot of work and a lot of stress for the top and middle management, as well as for the staff, but our teams have been great and managed to get all our work delivered perfectly on time,” says Kouper.

“Everyone was very focused on how vital it was to make our studio work despite the very real challenges.”

Sizzling Slate Among the many shows the studio is currently working on is Jade Armor (26 x 26’), a beautifully designed series about a teenage girl superhero; the fifth season

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Presto! School of Magic

Corinne Kouper, left, and Guillaume Hellouin, right.

of the Emmy-nominated Angelo Rules (52 x 11’), and Presto! School of Magic (52 x 11’), which is sold to M6 and Canal+ and will be distributed by Federation Entertainment, and the preschool series Tiny Island (52 x 11’) which debuted at Cartoon Forum in September. TeamTO also continues its partnership with eOne/Frog Box on the series PJ Masks (fifth season) and Ricky Zoom (second season), and is in production on City of Ghosts — the highly anticipated new animated series produced by Netflix and created by Elizabeth Ito. The studio currently uses Rumba, a proprietary software developed by the studio in-

house. “Rumba is artist-centric and heightens productivity, resulting in increased creativity and quality of animation through real-time feedback,” says Hellouin. “It made an especially helpful impact during our lockdown period.”

Looking back at their early days, Kouper and Hellouin — who are also married — say they’re amazed at how much the business has changed and grown. “We started in 1987 — that is to say, in the Middle Ages! At that time, we were only able to deliver half a second of animation a day. Now, the studio produces 20 minutes a day, over 2,400 times more than 30 years ago,” they tell us. “From a creative point

‘We believe that determination, perseverance and attention to detail are essential to surviving in this business, and of course a personal touch.’

— TeamTO founders Corinne Kouper & Guillaume Hellouin

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of view, at first we only made flying logos and animated characters that looked like robots.

Today we produce images that are photorealistic and tell stories for extremely varied audiences around the world — and there are simply no limits to creativity!”

“From a professional standpoint, our presence at Cartoon Forum in 2001 remains a very significant moment for me,” says Kouper. “It was held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and we were presenting our first series, Zoé Kézako, which went on to win a Pulcinella Award and an Emmy nomination. We also produced pilots for two other series with very different styles, pitched by other producers that same year:

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Molly Star Racer and Dragon Hunters. It was a great year for our new company!”

When asked to define what makes TeamTO special, Hellouin notes, “We love artistic challenges and we will always have an attentive ear for any creator looking to make a project that goes off the beaten track. We like to focus on the human element; I think this is the key to our success.”

“The biggest challenge in the near future is the outcome for France of the negotiations with the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD),” says Kouper. “Negotiations are well underway between the platforms, the French government and the CNC to determine which percentage of the platforms’ turnover in France should be spent on producing/funding French content, and what the split of that will be between TV and cinema production.”

When asked about the secret of their success and longevity in the business, Kouper and Hellouin respond, “We believe that determination, perseverance and attention to detail are essential to surviving in this business, and of course a personal touch. But the real key to our longevity is simple: it is the talent we find and nurture in our team to encourage creative storytelling, innovative ideas and absolutely superb animation.”

We ask them to leave us with some helpful advice to newcomers who would like to follow in their footsteps. “Define your vision and stick to it,” says Kouper. “This is what I would say to any young person starting in our business.” ◆ For more info, visit www.teamto.com. www.animationmagazine.net

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Studio Spotlight Mercury Filmworks founder and CEO Clint Eland offers his take on 2020’s animation landscape and insights into the new work-from-home era.

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ver since it was founded in 1997, Canadian animation house Mercury Filmworks has been a hotbed of artistic and commercial activity. Working on shows as diverse as Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Stars vs. The Forces of Evil, Tangled: The Series, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Guardians of the Galaxy, the studio has expanded its reach and currently employees about 340 employees at its Ottawa home base, as well as overseeing Mercury Filmworks Europe in Dublin, Ireland. Studio founder and CEO Clint Eland was kind enough to answer a few of our questions in time for the arrival of the new fall market season.

Animag: Can you tell us how Mercury Filmworks is faring during this most unusual year?

Clint Eland: 2020 has been a great year for the animation industry overall. At Mercury Filmworks, our slate comprises a strategic balance of original series from our talented in-house creators and external projects that we collaborate on with our partners. Both strategies continue to work well for us as we attempt to broaden the genres of shows we work on while focusing on our creative process.

In the work-for-hire arena, the larger entertainment studios have doubled down on animation, resulting in an abundance of new and exciting opportunities. We came into the year strong and continue to be so while navigating the current pandemic. Some of our current work for hire projects include Kid Cosmic for Netflix and Hilda season two with our good friends at Silvergate Media.

You were recently quoted in an article about studio productivity and how it has slowed down during this work-from-home era. Can you elaborate on that?

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some departments doing very well, while others struggled a little more. We’ve been very good at applying innovation and supporting our teams, so we’re seeing that number lift.

The silver lining is that this emergency transition has created opportunities to re-think how our business operates and the technologies we can leverage to enable the workforce to have more options and achieve a healthier work/life balance in a post-COVID workplace.

We have proven that working from home does work in a state of emergency, and now we are looking ahead to how it can be effective postCOVID. There are three key areas that we are focused on – communication, personal development, and the business of animation. I’ll expand a little here: Communication Is King: There is nothing more powerful than putting people in a room to communicate — it underpins learning, ideation and teamwork. Face-to-face communication builds trust and drives participation.

Technology has been a game-changer and enabled the work-from-home option, but we all lose out on the opportunity to connect on a human level with our team members. Technology to make work-from-home viable is fundamentally about trying to close the gap between communicating in person and communicating remotely. The very need for a solution highlights the problem.

Developing People: Our employees are our most important asset. How do we continue our history of innovation and performance if our ability to invest and develop our team is severely mitigated by diluted communication and the loss of the human connection? I worry about artists missing the opportunities to connect meaningfully with

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colleagues and mentors. How do we get better? How do our careers progress?

The Business of Animation: As a studio, yes, we have been operating at more or less 70% efficiency since we transitioned to work-fromhome. It is important to know that a large part of our organization is production, which has a fundamentally different scale in terms of team size, communication and organizational requirements than pre-production. Depending on each studio’s unique makeup, one might fare better or worse than another in the current situation. Here at Mercury, some people and departments are doing really well. Others are not, and the reasons for that are unique to each situation and often not about any one thing. What we do know is that we need to continue to learn and adapt.

Surviving and maintaining our competitive advantage are not just a management problem to solve. The foundation of every solution comes from our employees and artists. Their teamwork, work ethic, organization, and their drive to be better tomorrow than they were today is what will make WFH a viable tool with a permanent place in the creative process.

What are some of the projects you are currently working on?

We are currently working on several projects with our partners at Disney, Netflix, Amazon and Apple. In addition to the projects already

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Hilda

Bloopy Merps

mentioned, Kid Cosmic and Hilda season two, some of our other current projects include The Pangors of Puddle Peak, featuring eight-yearold best friends who discover fantastical creatures hidden in plain sight, and Bloopy Merps, about a rules-loving robot and a soft-hearted alien on a mission to terraform a lifeless planet. There are more amazing shows in various stages of development and production but, unfortunately, we are unable to talk about them because they are at a more sensitive stage with partners attached.

What do you see as your biggest challenges for the rest of the year and 2021?

The continuing challenge, of course, is adjusting to a full or partial work-from-home model because of COVID-19. This hurdle has required us to rethink how to communicate with and continue investing in our employee’s growth and development. Both of which are key to providing the level of work our partners expect of us.

Another good challenge to have is that we are busy and have a lot of opportunities across the board for Directors, Art Directors, Animation Directors, 2D animators, FX artists, Compositors, Layout and Background Artists

and more. Fortunately, with college career fairs going virtual, remote hiring is working well for us.

With so many productions in development and production, and each project with needs, wants and personalities of their own, we are grateful to have the combined experience of Chantal Ling (VP of Originals and Co-Productions), Travis Williams (Director of Development), Jefferson Allen (VP, Studio Operations), Tyler Platt (Director of Production), Cate Elliot (Producer) and Heath Kenny (Chief Content Officer) to keep the plates spinning!

