Animated Travels

Winners Adam Elliot (Mary and Max), Henry Selick (Coraline) and Festival Director Serge Bromberg

Some final images from the closing ceremonies. Read the rest of this entry »

written by Johannes Wolters

A wonderful surprise waited for me Saturday morning, when I went seeing the boys. Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman had been with me through my entire life. I listened to their songs, from Winnie the Pooh and Jungle Book, from Mary Poppins through to Aristocats. All I knew about the artists, that they were brothers, had written unbelievable amounts of music and lyrics, had a close relationship to Walt Disney and that they had also composed the music for “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” which is no Disney movie! Little did I know that there is so much more.

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Max of Mary and Max fame.

written by Johannes Wolters

Stop the printing machines! Hold everything! I have seen the film of the festival.

Sorry, but I am still under heavy shock and I think my feel-good hormones are still busy on the merry-go-round called my brain. And this happens only, when I see a truly overwhelming film.

It had been an already busy day full of big events, when we, me my friends and I went to the Grand Salle, sat down and saw “Mary and Max.” And this one hour and 32 minute long stop-motion movie turned out to be an outstanding, brilliant movie, which has to, which must, which will win the Cristal for best feature. The Clay Puppet-Movie tells the story about a strange and bewitching pen-pal friendship between two very different people: Mary Dinkle, an 8-year-old Australian, and 44 year-old obese Jewish American Max Horowitz. Based on a true story, the funny heartwarming film was written, directed and designed by academy award winning artist Adam Elliot from Down Under, who already enchanted us with his four short films, the trilogy “Uncle”, “Brother” and “Cousin” and of course the beloved “Harvie Krumpet”.

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Bob Peterson (Co-Director UP), Peter Sohn and Kevin Reher (Director and Producer from Partly Cloudy)

written by Johannes Wolters

Sorry for writing so late. But yesterday evening I suffered from severe animation illness, information overload and heavy small talk. After seeing the commissioned film program filled with commercials and music videos up to the brink – sitting next to an equally tired Ron Diamond – I hardly reached my apartment and went into dreamland seconds later.

But if you had the opportunity to talk to Conrad Vernon, the Co-director of “Monster´s vs. Aliens,” to interview director Peter Sohn and producer Kevin Reiher from Pixar´s “Partly Cloudy” or to have a chat with Bob Peterson, who not only worked on “Monsters, Inc”, “Finding Nemo” and many, many more legendary features but also co-directed “UP”, then may be you would be a little tired and exhausted too. I ran into Nick Park, who is presenting his fourth short with Wallace and Gromit called “A Matter of Loaf and Death” and had a friendly conversation with Ruth Lingford, who is now teaching animation at the University of Harvard (sic!) This by the way during the charming Dutch party on the little island at the famous “Café des Arts”, which proves once again to be a place like Rick´s Café in “Casablanca” where everybody is coming to.

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Annecy is a place to meet interesting people like jury member Andreas Hykade (left).

written by Johannes Wolters

Partytime at Annecy! Do you know which party is going on today? Are you invited? How do you sneak into a party? And why should you do that?

When I first went to Annecy, I was totally concentrating on watching as many films as possible. I thought that´s the proper way of behaving while being away on a big event like Annecy. Then I discovered the possibility to talk to the people, who actually were responsible for some of the magic I experienced while watching their movies. You could meet them after the screenings, standing patiently in the foyer of the Festival Center called Bonlieu. If you were lucky they would answer some of your questions and draw you some very nice sketches. Then it went back to the next program.
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Competition short film, Life without Gabriella Ferri, by Priit Paarn

written by Johannes Wolters

It’s a tough job to be on a pre-selection committee. I had the opportunity to talk to Alexey Alexeev, who together with Vanja Andrijevic (Producer, Croatia) and Francis Gavelle (Journalist, France) had the gigantic task to select the programs for short films from thousands and thousands of films. They also had to put together the out of competition program. So Alexey told me about the big discussions they had, what to choose, what to select within the pressure to work for the most influential animation festival of the world. So he sought for something new, something bold, something sharp. Describing himself as a little bit cynical, he adores “South Park” and Andreas Hykade but also the old Hanna-Barbera “Tom & Jerry” cartoons. He tries to combine creativity and professionalism, which means less boring films, less long format, less is more. Alexey Alexeev himself is in the TV competition with his lovable “Log Jam” series produced by Andras Erkel and his Hungarian Studio BAESTARDS.

