Fantastic Planet
© Les Films Armorial, Ceskoslovenský Filmexport

Arguably one of the biggest cinematic events in the world, the Cannes Film Festival celebrates its 76th birthday this year and even with a plethora of anticipated premiers of major blockbusters and independent films to discover, animation enthusiasts attending will be treated to Pixar’s Elemental and the latest adaptation of the popular French children’s book Little Nicholas.

Arguably one of the most bizarre, yet celebrated, animated films to ever premiere at the iconic French film festival is Fantastic Planet. Set on a distant planet within deep space, it tells the story of two alien races, the gigantic and powerful Traags and the petite and puny Oms, as they come into conflict after the latter are all tired of hiding and being hunted by their superior rulers. Standing out from the crowd when it premiered in 1973, its surreal designs, experimental use of cutout animation, and a more mature story compared to other animated releases that year, it was awarded the Grand Prix special jury prize.

While today the film is regarded as one of the best-animated sci-fi tales for adults and will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year by fans since its first screening, it certainly had many obstacles to overcome and found its way miraculously all over the world. With a more family-friendly market to compete in and challenges with a changing political landscape, this film could have become an incomplete and unheard-of project. Among the talented animators, supportive production companies, and crew members, two particular people were recognized in the history of the film’s development and guided it through its hurdles in order to get it made with their ambitious vision intact.

The Traags in Fantastic Planet
© Les Films Armorial, Ceskoslovenský Filmexport

Working as an art therapist at the Cour-Cherverny Psychiatric Clinic in Orléans in Northern France, René Laloux (1929 to 2004) may have had a different direction in his early career as an artist, but his work with the patients and other staff members within the institute would see him find a passion for filmmaking and, eventually, become a recognized director. He performed puppet shows for his patients and supported them through creative and artistic outlets while working there in the 1950s. He learnt to tell stories and help bring people’s visions to life which saw him move onto an ambitious, yet exciting, project.

He decided to create a short animated film, in which the patients would write the story and provide the artwork for Laloux to direct and animate. Working alongside the patients as well as some of the eager interns who wanted to help them, he eventually completed The Monkey’s Teeth in 1960. Telling the story of a dentist who steals teeth from the poor and gives them to the rich, he was able to use cut-out animation to bring all the characters that the patients created to life. This peculiar experiment may have been an ambitious attempt to help those he taught during his time at the institute, however, it would also be the spark that would see Laloux go down a path as a director.

Winning the Emile-Cohl Prize for the best-animated film for the year of its release four years later in 1964, Laloux met an ambitious artist and writer at the award ceremony named Roland Topor (1938 to 1997,) who would become a key figure for both of their future film careers and was later seen as one of France’s most extraordinary creative figures in the 20th century.

After the Second World War, Topor attended the Ecole National Supérieure des Beaux in Paris as a student and during his time spent in the classroom, he discovered surrealism as well as comedic films created by The Marx Brothers and the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450 to 1516.) Influenced by so many talented people creating films and inspiring artwork both new and old, Topor would explore many outlets to express his creativity. He joined a group of artists in 1960 who would be responsible for the creation of the infamous and controversial Charlie Hebdo publication. His artwork even stood out compared to the other artists that made the magazine, drawing one page-filling panel rather than a bunch of smaller pictures and comics together to demonstrate his often surreal art with hauntingly striking figures taking centre stage.

René Laloux (Source: mubi.com/cast/rene-laloux) and Roland Topor (Photo: © Roland Topor. Source: galeriemartel.com/roland-topor)

After their initial meeting at the award ceremony, the two hit it off and collaborated on two short films named Dead Times and The Snails. Released in 1964 and 1965, these two short films demonstrated how brilliantly both of the artists’ talents blended to create some visually striking pieces of animation, with Laloux continuing at that time to use and build upon his skill of cut-out animation and bringing Topor’s detailed and exaggerated characters to life in his equally unique and versatile landscapes and backgrounds. With the release of these films as well as Topor’s eagerness for exploring new avenues, he eyed up French author Stefan Wul’s sci-fi novel, Oms en série, as their next animated production. But rather than turning it into a short film, the two wanted to adapt it as their first feature-length project.