Which animation tools do you use to produce your shows?

We work in Toon Boom Harmony and support that pipeline with Adobe Photoshop, Toon Boom Storyboard Pro, Miro Board in development, lots of Excel and, as often as we can, good old-fashioned pencil and paper — even if it’s just to thumbnail out ideas.

How many full-time employees do you have at Mercury these days?

We have around 340 employees at Mercury Filmworks, not including the interns and students that join our team in the summer and

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fall. We are also actively recruiting across all divisions, with about 40 positions that we are looking to fill in the near future.

What do you love about working in animation in 2020?

It seems like we are living in a Golden Age of animation. 2020 brought us new mandates from broadcasters and streamers and an amplified need for new ideas. As a result, we have been provided with opportunities to tackle new projects and styles that we might not have otherwise.

One of the things we love most about animation this year is how important the collaborative process feels. We are a community of passionate people who have come together to create and build stories that have meaning and reach a global audience, but when it comes down to it, we are all fans of animation, and that is the glue that holds us together.

When you walk through our studio (or experience it remotely), you can see the quality of work that comes from our teams. You feel in awe of the magic of animation and a genuine respect for those that make it. ◆ For more info, visit mercuryfilmworks.com.

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A Spellbinding Adventure Expect some enchantment from Federation’s latest animated offering: Presto! School of Magic.

Presto! School of Magic

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few years ago, director Ben Stassen’s Belgian-French movie House of Magic introduced worldwide audiences to the adventures of a special cat who finds refuge in the house of a kindly magician. This year, a CG-animated new spinoff series based on the nWave and StudioCanal movie will be introduced in international TV markets.

Produced by TeamTO in co-production with Belgian partners Panache Productions and La Compagnie Cinématographique, Presto! School of Magic has also secured partnerships with French broadcasters M6 and Canal+. The series is currently being produced and animated

by TeamTO in Paris and Valence.

“We know that magic is timeless, mesmerizing and especially intriguing for kids,” says Monica Levy, head of sales for Federation Kids & Family, which is distributing the 52 x 11-minute series globally. “Produced by our partners TeamTO, this light and fun series will introduce children to what lies behind the curtain through the eyes of our heroes. And like in Glee and other shows that allow young

nephew have turned their old mansion into Presto! School of Magic, where Lisa, Dylan and fellow aspiring magicians Nica, Violet and Vincent learn the tricks of the trade. They all have a different reason for attending the school – but they have one thing in common: a passion for illusion, conjuring and the art of magic!”

According to the show’s director, David Lopez, the production took the risk of imitating 2D concepts as closely as possible, both with the characters and the settings. “The backgrounds are presented in a unified, tone-ontone manner in order to make the characters stand out better,” explains Levy. “The character design was inspired by current films and series such as Trollhunters, Hotel Transylvania and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs with an added dose of cartoonishness and some manga, particularly in the expressions. In terms of the animation style, TeamTO also tried to mimic 2D squash-and-stretch as much as possible, with efficient poses, pithy and dynamic movements, some extreme expressions and elasticity.”

‘Presto! School of Magic is produced by one of the leading studios in Europe with the Emmy Award-winning Corinne Kouper as exec producer,so it is guaranteed to be original, top-quality and hilarious.’

— Monica Levy, head of sales for Federation Kids & Family

people to discover their hidden talents, Presto!

School of Magic shows what it takes to become a great magician.”

The series features a group of talented and curious kids who dream of becoming magicians. “Star students Dylan and Lisa cannot believe how lucky they are to be part of this new school,” notes Levy. “Lorenzo — a retired magician of international renown — and his www.animationmagazine.net

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In addition, Federation continues to offer the 52 x 11’ animated show Squish to content buyers around the world. Produced by sister company Cottonwood Media, the show follows the adventures of single-celled organisms as they face the usual trials and tribulations of kids everywhere. Levy points out, “Coincidentally, the series provides a light-hearted platform to potentially create conversations for

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children about viruses, bacteria and more, so they are also reassured that not all viruses, bacteria etc are bad.”

Levy says she and the rest of the team at Federation were able to quickly adapt and work efficiently through the lockdown period in France. “The fact that the whole world was Squish

also working to a new rhythm via Zoom, Teams and other similar platforms meant there was a strong element of solidarity and mutual understanding on the business front, which was incredibly bonding,” she notes. “The challenge we found was the initial return to the office post lockdown. For example, when we had meetings with some staff in conference rooms while others were working from home, it created some technical and audio hitches — especially as wearing a mask and socially distancing around a desk while trying to speak to others via a computer screen was not as easy as we had thought. We have now found a great middle ground. A few days a week we are all back in the office (with masks of course) and other days we are all working remotely. This is a nice balance, and it’s lovely to be back in the office and to see each other.” ◆ To find out more about Presto! and the company’s other shows, visit www.fedent.com. november 20

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10 Things I Love About China

An acclaimed American TV animation producer and creator reflects on his positive experiences in the often-misunderstood country.

By Josh Selig

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create international kids’ TV shows for a living. I’ve made puppet shows in Palestine, buddy comedies in Canada and shows about singing potatoes in London. Over the years, I’ve added so many extra pages to my U.S. passport that it now looks like a Wendy’s double cheeseburger.

I’m certainly no expert on China — and I fully agree with Pieter Bottelier from Johns Hopkins who said, “Anyone who speaks with great certainty about China needs to have their head examined” — but these days my preferred country for making co-productions of all kinds is, hands down, China.

My work first brought me to China in the ‘90s when I worked on Zhima Jie, the Chinese co-production of Sesame Street. This project was a revelation for me as it was the first time that I truly understood that Western culture was simply one approach to life and art, and that Chinese culture offered a different and equally valid approach. On one of our “training trips” to Shanghai, it became clear that we American “experts” had far more to learn from our Chinese colleagues — among them one of China’s most revered poets — than our Chinese colleagues had to learn from us.

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Acclaimed sculptor Li Chen’s solo exhibit “Ordinary People.”

(Photo by Josh Selig)

Eye-Opening Experiences More recently, while working for my own New York-based studio, Little Airplane Productions (a Studio 100 company), I’ve co-produced a few animated shows with talented Chinese partners. The first was Super Wings! with Alpha, which premiered on Sprout, and the second was P. King Duckling with UYoung, which premiered on Disney Junior in the U.S. and CCTV. These days, I travel to China a few times a year working with a variety of media, toy and theme park groups, and my interest in this complex country has only grown with time.

Last week, after speaking with Josh Selig (right) with Studio 100 co-founder/ CEO Hans Bourlon and colleagues from a friend who doesn’t travel much Chimelong theme park company. (and who has heard mostly negative things about China), I decided to spend a few hours and write down for him five things that I love about China. Before I knew it, my list had become 10 things. Today I’d like to share this list with you, my colleagues in the animation industry and the animation fans who read this magazine.

Many of you already work with China, and have a good sense of the country. For the rest, I imagine my list may surprise you. My hope is that it might inspire some of you to visit China, because seeing China for yourself is the only way to really get a clear perspective on this unique nation. And so, here are 10 things I love about China: november 20

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Now I get it. You cannot look into someone’s Zhima Jie eyes over the internet. You need to sit across from them, you need to have dinner with them and you need to drink together. Only in these ways can trust be established, and it’s trust that ensures lasting business relationships.

2. Patience. I used to be a restless person.

I wanted everything right away. China taught me that waiting is a good thing. It’s while you’re waiting that you learn about your colleagues, a new company or an opportunity. If it happens quickly, it may not last. But if it happens over time, it just might. Anything of real value takes time.

3. Humility. In my experience, most Chinese people are quite humble. I find that the Chinese listen very closely when someone is speaking and they very rarely interrupt.

It’s uncommon to hear a Chinese person bragging about his or her accomplishments. My wife is from Harbin and I asked her about this. She said, “Our personal achievements are important to us, but we always hope these will also help our family, our community, our country and the world.”

4. Discipline. There is a focus and a determination in China that I’ve not experienced anywhere else. You can see this in the work ethic of the Chinese people who have, in just 50 years, built China into the world’s second largest economy. And you can see it in how quickly and effectively the Chinese halted the spread of the coronavirus. When the Chinese set their mind to something, they work very hard, they work very smart and, most of the time, they succeed.

