It really has been a manic week in here with the Oscar nomination. I don’t want to call such brilliant news ‘a distraction’ but It was also the week we launched HAROLD, our in house Intranet. This is a portal where we centralise all internal communication and try and make the move from existing over dependence on email as the central communication tool. The theory is that we will discuss issues on our internal blog and when decisions are made, we move to our Wiki which is like an encyclopaedia, keeping all the information you need from what how to light the interior of Olivia’s classroom to information about holiday entitlements. Thanks to the talents of Arekibo for a nice job on the interface design … read more
The Animation CEO Forum believe that RTÉ are not fulfilling their role as a Public Service Broadcaster by failing to support, develop and fund the Animation sector in Ireland. In the context of the two Academy Award® nominations received this week by Irish animation studios, the Animation CEO Forum RTÉ have spent just €300,000 a year for the past 3 years on animated programmes. This represents less than 1% of the RTÉ spend on independent commissioned programmes. … read more
Last night saw the premiere of Disney’s Princess and the Frog in the Savoy cinema. In attendance were the film’s directors Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid) and John Musker (Aladdin). Also there on the night was supervising animator Andreas Deja, producer Peter del Vecho, and Anika Noni Rose who provides the voice of Princess Tiana in the film.
What happens when Granny O’Grimm gets too old to tell stories? Well she now has some competition from a young girl called Astrid who is looking to take second place as the world’s scariest bedtime storyteller!
Well done Astrid, you made me laugh out loud this morning. Maybe we should have a competition for the best Junior Granny?
The Laura Lynn Hospice is not yet operational but they hope to have the doors open in 2011 for what will be the first and only children’s hospice in Ireland. Fundraising is vital for them and we were very pleased to have been in a position of support for them this year.
Today saw the launch of the IBEC Film & Television production report 2009. I sat on the committee and was representing the animation sector. Below is the text from my summary of the Irish Animation Sector in 2008 and you can download the full report from www.ibec.ie
The National Film School (IADT) invited Oscar-winning John Canemaker to Dublin to spend some time with the students of the college. John’s journey as an animator, director and animation historian is inspirational and he has written many books that have been essential reading among the animation community.
On the 22nd of October, the final for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards was held in Citywest Hotel with 1,100 people sitting down for a gala black tie dinner. The event was televised on RTÉ and the awards were presented by the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese. I was honoured to be nominated in the International category and it was great to see a company working in the ‘Creative Economy’ stand proud alongside more traditional industries and businesses.
There were two tables of Brown Baggers and everyone looked fantastic (at least at the start of the night!). Darragh and I found ourselves back with Louis Copeland getting measured at the last minute. … read more
I’m back from the Cartoon Forum in Norway which was an exceptionally eventful week.
Celebrating 20 years, the Cartoon Forum is the key event of any animation producer’s calendar. In this time, it has financed over 300 television series worth over 1.5 Billion Euro. Over 70 producers pitch projects to an audience of broadcasters, investors and co-producers and it a great networking opportunity for producers of children’s programmes. I was travelling with director Nicky Phelan and Kathleen O’Rourke who is the creator and performer of Granny O’Grimm and we were there to pitch Granny to them. … read more
We’ve just heard some great news: Brown Bag Films have been nominated for the prestigious ‘Producer of the Year’ award as part of the EU CARTOON TRIBUTE 2009! We are nominated alongside three other European animation studios, Normaal Animation (France), Alcuni (Italy) and BRB (Spain). The awards ceremony will take place at the CARTOON Forum in Stavanger, Norway on Friday 25th September. The winner will be voted by other European producers so it is a great honour for us to be selected.
Also at this years Forum, we will be presenting ‘Granny O’Grimm’ the series, and the other bit of great news is that it is the number one project on the Forum interest list!! ‘Granny O Grimm’ is based on the multi-award winning Frameworks short film (IFB/RTE/AC) by director Nicky Phelan and writer Kathleen O’Rourke. The website www.grannyogrimm.com will go live on 10 September and will feature Granny stories, film clips and competitions.