Once the two penned the script for their sci-fi tale of inequality and savageness, they were able to find several production companies across France and the Czech Republic to help finance the project and started animating in Prague in 1968. However, just as the film’s production was underway, the country was invaded by the Soviet Union, which ultimately interrupted the film’s progress for a whole year. After gaining some additional financing to continue their production, Laloux and Topor were able to resume in Paris. Making a short film with cutout animation would have certainly taken some time, but using the many exaggerated aliens and locations scattered across Topor’s fantastically designed planet with a feature-length running time saw it take nearly five long years to be completed. After the team of animators’ commitment and being able to relocate during a changing political landscape, the film was finally completed and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973.

At this point in time, cutout animation was used for popular films and television shows that many were familiar with, including Yellow Submarine, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and Captain Pugwash. But while these properties took audiences on fantastical adventures across the world, they were not able to teleport them to other planets and witnessing intimidating aliens years before the popular rise of sci-fi films in the 1970s like Star Wars, Alien, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, making it stand out even further from the crowd at Cannes. So how and why did it become a cult film after all of these years rather than being as fondly remembered as any other ground-breaking piece of science fiction? And despite its hurdles to be seen outside of the festival, how did it influence the animation industry years after its premiere?

Child Traags and their Om pets
© Les Films Armorial, Ceskoslovenský Filmexport

Despite its striking imagery and designs, the film was competing with Disney’s more family-friendly stories and expressive hand-drawn animated characters with Robin Hood pleasing children as much as adults when they went to the cinemas in that same year. And with little competition at the time, Disney dominated the market when it came to animation. Fantastic Planet would eventually find its cult status on the home market after the release of the VHS tape in 1976 among others who also couldn’t quite find their way to audiences at the cinemas. It had several re-releases since then with the introduction of DVDs and Blu-rays that gave the film more opportunities to be discovered and made itself recognised by more people.

It may not have been the only piece of cutout animation in the 1970s, but it and these other unique productions did make an impact on the industry between the 1980s to the 2000s due to their artistic and experimental approach to the aesthetic that no other forms of animation could quite accomplish. The bands Talking Heads’ And She Was and Tears for Fears’ Sowing the Seeds of Love incorporated this form of animation into their music videos for these singles and gave them a unique flavour with the rise of MTV in the 1980s. And while cutout animation may not be used as much as it was fifty years ago, filmmakers and producers did continue to use this format to create some truly interesting projects. George Lucas would go on to produce his first animated film with this approach in 1983’s Twice Upon A Time while early episodes of hit television shows like Blues’ Clues and South Park used it before they switched to computer animation in the 1990s.

Fantastic Planet
© Les Films Armorial, Ceskoslovenský Filmexport

Roland Topor may not have worked again on an animated feature, but René Laloux on the other hand would make two follow-up films, Time Masters (1982) and Gandahar (1987) that would also receive cult statuses from fans of his work. But what made Fantastic Planet stand out from Laloux’s trilogy was Topor’s brilliant and beautiful designs, making a sci-fi title that is as fresh and unique with today’s large collection of films and shows in the genre as it was back in 1973.

Currently available on the BFI Player, this 50-year-old animated classic shouldn’t be missed for its warped and psychedelic alien world and an extraterrestrial tale of inequality and freedom that resonates as much today as it did upon its release. Those who enjoy this unique and creative form of animation and thought-provoking science fiction should not miss the opportunity to celebrate this film for its remarkable achievements and accomplishments by these two talented French artists.

The post Laloux & Topor’s Beautiful World: The 50th Anniversary of Fantastic Planet appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

While many would have undoubtedly heard of Pablo, the preschool animated series about an autistic child and his imaginary friends, some may not be aware that it also features writers and voice artists on the spectrum themselves. Sumita Majumdar is one of those people, having written many episodes and even provided the voice of Wren. She joins us to celebrate this extraordinary month as she discusses her involvement in the series and her studies and career since joining this celebrated production.

Sumita Majumdar
(Source: Sumita Majumdar ©)

Could you share with us your autistic journey before you worked as a writer in animation?