5. Progress. Everything in China is improving quite rapidly, from their education system, to the rule of law, to, yes, respect for intellectual property rights. There is no doubt in my mind that China is steadily moving towards a more open society, and international business standards are already a fact of daily life. If this weren’t the case, would companies like Little Airplane — as well as Disney, LEGO and Universal — even be in China?

6. Getting around. The infrastructure in China is second to none. The bullet trains run fast and on time. The bridges are modern, architectural marvels. And the subways are squeaky clean.

Most of you have probably seen images of the new Beijing Daxing Airport which uses 5G technology to expedite check-in and baggage claim. Designed by the late Zaha Hadid, this airport is a stunning work of art. november 20

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7. Caring for the poor. The quality of life in China has been improving for decades. In the past 70 years, 850 million Chinese have been lifted out of poverty. Think about it, that’s over twice the population of the United States. As one Chinese journalist in New York told me recently, “Some people think we Chinese want to take over the world. We don’t. We actually just want to be sure we can feed and take good care of our 1.4 billion people.”

8. Respect for the elderly. Any morning in China, in any city or town, you can go to the park and see elderly people flying kites, playing mahjong, singing opera and talking proudly about their children and their grandchildren. In many Zaha Hadid countries, older people are largely hidden away designed Beijing in nursing homes and have little contact with Daxing Airport their extended families. In China, one’s grandparents are revered, and this has a powerful and positive impact on their society.

9. Safety. This may surprise some of you, but I feel much safer in China than I do in any other country in the world. There is almost no street crime, gun violence nor illegal drug use in China.

I’m a jogger, and I like to wake up early and go for a long run. In New York, I’m always watching my back. In China, I just enjoy the sunrise.

10. Creativity. One of my favorite places to visit in Beijing is 798, a thriving artists’ community. There are scores of galleries, cafes and graffiti murals that are as good as anything you’ll see on Miami’s Wynwood Walls. This neighborhood reflects the vibrancy of the contemporary art scene in China in 2020. There is great talent here, real innovation, and, yes, there is open political expression.

The teams we work with in China — the Ping pong writers, directors, designers and animators — are as gifted and as up-to-speed on popular culture as anyone I know in Europe Graffiti mural or the U.S. Now, don’t get me wrong. I also love the United States. I am grateful for the many freedoms and opportunities we have here. I also love Brazil, Egypt, Belgium and South Africa. (I love many countries, who doesn’t?) But this article is about China. In this era of internet noise, distortion and misinformation, the only thing I trust is my own direct personal experience. And my experiences over the past 30 years in China have impressed me. I’m not saying China is perfect — no country is — but I am saying China is a great country that deserves our deep respect. ◆ Josh Selig founded Little Airplane Productions (a Studio 100 company) in 1999. He is the creator and exec producer of preschool series Wonder Pets!, 3rd & Bird, Small Potatoes and P. King Duckling. He has received 12 Emmy Awards for his writing and his musical compositions. www.animationmagazine.net

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Kimberly Dennison

Sebastian Debertin

Animation Execs: Notes from a Crazy Year We caught up with some of the top international animation content execs to find out about what they’re looking for and how they’re faring in 2020.

Sebastian Debertin Head of Intl. Content Acquisitions, KiKA (Children’s Channel of ARD & ZDF) Shows that impressed me in 2020: I guess we rank it down a bit and say “great shows!” Well, what hopefully will end up in a great TV series (for HBO Max) is the Oscar-winning short Hair Love. That was one of the few animated stories that truly touched my heart. Dog Loves Books is a great series, too, which we had the pleasure to co-produce with Komixx U.K., ABC Australia and of course the BBC. Inspiring kids to read a book does not go out of fashion. We also co-produced The Lost Letter, with the talented team at Dream Logic and our friends at Lupus Films.

What I look for in an animated property: Quality, on all levels, but most of all, magic! In other words, an animated film or series should make the audience laugh, shiver, cry — make the audience feel like the hero or heroine. Ultimately, it should make the viewer happy.

Best advice: Be enthusiastic and show that you love what you are creating, producing and making. Be positive and happy. And try to really listen to the comments of the people you pitch to. And then, perhaps, they will offer you the key to make your property even a bit stronger and come to life.

Worst thing you can do during a pitch: Not being enthusiastic, not really listening, but pulling off a loveless pitch in the process. Even www.animationmagazine.net

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worse: Looking at your smartphone or answering a short message or even a phone call while pitching!

Best thing I made during the COVID shutdown: Cooking lunch and dinner for the family has been wonderful.

What I love about working from home: Seeing a bit more of my fantastic kids growing up.

What I hate about it: I miss meeting so many nice people in person.

Best way to approach me: A short mail with a five-line pitch, a few scribbles and lots of enthusiasm is the right recipe to approach me. Email Constanze.Spilling@kika.de or Anna-Michelle.Gafron@kika.de. You should prove that you know your project, its unique selling properties as well as its audience and, also, show that you know a bit about KiKA and its programming and philosophy. Plus, you should explain why you feel the project could be a good fit for KiKA! The animated show/movie that changed my life: I really fell in love with animation when I watched Looney Tunes and The Pink Panther cartoons when I was a child. And later, when I produced some animated shows with some of the best people in the business. Some of these shows really made it into my heart and my own Hall of Fame: Guess How Much I Love You? — my friend Suzanne Ryan at SLR Productions, from Sydney, was the one who managed to get the rights. We created a convincing con-

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cept together and ensured that this outstanding property came to life. Chloe’s Closet is a show that we created with the fantastic Mike Young and his team, a long time ago. And the series still is among the number one shows on KiKA, linear as well as online/VOD! We also celebrated Yakari being the number one hit show for 10 years now! I must say that I feel butterflies in my tummy because of the new Smurfs show we currently co-produce with our friends at IMPS, Peyo Productions, Mediatoon and TF1. Fantastic writing, and a bunch of great new female characters will bring more fun, more diversity and more entertainment than ever! I bet the show will be a new hit on KiKA in 2022 – and worldwide!

Kimberly Dennison, SVP Creative Exec, Animation & Family, Gaumont Animation Years at the Job: Over 15 years as a development/current/creative executive … and quite a few years in production. So, pretty much my whole adult life!

Shows that Impressed me in 2020: I found The Midnight Gospel to be fascinating. Outside of animation, there have been a few shows that caught my eye … but I can honestly say I never watched Tiger King!

What I look for in an animated property: I love projects that have a unique point of view and interesting, different approaches to storytelling. november 20

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Nina Hahn

Sarah Muller Adina Pitt

Best advice for content creators: It’s a strange time in the world, keep using your art to explore and shed light on what matters to you and what’s personal to you. The world needs you!

Worst thing you can do during a pitch: The worst thing you can do is to be unprepared.

The best pitches I’ve taken lately, and especially during this time, are the ones that have been well practiced and prepared.

What I love about working from home: I’m currently setting up my new home office – I finally figured out that working in a corner of my living room just wasn’t really going to cut it!

What I hate about it: I miss the in-person connection with my coworkers and friends.

There’s an ease of communication that does come from seeing everyone in real life – I miss that a ton! Nothing beats chatting in the kitchen!

The animated show/movie that changed my life: I grew up in a family that has always supported and appreciated animation as a form of storytelling … so there wasn’t a singular animated show that changed me, instead they have all influenced me. But I suppose my first real influence was Disney’s Winnie the Pooh.

Nina Hahn SVP, Production & Development, Nickelodeon International Years at the Job: 15 years Shows that Impressed me in 2020: They all impressed me, as getting any show up and off the ground at any time is super impressive.

What I look for in an animated property: I always look for authenticity and strong characters. I care about diversity and I’m always on the lookout for something that will make me laugh — out loud. It has to be visually unique, creator driven, global and be a “must have” and one of a kind! november 20

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Best advice for content creators: Do your homework prior to your pitch and target your pitch appropriately to the network or streamer that would be the best home for your work.

Then, think like a programmer, and ask yourself, “Where would I program this show so that it fits tonally with that network/streamer?”