Titanic Club? Anyone? It is an inside joke for all who went to Annecy in the past years. There was at legendary screening of a short film in competition where you saw the ocean from an iceberg by night, the camera rolling with the waves. After unbelievable boring 30 minutes during which the audience began to get slightly upset, you finally saw a ship on the horizon coming nearer, very slowly by the way. You get it? But moments before the Titanic crushes into the ice, the camera went to the left and you didn’t even get the main event. The audience went mad! We all sang, “My heart will go on!” Some people swam literally across the stage in front of the big screen. It was hilarious. Afterwards Serge Bromberg admitted, that they wanted one film in the program that was provocative beyond any limit during the festival. So for insiders the title of the film “Titanic Club” is like a definition for a certain festival genre.
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Director Henry Selick, Madhouse Producer Jungo Maruta and Marie-Pierre Journet are the Jury Members for Graduation Films at Annecy 2009

written by Johannes Wolters

Here we are at last! Welcome to the most fantastic, most exciting and I think “the” animation festival of them all. The 33rd edition of Annecy Festival began today, as always with the great welcome at festival centre Bonlieu next to the big, wonderful lake with the wonderful view on the French Alps. It’s like Casablanca, where everybody comes to “Rick´s.” Here at Bonlieu you can meet all the people of Animationland during the one week, when the old town of Annecy with its old French charm becomes once again “Animatorsland”.
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This wonderful building becomes like Everest after three days.

written by Johannes Wolters

Okay, there is one minor flaw in fmx. I had to go through three days of fmx09, but then I found it. Or better it found me. The house of commerce, this big old wonderful building, where fmx is placed is a truly great place for all the things going on. But the event has now conquered four floors of the place and every floor has very high walls. So if you want to run downstairs and upstairs to catch your next meeting, to get to your next discussion, whatever, you climbed in the end all together the Everest. Or at least your legs begin to revolt. So on the last day of fmx you notice more and more people (and not only the elderly ones), who take the elevators, a little bit hidden and a little bit slow. But that’s the only flaw I have found on this years edition of fmx. I have to admit this stairs-sport is also very healthy. May be not, with all the coffee you need to drain every piece of information from this awesome conference. Again the creators of the fmx, Renata and Thomas Haegele topped the event from last year and again the numbers of attendees increased. Again more and internationally renowned speakers came to Stuttgart, again for four days the sunny town became animator’s land And that in those dark and gloomy times of worldwide economic crisis. And I did not discover one unhappy face during all those days. Must be heaven!
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Patrick Davenport explains mo-cap advances at fmx.

written by Johannes Wolters

You know what´s interesting about the fmx?. You stay there in the foyer, in the halls, you have this big accessibility to each and everyone. So I found myself talking to one of the big visual effects designers of this planet.

Kevin Tod Haugs worked on “Quantum of Solace,” “The Kite Runner,” “Finding Neverland,” “Panic Room” and many more. An his opinion about the stereoscopic films is a technical one:  “I just find it heartbreaking, that after years and years and years of dealing with resolution, we are finally getting to the point, where its 2k or 4k, we could make choices, its all gonna be fine, we get digital cameras, we get rid of scanning, its all gonna be fine and then we have to make it twice as complicated. Just, when its gonna be easy, we have to make it hard.”
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Richard Edlund was a superstar at fmx.

written by Johannes Wolters

Where to begin? Information overload. Day 2. Fmx09.

The fmx may not be as big as SIGGRAPH, but like an American professional stated, it is superbly organized, which makes it a truly wonderful event throughout the world of Visual Effects, Animation, Games and Digital Media. Steffen Wild presented the work and the developments inside the beloved World of Jim Henson Muppets today. The famous creature shop made it bold steps into the digital realm, carefully keeping the original muppet touch alive. Like Jim Henson told his staff “Have an Idea? We try it out. Never be afraid of failure”. The successful use of digital puppeteering was successful used on the TV-show “Sid the Science Kid”. 40 episodes, together 20 hours had to be put together within only one year. Key to the success: strong characters, the excellent collaboration between the puppeteers, the use of live action disciplines, the clever utilization of new technology and a perfect real-world-compatibility. Just doing digital puppets the muppet way. On the live stage up to six characters can now be handled at the same time datawise. All to create webisodes, commercials, Television shows and direct-to-dvd material at the moment. And of course at some point in the future creating a feature film with a hybrid approach.
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