I approached a school, for advice on finding something creative to do for work, and ended up doing some after-school assistant stuff there. After that, I did supply teaching, leading music art and drama sessions at various schools. Creativity really helped me at that time – art, music writing and performance. I wanted to find a way to help others use creativity in the way it had helped me. I tried to train as an art therapist at one point which didn’t work out – but I did a lot of volunteering with art and drama groups, making soundtracks for Partners Theatre Company and Reach Inclusive Arts… I assisted in a few stop-motion workshops with disabled young people and an art project with young people who were being supported for mental unwellness.

Before being diagnosed, I think I had sort of tried to push myself through what I thought the system of life was, and I didn’t know how everyone else was doing it without getting ill – or how people even knew what to do! It was difficult to manage without support, but also I was very resistant to social labels of any kind, so it was difficult to be able to be in the mind frame of accepting support if I couldn’t allow myself to identify in those ways. when I did eventually seek a diagnosis, I did it without telling anyone – I told myself it was for the documentation, to use for accessing support, rather than something I wanted to adapt my identity around – but the process I went through during that time allowed me to think more about society-frameworks, to learn more about autistic experiencing, and to understand myself alongside other autistic people whose brains and bodies did similar things to mine. Becoming involved with Pablo magically happened not too long after that, which not only further helped me to accept and embrace being autistic, but also to communicate to others about being autistic (definitely not in the way I expected to do so!)

Pablo and Friends (Image: Paper Owl ©)

What was your favourite episode to write and/or provide the voice of Wren?

I am terrible at choosing favourites – so I don’t know… when I was recording the voice parts, we all recorded them individually in the voice booth – it wasn’t like we were all together in a group – so I would be going through a list of Wren’s lines, rather than hearing all of the other lines in between – and it was often several scripts at once, so I think I processed it as one merged experience… it was a lot of fun, though…, particularly where I just had to laugh for a few minutes! In the first batch of episodes, we hadn’t met the other voice actors or writers yet – so it was really exciting to look through other people’s scripts and to relate my own experiences to things that they had written, and then for us to meet each other and find out about our similarities and differences.

Writing the episodes was fun – I co-wrote the scripts I wrote with Andrew Brenner mostly over video calls. I liked writing ‘The Super Place,’ which was one of the first ones… and ‘Everything Pineapple’ (at the time of writing, everything DID taste like pineapple – the ghost memory of drinking too much fruit juice…) The writing process of all of the stories I wrote with Andrew is memorable as the stories often related to things that were happening at the time. For example, I liked writing ‘Magic Postbox’ as I was working nightshifts sorting letters and parcels, which I loved doing, so it reminds me of that – but these immediate experiences were also combined with talking about how this links with memories and experiences of being a young child – what I remembered about that, how that related to what other autistic people’s experiences were, and what Pablo’s perspective of that could be. We would have a lot of conversations about autisticness, humanness, and sensing… – and characters would emerge (like ‘The Aroma’, or the Shouty Walls in the ‘Swimming Pool’ episode) – sometimes the characters would just say things that would make us laugh, so we’d put them in the scripts.

Since working on the show you have appeared as a speaker at the Children’s Media Conference and PARC Critical Autism Studies Conference. What was the message you hoped to achieve when you addressed these crowds? 

Since working on the show, I’ve spoken at various events, and each event I did had different purposes, with different types of people at them: some spaces were audiences of people who work in Children’s TV, and other spaces were academics, researchers, mental health professionals, and creative practitioners. It’s important to remember that people often don’t fit into just one category of people – I don’t – which is why ‘interdisciplinary’ spaces are important to me: being able to combine the arts with research and allowing myself to appear in whatever form is most comfortable for the moment. I have shared about ‘Pablo’ in most of my presentations for various purposes: to share more about the show, to share about Paper Owl Films’ process of creating the show, and to express autistic imagination and inner-world processing. I did a study on the creative process of Pablo as a psychoeducational tool, as part of the course I did (MSc Creative Arts & Mental Health), which is what I was presenting about at the PARC conference, whereas the Children’s Media Conference thing was more about my personal experience…

I hope that by speaking at these things and turning up as myself, I might encourage others to explore their communication styles to express themselves through writing, arts-making, speaking, or however, they want. There are lots of ways to do a presentation, and they can be a great way of sharing something you’re interested in.