Worst thing you can do during a pitch: I would rather focus on the best thing you can do: keep it simple and be able to address (in one line), “What’s my show about?”

Best thing I made during the COVID shutdown: Not about “I” — more about we! The best thing about COVID isn’t what we made but how we made it as a team; with creative agility, non-linear creative thinking, and the welcoming of creative risk.

What I love about working from home: Not so much about working from home, but I love that COVID has challenged creative to think, write and produce differently. Change is great fuel to creativity.

What I hate about it: Not a time to hate anything ... Every cloud has a silver lining!

Best way to approach me: Not just “me” but the international team: don’t hesitate to email, call, use LinkedIn — whatever is best for you!

The animated show/movie that changed my life: Tony Collingwood’s student short film called RARG. That and everything made by The Canadian National Film Board!

What I look for in an animated property: Heart.

Originality. Great storytelling. Humor. Contemporary resonance.

Best advice for content creators: Be really thorough with your development, make sure you’re completely happy with where you’ve got it to and never, ever think, “That’ll do!”

Worst thing you can do during a pitch: Pitching’s really hard, so I’m loath to be too prescriptive. However, not being yourself is to be avoided, we want to hear your vision and why it’s important to you!

Best thing I made during the COVID shutdown: Animation has been the success story of COVID and everything has continued more or less as usual, but I would single out Elmo’s Playdate from Sesame Workshop as an exceptional piece of reactive content and, of course, not one made by me at all! But we were delighted to share it with our audience.

What I love about working from home: I’m looking at the garden, I’m watching the birds and my dogs are at my feet, so what’s not to love?

What I hate about it: My hair is truly hideous!

Best way to approach me: Email me at Sarah.

Muller@bbc.co.uk.

The animated show/movie that changed my life: Bambi — it was the first animated movie I ever saw and we went to the cinema to see it!

I couldn’t work out why all of the grown-ups were crying, but none of the kids.

Sarah Muller

Adina Pitt

Head of Independent Animation & Acquisitions, BBC Children’s Years at the Job: 10 years – in two blocks. I can’t keep away!

Shows that impressed me in 2020: Hair Love (glorious), Undone (modern and courageous) and The New Adventures of Paddington (a great reworking of a classic story).

VP of Content Acquisitions & Co-Pros, Cartoon Network & Boomerang Shows that Impressed me in 2020: Craig of the Creek, Blue’s Clues & You, Bluey, Total Dramarama and, of course, 90-Day Fiance!

What I look for in an animated property: I always say that I’m looking for that thing I didn’t know we wanted/needed. That said, I love to see creators’ imaginations come to life showcasing new

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Linda Simensky

Tara Sorensen Vicky Schroderus

characters, worlds, stories. Shows with heart, humor, authenticity that are visually stunning.

Best advice for content creators: Remember who your consumer is and have fun!

Worst thing you can do during the pitch: If it is going to take you 30 minutes to explain your show, then there is a problem.

Best thing I made during lockdown: I made a fantastic carne guisada with tostones. Seriously though, I made a decision to refocus my energy to search for great ideas and reconnect with people in our industry. It’s been wonderful to connect.

What I love about working from home: Being near my kids. Mind you, my kids are 17 and 19, so they may not be so thrilled to have me so close! But I love it.

What I hate about it: Having 24/7 access to my refrigerator.

Best way to approach me: Email is always a great first communication.

The show or movie that changed my life: As a child, one of my favorite memories was sitting on my mom’s white shag carpet (it was the ‘70s!), eating cereal while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Scooby-Doo was by far my favorite. As an adult, I’d have to say that Finding Nemo was extraordinarily impactful to me. I had just had my second child and remember watching this exquisite movie and crying my eyes out. The unconditional love and friendships explored in this film are beautiful.

Vicky Schroderus Executive in Charge of Intl. Co-Pros & Acquisitions, YLE Children’s Programs Years at the Job: A lifetime!

Shows that Impressed me in 2020: It’s Pony and Disrupted. www.animationmagazine.net

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What I look for in an animated property: Outstanding stories that speak to our audience as well as unique visual looks that stand out the crowd.

Best advice for content creators: Watch, learn and analyze the shows that are popular. Then try to create something different that stands out. Put most effort into the scripting and bible, but enchant with visuals.

Worst thing you can do during a pitch: Start with telling a very long story about how you got an idea for the pitch!

Best thing I made during the COVID shutdown: I started to exercise regularly.

What I love about working from home: No commuting What I hate about it: No commuting and travelling, as well as not meeting people in person.

Best way to approach me: Send me a short email.

The animated show/movie that changed my life: Too hard to choose as there are so many, and yet there are so many in the pipeline!

Linda Simensky Head of Content, PBS KIDS Years at the Job: 17 Shows that Impressed me in 2020: Bluey, It’s Pony.

What I look for in an animated property: I love big ideas, fun and unique designs, authenticity, heart and an easy way for kids to connect to the show. I look for curriculum areas that are exactly what kids are curious about. And I like when a show doesn’t look or feel like other shows but still fits with our brand.

Best advice for content creators: Do some research on a network before pitching.

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Worst thing you can do during a pitch: Tell me about another network that wants the show. I will tell you to go with them.

Best thing I made during the COVID shutdown: Space. I cleaned out my garage.

What I love about working from home: Seeing more of my family, no morning commute.

What I hate about it: Not having enough casual time to joke around with my colleagues.

Best way to approach me: Email or at a festival.

Tara Sorensen Head of Children’s Programming, Apple TV+ ``Years at the Job: Two and a half years.

Shows that impressed me in 2020: Pixar’s Forky Asks a Question (Disney+) and Disney Channel’s The Owl House.

What I look for in an animated property: Emotional connection — key takeaway. I’m always thinking about the impact a show can have in that moment the audience connects with it, and hoping it stays with them far into their future.

Best advice for content creators: The strongest stories for me are always the ones that have some personal connection to the creator.There’s an intimacy they have with the characters and stories that’s hard to re-create without it.

Worst thing you can do during a pitch: Not be familiar with the shows already on our service.

Best thing I made during the COVID shutdown: There’s a lot of content I’m excited about for parents and young audiences, but a few that come to mind are the Fraggle Rock: Rock On! and Helpsters Help You — short-form content which were seemingly done overnight. The passion and dedication of The Jim Henson Company and Sesame Workshop was amazing to see in motion. Because of the underlying message november 20

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Amanda Vaughan

Alison Warner

of each original, it felt like the world needed some Fraggle and Helpsters magic at a time of uncertainty and darkness. We were able to introduce the Fraggles to a new generation of fans while appealing to nostalgic parents and adults alike, as they showed us we could connect with friends and loved ones regardless of where we were, physically speaking. Meanwhile, the Helpsters shared creative ideas for activities to do while at home, and what to do when life doesn’t go as expected.

What I love about working from home: Getting to spend more time with my family. Eating dinner every night with my husband, Scott, and our two children, Lucas and Laurel … and having my dog at my feet for WebEx meetings.

What I hate about it: It’s hard drawing a line between work and home when your office is your home.

Best way to approach me: Through a mutual contact.

The animated show/movie that changed my life: Really Rosie and The Point.

Amanda Vaughan Production Executive Corus Kids Years at the Job: Two years on the programming team and three years on the original content team at Corus.

Shows that Impressed me in 2020: TELETOON premiered the second season of Fresh TV’s Total Dramarama this year. The show is truly stand-out and every single episode is hilarious from beginning to end.

What I look for in an animated property: We’re currently looking for animated comedies, so humor is definitely key. I also look for strong characters that feel fresh, flawed but still loveable, and well-rounded, as well as diversity in the november 20

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characters and in the stories themselves so our audiences are represented in the content on our networks. Overall, I look for series that have a unique artistic style or tone that reflects the particular creator’s vision. In other words, something that just feels new and creator-driven.

Best advice for content creators: During a pitch, I always like to ask about the relationships that the characters have with each other. It’s great to have characters that can stand alone, but when creating a pitch, make sure you spend some time on what the characters think about each other, how they interact with one another, and why they like each other or butt heads.

