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.
Darragh O'Connell, Cathal Gaffney & Bronagh O'Hanlon
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
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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
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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.
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On Saturday night, I went to see ‘Bugs Bunny on Broadway’ which played in the National Concert Hall. This was a rare chance to see the great Warner Bros. cartoons on the big screen, the way they were intended to be seen when they were made back in the 1950’s.
You can’t mention Bugs Bunny without talking about Chuck Jones who was the father of Bugs and he directed hundreds of animation shorts in his career. For me, Chuck has got to be one of the all time greatest directors and the event was a welcome musical tribute to Chuck who masterfully intertwined superb classical music with slapstick animation.
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Every so often when someone is looking through an archive box, they find things that were best left hidden away. This week we came across some photographs of Brown Bag Films when we were just a start up company back in 1994. Given the laughter that these photographs provoked in the office, I thought I would share a selection of snaps from Brown Bag Films back then.
It all kicked off when Darragh and myself first went to the Galway Film Fleadh with a short film. We went back together every year afterwards with a new short, and this photograph shows the two of us having our first board meeting discussing our master plan to establish an animation studio:
As part of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year nomination, a trip to Rio and San Paolo in Brazil was organised in June for over 60 entrepeneurs. This was an exceptional opportunity to see Brazil and network with the great and the good of Irish business. Business presentations and meetings punctuated the day and our hotel looked out onto the Copacabana beach.
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On Monday 18th it was announced that I was nominated for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the International Category. This was truly brilliant news and I feel honoured to be among such a group of great business people. While my name went forward on the ticket, the nomination is shared with co-founder Darragh O Connell. And Brown Bag would not even be considered for the nomination were it not for the superb managers and talented staff doing working here.
Denis O'Brien, Julie Sinnamon, Liam Shanahan & Enda Kelly of Ernst & Young
The awards ceremony is not until October, and there are a number of functions and events before then. This includes a one week trip to San Palo in Brazil for a “CEO Retreat” which I’m looking forward to. They say “find a job you like and you’ll never work a day in your life again” and I’m sure I will be pondering that statement from sunny Brazil!
I think this nomination is great news for the Irish animation sector, who are the largest employer in the independent Film and TV sector in Ireland, and it goes to show that if you work hard anyone can become a fifteen year overnight success. Here is a list of the other nominees. Read on for some questions and answers I had to complete for the Ernst & Young website. … read more
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I recently came across a couple of inspiring videos by Keith Loutit and BLU
‘Bathtub IV’ by Keith Loutit was created using Tilt Shift photography. . … read more
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Back in 1993, I ahem…. ‘left’ Ballyfermot Animation College ready to join the analogue world of animation. I learned life long skills such as how to edit on a Steinbeck, shoot animation under a 35mm rostrum camera, hand paint ‘Cels’ and how computers were a strange thing of the future.
So last Wednesday, Ballyfermot College had a reunion of past pupils and teachers. People we hadn’t seen in 16 years appeared as if Facebook had suddenly come to life.
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