Worst thing you can do during a pitch: Don’t hold back! I like to hear all about the world, the characters, their relationships, and how the show would look as a full season. It’s important to feel your passion and vision during the pitch.

Best thing I made during the COVID shutdown: Pickles! I learned how to make the brine and jar them.

What I love about working from home: I feel equally as productive at home! I have set up a comfortable office and I am thankful for video calls which have allowed me to stay connected to my colleagues and partners. Plus, I love the time I get back in my day now that I’m not commuting.

What I hate about it: I miss collaborating in person with colleagues and the ideas and rich conversations that come from hallway run-ins or coffee chats in a creative space at Corus Quay.

Best way to approach me: Through email at kidsoriginals@corusent.com.

The animated show/movie that changed my life: Disney’s Recess has always been a favorite

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show of mine. It really stands the test of time and is still laugh-out-loud funny today.

Alison Warner Managing Director, Blue Zoo Rights Years at the Job: One year exactly!

Shows that Impressed me in 2020: I was impressed to hear about the rapid response to the BBC mini-commissioning round with so many new creative ideas coming from it. Yet to see any of the shows, however.

What I look for in an animated property: A thoughtful, creator-driven idea that shows heart and integrity.

Best advice for content creators: Know exactly who you’re pitching to and why you’re pitching to that person … and state that from the onset!

Worst thing you can do during a pitch: Lose sight of the story and why the characters are meaningful.

Best thing I made during the COVID shutdown: We have a delightful preschool property developed in-house that we’re currently working on which I’m excited to show (hopefully soon!).

What I love about working from home: More time – my commute was a long one!

What I hate about it: Not seeing my work/industry friends and colleagues – Zoom is just not the same!

Best way to approach me: Via email alison@ blue-zoo.co.uk.

The animated show/movie that changed my life: Recently, seeing the success of The Deep (the series I found while at Technicolor) – which proved that an animated adventure show works globally. Watching Bugs Bunny made me want to work in animation. ◆ www.animationmagazine.net

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Virtual MIPCOM’s Newsmakers

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s many had predicted, the MIPCOM fall content market has now joined the ranks of this year’s industry events that had to shift to the virtual world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The official Digital MIPCOM week is slated for Oct. 12-16, while MIPCOM and MIP Junior Online+ will go live Oct. 5 thru Nov. 17. For more up-to-date info, visit mipcom.com. Here are some of the animation highlights of this year’s event:

Ewe Will Love It!

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scar-nominated French animation powerhouse Xilam (I Lost My Body, Oggy and the Cockroaches) continues its winning streak this fall as it will be launching its new slapstick comedy Trico (78 x 7-minute) as a Netflix-branded original for the world. The show, which is created by the studio’s own Hugo Gittard (Zig & Sharko, Magoo) is looking at an early 2022 delivery date. The colorful toon centers on a cosmopolitan sheep who is full of wild ideas and his friend Biscotte, a tough ewe who is always trying to keep his flock safe from the hungry wolf.

“We are thrilled to be undertaking this new collaboration with Netflix and feel honored by the trust they have placed in Xilam’s talents,” says Xilam founder and exec producer Marc du Pontavice. “Hugo has created a fantastic series which is brimming with endearing characters and original comedy — we’re sure Trico’s mishaps will charm and entertain audiences across the globe.” Fortunately, du Pontavice never pulls the wool over your eyes and always delivers!

Zen Master Panda

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hat better time to introduce kids to the art of being Zen and mindful than the mind-boggling madness that we’re all going through? The good people at Gaumont Animation and Scholastic Ent. have produced a series based on Jon J. Muth’s books Zen Shorts, which will arrive on Apple TV+ on Dec. 4. The show is called Stillwater, after the central character who is a wise panda bear and teaches the three human siblings Karl, Addy and Michael about mindfulness tools that help them face day-to-day challenges of life. Exec produced by Sidonie Dumas, Christophe Riandee, Nicolas Atlan, Terry Kalagian, Iole Lucchese, Caitlin Friedman, Jef Kaminsky and Rob Hoegee, this timely toon features the voice talents of James Sie, Eva Binder, Tucker Chandler and Judah Mackey. This is probably one of the most essential family shows of the year, because as another wise panda once said, “Nobody comes back from their journey the same as they were before.”

Plasticine Pal Is Back

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he world was a kinder, gentler place when Peter Lord and David Sproxton introduced their first plasticine hero Morph in 1977. This year, a new 15 x 5-minute series titled The Epic Adventures of Morph will re-introduce the beloved Aardman character to the world. The show, which will debut on Sky Kids in late 2020, finds the clay-animated hero embark on new dialogue-free adventures with his sidekick Chas, and old buddies Delilah, Grandmorph and The Very Small creatures. We can’t wait to feast our eyes on this stop-motion show from the very masters of the art form.

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Serialized Sensation

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s an adult, it’s very rare when you read a children’s book that sticks in your head for many years,” says French studio Dandelooo producer Emmanuèle Petry Sirvin.

"That's what happened to my partner Jean Baptiste [Wéry] and me when we read JeanClaude Mourlevat's novel The Upside Down River. All the ingredients are there to touch your heart — adventure, friendship, fear, love, nature, humor, imagination and fantasy. We hope our adaptation will be as good, well even more beautiful, than Jean-Claude’s novel.”

Dandelooo’s upcoming 9 x 26’ 2D-animated version of the novel follows a young girl’s search for water drops from the Qjar river in order to heal her sacred bird, who begins a fantastic quest along with Tomek, a shy boy who falls in love with her. The serialized project, which is co-produced with Canal+ Family, will be directed by Paul Leluc. Sadly, we all have to wait until mid-2022 to enjoy this beautiful adventure unfold. But that gives us plenty of time to find the book and fall under its spell just like Petry Sirvin did.

Git Along Little Dinos

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In Search of Intelligent Mini-Lives

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here are lots of reasons to love Studio 100’s latest 52 x 11’ animated show FriendZSpace. Created by industry veteran Dan Clark (Team Smithereen, Alien Xmas) and Oscar Covar, and co-produced with T&B Media and Flying Bark, the CG series is about human kids Alice, Leo and Kim and BotDog (half-puppy, half-Swiss-army-knife pet) who travel through space in their star cruiser to make friends with alien children in distant planets. Of course, making friends with alien kids can be challenging: Some live in the bushy eyebrows of a dangerously moody slobbering beast, while the kids from another planet are so colossal, our heroes need to climb them like skyscrapers just to say hello!

“FriendZSpace is a fast-tracked, action-packed, and super funny characterdriven animated comedy which is all about embracing our differences and getting into exciting trouble in the process!” says Dorian Buehr, Studio 100’s head of global distribution.“A signature element in the series is that every alien kid wants to be friends in the end, but to get there will rarely be easy.

Different customs, funny alien biological quirks, and pressing narrative events create comic complications that must be overcome!” Frankly, you had us at BotDog and alien babies that live in giant eyebrows! november 20

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owboy kids and their dinosaur buddies — now that’s what we call a perfect recipe for a perfect preschool show! Boat Rocker’s latest 52 x 11’ animated series Dino Ranch is created by Industrial Brothers co-founder Matt Fernandes and follows the adventures of three young rancher siblings who learn the ropes of navigating the great outdoors with their dinosaur buddies in a pre-westoric world. As Jon Rutherford, managing director of Boat Rocker Studios, tells us, “Matt’s unique vision of combining cowboys/cowgirls and dinosaurs has huge global appeal, with eye-popping animation and carefully crafted comedic storylines.” We weren’t surprised to learn that the show will begin roaming the wild frontiers of Disney Junior in the U.S. in 2021!

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Not All Bots Are Evil

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Flying Doctors’ Orders

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couple of years ago, the world fell in love with a charming heroine named Pearl and her accident-prone dragon friend in Magic Light Pictures’ Emmy-winning short Zog. Now producers Michael Rose and Martin Pope and director Sean Mullen are following up with a half-hour sequel titled Zog and the Flying Doctors. The CG-animated adventures finds Zog as the trusty air ambulance for flying doctors Pearl and Gadabout. However, when bad weather forces them to land at the palace, Pearl is locked up by her uncle, the King, who doesn’t think that princesses should be doctors. Booo!!!

The show is already set to premiere in the U.K. on BBC One as a highlight of its upcoming Christmas schedule and in German with partner ZDF. Magic Light Pictures’ co-founder Martin Pope tells us, “It’s fantastic to bring this companion title to our distribution partners all over the world. Zog has picked up many prestigious awards and nominations that we’re delighted with. So it’s wonderful to join Pearl, Gadabout and their trusty friend for the next stage of the adventure.” Frankly, this is the only flight that seems both safe and enjoyable to take in 2020!

msterdam’s hot animation studio Submarine, which is busy working on the second season of Amazon’s acclaimed Undone, has another interesting project in the works. It’s a hybrid live-action/animated series based on Matt Haig’s best-selling sci-fi novel Echo Boy. Set in the year 2115, the series centers on a teenager named Audrey Castle whose life is shattered after her parents are murdered by a malfunctioning humanoid robot. However, when Audrey meets a thinking, feeling prototype named Daniel, she is forced to grapple with her prejudices, fears and the idea of what it means to be human. Submarine is partnering up with long-time collaborator Tommy Pallotta, who co-developed the rotoscope technique used in A Scanner Darkly, Waking Life and Undone. “Matt’s book is futuristic but also intensely human — and has the combination of an original world and resonant truth we look for in a story,” says Femke Wolting, Submarine’s co-founder and co-managing director. May the good bots save us from all the horrible humans someday soon!

Suffering Sibling

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he poor, forgotten nine-year-old star of Cartoon Network Brasil and Copa Studios’ animated series Jorel’s Brother is so overshadowed by his infamous sibling that he is actually nameless! Yet, the shy nine-year-old strives to be as popular as his brother and he always manages to find a crazy solution to the many challenges life and his unusual family throw at him. The 104 x 11’ (and 18 x 2’) series is created by and based on the childhood of famous Brazilian actor, writer and MTV presenter Juliano Enrico, who also voices Jorel! Cake Distribution is handling worldwide rights (except Latin America) for the International Emmy-nominated show, which targets eight to 11-year-old audiences. While a fourth season is set to air later this year, we have it from reliable sources that the poor bro continues to be nameless. www.animationmagazine.net

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Fighting Evil in Jakarta

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ndia and Singapore-based animation studio Cosmos-Maya and Spectrum Film have joined forces to produce a new CG-animated show about a modern-day local Indonesian boy who becomes an action hero. The 52 x 11’, which is called Putra is described as an action-comedy which follows the adventures of a brave kid who investigates crimes with his friends Iss and Budi. Iss’s coding skills help Putra solve complex puzzles, while Budi’s habit of excessive eating invites unnecessary troubles. “We have seen our homegrown Indian IPs performing wonderfully in Indonesia,” says Anish Mehta, CEO of Cosmos-Maya. “Putra gives us the opportunity to directly cater to a large, rich, digitally-advancing and diverse market allowing us to make homegrown content tailormade for local consumption in a foreign territory. There is no better time for us to make this move into the Indonesian animated content space, and there is no better partner for this than Spectrum Film.”

Cat and Mouse Games

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Double Delight

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GS Entertainment has two terrific animated shows in its catalog this fall season. The global content distributor recently picked up Wonderstorm’s Emmy-winning series The Dragon Prince, which has received universal acclaim (100% “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

The epic show, which debuted in September of 2018 on Netflix, is created by industry veterans Aaron Ehasz (Avatar: The Last Airbender) and Justin Richmond (Uncharted 3) under their Wonderstorm banner and has already been greenlit for four more seasons. The company’s other big new property is the charming adaptation of Tove and Lars Jansson’s beloved Moominvalley series, which is produced by Gutsy Animation and commissioned by YLE, Sky and NHK. Few can resist the charms of the Finnish-Swedish tales about Moomintroll and his family and friends as they venture beyond their familiar valley to experience new adventures.

The 26 x 22’ series’ other media partners include PCCW, France TV, ZDF and Amazon. What a way to embark on a new fall season of animated entertainment.

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hen children’s author and illustrator Rob Scotton published his book Splat the Cat, millions of readers around the world fell in love with his delightful black feline central character and his good friend, Seymour the Mouse. Now, thanks to the efforts of Paris, Angoulême and Montreal-based studio Blue Spirit, the charming property is being adapted into a 52 x 11’ show called Splat & Seymour, aimed at four- to seven-year-old viewers. The show is being directed by French toon veteran Jean Duval (Mini Ninjas, Doogal). Blue Spirit, which has worked on features such as My Life as a Zucchini and The Prince’s Voyage, is also bringing three other award-winning shows to the fall markets this year: Alice & Lewis, The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Arthur and the Children of the Round Table. Congrats to general manager Frantz Delbecque for the studio’s fantastic output this year. ◆

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Triple the Fun Three top Korean animation studios offer exciting new shows at the fall markets.

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espite facing the many challenges of a global pandemic year, Korean animation studios have continued to produce top-notch content for global audiences. Here are three highlights featuring new shows by top Korean studios which are being presented at TV markets around the world this season:

Robocar POLI SongSong Museum

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his colorful offering from Seoul-based Roi Visual is music-themed show that invites children to sing along and learn as they enjoy the adventures of a special police car, a fire truck, an ambulance and a helicopter than transform into robots to help friends in danger and to solve problems. Since its debut on EBS in February 2011, Robocar POLI SongSong Museum has been broadcast in 143 countries in 35 languages and is one of the most popular children’s shows in South Korea. The 26 x 5-minute CG-animated series will debut in Russian in October, Taiwan in November and China in January of next year. The team from Roi Junior plans to meet global buyer at the Festival of Licensing and MIP Junior this month. Roivisual has entered its 12th year of global business and is already actively engaged in global licensing projects based on hundreds of media and licensing partners in over 30 countries around the world. The studio, which is best known for titles such as Woobi Boy, Chiro and Inner Ranger is eager to supply quality shows for Asia, Europe and U.S. markets and to reach out to new platforms that are becoming more diverse each day.

Website: roivisual.com

A Little Dreamer GGUDA

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ive young children turn into a spaceship captain, a detective, a brilliant doctor, a sports hero and a singing dancing superstar in their tiny and beautiful dream island. That’s the premise for Studio Moggozi’s latest animated series. The first season of the 27 x 7-minute series is slated for an early 2021 delivery, followed by a second season in 2022. Founded in 2009 by a young, creative team, Studio Mogozzi is quickly growing as a competitive content creator in the region. The company strives to reach new markets by creating a wide variety of children’s programming based on different business models. The studio, which is also known for popular preschool shows such as GoGo Dino Explorers, Bugstron and Eeny Meeny Manemo, uses a wide variety of production tools, and hopes to be known for specializing in high-quality and creative content, efficient production management and distribution.

Website: mogozzi.com

Tish Tash

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est known for producing animated hits such as Pororo, Pipilu Rangers and Little Bus Tayo, Studio Gale is offering a charming new CG-animated preschool show for the global market: Tish Tash centers on an imaginative seven-year-old female bear named Tish who faces life’s daily challenges and adventures along with her imaginary friend Tash. The series, which has been a big hit for EBS, will have its Englishlanguage version ready by December of this year. IN 2018, the production received major support from Korea’s cultural and content agency KOCCA and was also one of the top shows supported by the agency for this year’s MIP Junior Showcase, which helped spread the word to buyers around the world. Studio Gale, which was showcased at Annecy and won the grand prize for Best Animated Series Prize at Cartoons on the Bay for the series Grami’s Circus Show, has been recognized for its top-quality programs and innovative approach to animation for young viewers. The producers hope the new show will also capture the imagination of animation fans worldwide. “Tish Tash will introduce a fantastic and entertaining world through children’s imagination in everyday life, which can only be expressed in animation,” says Chang Hwan Shin, CEO of Studio Gale.

Website: studiogale.com www.animationmagazine.net

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Autonomous Animator

O ppOrtunities

By Martin Grebing

Pitch-Perfect

How to be prepared for your next Zoom meeting with a development exec.

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hink you have the next great idea for an animated feature? If so, you’ll need to develop and deliver an amazing pitch to stand even the slightest chance of landing a production or distribution deal.

Movie executives typically don’t deal with mere mortals, especially when financing or a co-production deal is being sought, so you’ll need to hire an entertainment attorney, producer, or agent that believes in your project to get you in the door.

In the meantime, you’ll need to perfect your pitch.

Keep in mind, the same things that make a great pitch in person are the same things that make a great pitch remotely. In fact, remote pitches are nothing new.

Many a movie pitch has been made “live via satellite” or through the net. High-speed internet has made it more convenient and effective than ever to pitch a project to a potential client out of state or even overseas.

est in their company and that you’ve done your homework.

Best-Laid Plans After scheduling a date for your presentation, work with your agent to establish the best approach for your pitch.

Some companies make their decisions based exclusively on financials, while others may be better wooed by a great story. This being the case, you need to come prepared for all occasions but will probably be best served by polishing your story and passionate delivery to a mirror-like shine, as some successful

Bugs Bunny definitely knew his way around a good Hollywood pitch session!

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Practice, practice, practice! You’ll need to rehearse your pitch over and over again until it becomes second nature. And after a hundred tries, when you finally have it perfected, rehearse at least 10 more times.

You’ll need to repeatedly record yourself, start to finish, then watch with an unflinching eye. Judge and critique your performance to the standard of a movie created by the greatest director and most legendary cast ever assembled. Redline any area where the pacing drags or passion lags, and refine these areas so each round is better than the last.

Whatever your approach may be, it’s crucial to get to the point quickly. Establish the need or benefit of this particular idea as it pertains to their company -- and even mention fierce competitors and how this idea will help them beat said competition.

Icing on the Cake While some agents may tell you not to bury the lead (i.e., save the best for last), if you’re able to keep your audience riveted and the execs interested throughout your pitch, sometimes a powerful image or quick animation sample at the very end can really help push you over the proverbial edge.

The visuals need to be compelling and strike a strong emotional chord in your audience, so spend plenty of time producing a very short and very powerful sample of your movie and present this as the grand finale.

And always remember to treat your pitch as if it’s a multi-million dollar blockbuster movie because, if all goes well, it just might turn into one.

Do Your Homework Whether pitching your idea remotely or in person, you’ll need to do plenty of research before identifying appropriate candidates. Dive deep into the entire catalog of the studio you are interested in and make sure your idea is on topic. Requesting to pitch an over the top zombie gore fest to a company that focuses on children’s educational content will more than likely result in you being placed on the “auto-ignore” list.

Find a company that has produced successful titles in the same genre as your idea, as this establishes your intention of aligning with and adding to their more successful work. Additionally, you will be expected to have intrinsic knowledge of their existing content, so brush up on their full body of work.

This shows respect, passion, a genuine inter-

The Three Ps of Pitching

pitches of yore consisted of little more than a sole presenter explaining and acting out the entire movie from start to finish.

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Martin Grebing is the president of Funnybone Animation Studios. He can be reached at www.funnyboneanimation.com.

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VFX

Tech Reviews PolyCloth ClothBrush for 3ds Max

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ometimes, it’s not the big pieces of software that bring me the most joy. Sometimes, it’s simply a little tool that solves a problem and makes life just a little bit easier.

PolyCloth ClothBrush is a sweet plugin for Autodesk’s 3ds Max, and it is used to sculpt wrinkles and folds into a surface.

Now you may be thinking why do I need that? Max has a cloth simulation. So do Maya, Houdini, Cinema 4D, etc. And if you wanted to get fancy, you could dive into Marvelous Designer. But all those solutions are expensive, and cloth simulations are not necessarily easy to control or learn. In fact, visions of killing a fly with a sledgehammer come to mind.

ClothBrush is an elegant tool that uses physics to calculate the wrinkles and folds as you push, pull and pinch the surface around with your brush. You can also modify the parameters of the cloth like damping, plasticity, bendiness and deformation. It’s really that simple. However, the utility is deep. For architecture projects, sets in virtual production, still sculptures, 3D printing, etc., you don’t need the overhead of a cloth simulation, and you may not want to jump into ZBrush to sculpt in folds. You can pop open ClothBrush, activate the surface and begin pulling it around to get just the right folds. Or, if you are going to do a simulation, you can manipulate the surface to your starting look, or your target look as a guide for the simulation.

The plugin is only 60 bucks, developed by someone out there who saw a problem that needed fixing, and took care of it. So support your 3D artists out there — especially the ones who are delivering value to the community.

Wesbite: cgtrader.com/batuhanozer52 Price: $59

Tool Chefs’ Atoms Crowd

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ack a few months ago when I was part of the Unreal Fellowship, I got to try out some stuff that was in beta at the time.

One of those was Atoms Crowd, which was alsnovember 20

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by Todd Sheridan Perry

most ready for prime time when I was writing the initial set of Unreal reviews, but needed some time for one more polish.

Atoms Crowd is a stand-alone skeleton-based crowd simulation framework. While it stands alone, it has been integrated into Maya, Houdini, Clarisse, Blender, Katana and Gaffer, and it can be rendered in V-Ray, RenderMan, Arnold and Redshift. You could say that it’s pretty ubiquitous -- unless you want to render in Mental Ray or something. Which … why?

It hasn’t been around forever, but it’s been around for a good three or four years and has been picked up by numerous VFX houses in-

agents are driven by animation clips or caches that have been exported out of either Atoms Crowds or Atoms Realtime.

The upside of caches is that you can use them within the Engine without an Atoms license (but, they can’t be modified). These clips are then played via a state engine to tell them when to do which action. Complex terrain is respected, and the agents can look to the gravity vector to determine how to stay upright on slopes. They understand collisions and avoidance. And all of that can be broken and the agents turned into ragdolls if they “die.” Even pieces of agents can be broken off.

cluding Cinesite. Also, Tool Chefs has been awarded an Epic MegaGrant to continue development of Atoms Realtime — the Atoms Crowd for Unreal.

Creating crowds through Atoms Realtime is pretty straightforward once you go through the process a couple times. It’s faster if you are already familiar with setting up characters and skeletons in UE. It comes with its own set of agents to get started, but that doesn’t mean you can’t set up your characters in Maya or Houdini and port them over.

Since it is skeleton based, and that skeleton can be used over many characters, once you bring them into your level, the Atoms Realtime layout tool provides numerous ways to distribute the crowd members. This includes manually placing them over a grid, within a polygon area, along curved paths, in clusters or simply scattered across a terrain. These

All of these variables can be randomized to provide a sense of “chaos.” Agent sizes, orientations, geometry accessories, material colors can have variations. Even clusters of groups can have different agents within them. For those you do have the bravery and smarts to dive deeper into the functionality of the crowds, they are fully customizable and extendable not only through the Blueprint system within UE, but also from C++ and python.

Website: atoms.toolchefs.com/atoms-realtime Price: £320/~$410 (monthly), £900/~$1,150 (quarterly), £2,800/~$3,565 (yearly)

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Todd Sheridan Perry is a VFX supervisor and digital artist who has worked on many acclaimed features such as Black Panther, The Christmas Chronicles, The Lord of the Rings and Avengers: Age of Ultron. You can reach him at todd@teaspoonvfx.com. www.animationmagazine.net

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Building the Saga of a True Warrior VFX supervisor Sean Andrew Faden reveals some of the digital tricks of the new live-action Mulan.

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iki Caro’s recent live-action re-imagining of 1998 Disney animated classic Mulan — inspired by the centuries-old epic poem about the Chinese warrior princess — unfolds against stunning natural landscapes and beautiful historic monuments.

Many of the breath-taking images showcased in this 116-minute epic are in fact the result of the close collaboration between the director, the film’s director of photography Mandy Walker and seasoned visual effect supervisor Sean Andrew Faden (Fast & Furious 6, Game of Thrones, Captain America: First Avenger). With close to 1,600 classic VFX shots, this new version of Mulan used the services of four primary vendors: Framestore, Weta Digital, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Image Engine, as well as some additional work by Crafty Apes.

“When I first joined the project in the spring of 2017, I was really excited by the scope of the project with all these incredible locations,” says Faden. “I knew it was going to be big.

Most of our locations were shot in New Zealand, mainly in the Ahuriri Valley and the Kumeu Film Studios in Auckland, and the second unit and plate unit were done in China for about six weeks. The end result of what you www.animationmagazine.net

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see in the movie is a combination of New Zealand plates with Chinese flavors, mountains and beautiful skies.”

Faden says he knew that the avalanche sequence and the battle sequences were going to be challenging, but he’s very pleased with the way they turned out. “We had to help Niki achieve her vision of this epic tale,” he explains. “But we had to be careful about how explicit the visuals for the battle footage had

to make sure the visual effects supported the story and didn’t outshine or distract from the heart of the story. My job was to balance the aesthetic vision and give Niki what she was looking for. We had to try to be as realistic as possible and not give in to the temptation of blowing things up bigger, overcook things and put more things in each shot. I learned a lot from Niki as she has a great sense of restraint.

At the end of the day, it was all about using

‘We had to try to be as realistic as possible and not give in to the temptation of blowing things up bigger, overcook things and put more things in each shot. I learned a lot from Niki [Caro] as she has a great sense of restraint.’

— VFX supervisor Sean Faden

to be since we were making the film for a family audience. We had about 900 people featured in the big epic battle scene.”

In Praise of Subtlety According to Faden, one of his team’s main goals was to visualize an epic movie that showed some restraint in its use of visual effects in the traditional sense. He explains, “Niki was more about storytelling and wanted

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the technology we had at our disposal to maintain the integrity of this beautiful story.”

Of course, comparisons with the original animated version of Mulan were inevitable.

Faden said he did watch the 2008 version (directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook) several times after he got the job. However, he points out that his best guide for the overall look of the movie was the joint vision of the film’s director Caro, director of photography november 20

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VFX Walker and production designer Grant Major (The Lord of the Rings films). “These three voices really gave us our starting point. We would lock things up using Grant’s artwork, and I’d mark it up on Houdini to have a quick reference on the location we worked on each day.”

From an animation standpoint, Faden says coming up with the ethereal look of the film’s phoenix was quite an interesting task. “We had to find the right tone and help define the correct way to play that character, so we did a lot of tests before we started shooting,” he recalls. “Niki had a good sense of what the CG character was going to look like. VFX supervisor Hubert Maston and animation director Laurence Drouilly at Framestore did an amazing job and did some great studies for this fantasy character, which was originally seen as Mulan’s sidekick but it evolved into a more mystical, spiritual guide. The design had to change a little bit, as well as how it moved and interacted with Mulan.”

Envisioned as Mulan’s conscience and a symbol of her ancestry, the phoenix had to feel real enough, but also move with elegance and grace and evoke a reflection of history.

“We had to slow things down,” says the supervisor. “We looked at things like birds swimming underwater and graceful peacock’s movements in slow motion for inspiration.”

Digital Doubles Faden and his team were also responsible for creating CG versions of some of the film’s less fantastical animals, including Mulan’s famous horse Black Wind and a hawk that is seen in several sequences. “We had a real hawk that we shot as reference, and then we flew our CG hawk, which was created by Weta, right next to the live-action one to make sure we had all the special idiosyncrasies of the bird,” he notes. “We did the same thing with Mulan’s horse. Footage from the real horse helped us really get the movements and details right for the CG doubles of Black Wind as Mulan rides it.”

Sending the second and plate units to China, while keeping the first unit in New Zealand also allowed the production to create a sampling of the imperial city in Xinjiang. “The recreation is beautiful,” says Faden. “Weta was there for two

weeks and we sampled the footage so that we could use it as building blocks to create the complete digital city we see in several shots of the movie. We were able to film the main unit with confidence, connect the dots, and put our cast in the city.”

Photogrammetry, which is the technology of getting reliable information about environments by recording and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant imagery, also aided the VFX team in creating locations. As Faden recalls, “White Island was the site of a volcanic eruption last year. Luckily, we had been there about nine months before the incident. It was a real small team, maybe 12 of us, and we did a bunch of photogrammetry of the crater, shooting some of the footage that was used in the movie. They took all the real data and built a digital environment that was used as the backdrop of the competition between Mulan (Yifei Liu) and the Witch (Gong Li).”

Now that movie has been a big hit for Disney+ since its debut in September, Faden hopes Mulan’s live-action adventure will entertain and impress audiences worldwide. “I hope viewers will enjoy the fantastic scope of the environments we created and feel that we took them to these places in one form or another.” ◆ Disney’s Mulan is currently playing in theaters around the world. Audiences can also stream the movie on Disney+.

An Epic Effort: The effects team at Sony Pictures Imageworks created many of the elements of the film’s avalanche sequence, as well as the battlefield, the mountain and the post-avalanche moment of Mulan galloping through the canyon.

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VR

Reliving the Immigrant Experience Randall Okita brings to life the memories of his grandfather through his innovative VR project The Book of Distance.

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andall Okita’s powerful The Book of Distance is one of the year’s key additions to the growing collection of animated VR experiences. The Canadian artist’s roomscale project, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, takes audiences along on an interactive virtual pilgrimage through his grandfather’s experiences, who left his home in Hiroshima in 1935 to begin a new life in Canada. He uses techniques from mechanical sculpture, film and stage to lovingly pay homage to his family’s history as immigrants.

“What we know about our grandparents and family history often comes in bits and pieces,” Okita tells Animation Magazine. “The Book of Distance is my attempt to recover all those things my grandfather didn’t say — including certain moments that may have been too painful for him to remember. I wanted to reimagine what he lived through, to recreate an experience that allows others to participate and to bear witness.”

The VR artist worked on the project with his producer David Oppenheim at the National Film Board of Canada’s Ontario Studio in Toronto. A core team of 10 people helped Okita on his interactive experience, which was built in Unity.

“We employed a huge number of tools along the way,” he notes. “Everything from pen and paper and endless sticky notes, to roleplaying and creating VR storyboards in Quill.”

Family History Revisited Okita says the biggest challenge was trying to find a way to balance the subjective nature

‘This is my attempt to recover all those things my grandfather didn’t say — including certain moments that may have been too painful for him to remember.’

— VR director Randall Okita

of the story — the balance between what he knew and what he had to imagine. “That and trying to pay tribute to the story of my family,” he notes. “When we were almost finished with the project, I was able to show it to my father.

This was one of the most surreal moments of my life. For me to be with him while he stood in front of a virtual version of his younger self, and for him to see and spend time virtually with his father, was something very special.”

Another Country: Randall Okita explores various immersive storytelling innovations to allow the user to understand his family’s experiences as immigrants in Canada.

The artist says he sees VR as becoming part of the language of our everyday lives in the years to come. “What I love most about the medium is that it presents new ways for us to share our stories and explore what it means to be ourselves,” he adds.

Looking back, Okita says he always knew he wanted to make images, and counts Koji Yamamura, Hokusai and the artists on the project — particularly Sam Javanrouh and Emma Burkeitt — as some of his biggest animation influences. And what was the biggest lesson he learned from The Book of Distance experience? “It was the healing in the sharing of this story,” he admits. “This story is connected to feelings of shame and experiences that have deeply changed people in my family. The way these things work is largely unconscious, and as this story begins to be shared, this time from our perspective, in our voices, it starts to change things in ways that I couldn’t have previously understood.” ◆ You can find out more about the artist at randallokita.com.

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A D Ay I n T he L Ife This month, Jerome Alby, managing director of Paris-based Mediatoon Distribution, shares a typical late summer day at his company, which oversees the distribution and marketing of iconic shows such as Garfield, Tintin, Code Lyoko and Naruto and new titles such as Kid Lucky and The Fox-Badger Family.

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And…action! Hooray for Kid Lucky!

We start the day with breakfast and a team rehearsal for our “Super Highlight” video shoot.

Mediatoon wins the Best Export Award for our work on The Fox-Badger Family!

Thanks a million for your votes.

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6 We have to make room for the prize that’s on its way!

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A little foosball after lunch to get the adrenalin going.

We’re brainstorming for our MIP Junior highlights here.

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Closing a deal or just making dinner plans?

It’s all very hush-hush.

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A little table tennis to make the best of the late-summer sun in Paris.

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Quelle bonne journee! Now it’s time to head home.

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