And it’s great to be able to share about Pablo with different types of people – it’s a preschool show, so not everyone would have watched it – and even the people who have watched it might not be aware of the process behind the show, or the ways it might be particularly useful to explain certain things – perhaps in an accessible way, due to being a pre-school animation. I also hope that by sharing about Pablo, more people might think about inner-mind multiplicity (having different parts of you trying to figure things out – like Pablo and his Book Animal friends) – to help people realise, or remember, that is a part of processing – and how that relates to the performance of our selves (how we express, as our outer-body – which can be different depending on the scenario or who we are with)… it is okay to have conflicting parts of us, it’s about how we co-exist with them (and each other).

For your dissertation towards the MSc, you explored psycho-education and what you learned when working on Pablo. What was the biggest takeaway from this research that you hope to continue working on, whether towards another show or another new project?

My dissertation was about the creative process behind Pablo being a psychoeducational tool, for self-awareness, social understanding and mental wellness. It also unjumbled some things about autistic imagination, and how there are misperceptions about this (e.g. reading a bus timetable can be a social, creative activity – it’s not necessarily less imaginative than reading fiction). It also recognised thinking through inner-worlds / inner-mind characters not just being ‘dissociation’, but also being ‘association’, which I think is important in de-pathologising some imaginative processing styles (such as Pablo’s!) There was so much I wanted to write about that wouldn’t fit in the word count, so I’d love to continue the research – alongside making practical, useable, accessible imagination tools for mental wellness, and to continue creating spaces that offer Permission to Be.

One significant result of the study was how the show helped autistic people to better understand other autistic people, as well as themselves. Before it was made, Pablo was initially intended to help people who aren’t autistic to better understand and empathise with autistic people, to hopefully lead to autistic people having a better experience in the world; but the study highlighted the show’s potential to help autistic people better understand and empathise with other autistic people, similar and different to themselves. It’s a reminder of people’s contradicting and conflicting access needs, differing autistic presentation styles – and the diversity of people’s processing styles in general, whether autistic or not. I’m excited to continue observing the Pablo process as it unfolds – but I’m also excited about immersing myself into other inner-world story-play animation spaces, and to keep observing things through different lenses.

Pablo Series Three (Image: Paper Owl ©)

How do you feel the current slate of animation productions has represented these neurodivergent and mental health conditions and what more do you think could be done?

I really like going to things like the London International Animation Festival – I like watching things which feels like people taking stuff out of their brains and putting them onto a screen, and get that “my brain does that, too!” feeling. I’m interested in more work that combines research and personal experiences, from multi-angles – things that offer some sort of reframing, and questioning such as the work Alex Widdowson has been doing with his films Drawing on Autism and Divergent Minds, for example. Animation has a certain kind of flavour of communication in comparison with other films, which can be a step towards possible solutions in the shared outer world.

Maybe I don’t watch enough to know about ‘the current slate,’ but I do really value animation as a way of expressing, explaining, and learning about your inner-mind. I think this makes animation a great tool from all sides of the screen (making it, watching it, sharing it), and I think more people could be encouraged to try it out – even if it’s not for TV. I think there could be more pathways for neurodivergent people, including people with ‘mental health conditions’, to enter and explore animation, as it’s a great communication tool, and I think a lot of people would appreciate its immersion. Paper Owl Films launched the Pablo Academy, which aimed to recruit neurodivergent people for a placement, and I became a supporting Neurodivergent Mentor as a part of that – I think more things like that would be great… but I’m also interested in providing more opportunities, such as workshops, or creative toolkits, for people who haven’t been exposed to animation or who might not have given themselves a go. I’ve assisted on a few animation workshops with disabled young people, and I’ve got some coming up with Can’t Sit Still Theatre’s ‘Being Me’ project (aimed at autistic young girls and non-binary people.) But how do people find a way of continuing that after one-off projects like it – and how they get into doing that for work, if they want to? Perhaps studios could team up with these sorts of projects to help to bridge that.

The post Autism Awareness Month: Interview with ‘Pablo’ Writer and Voice Talent Sumita Majumdar appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

The creators behind PBS Kids’ Hero Elementary, Carol-Lynn Parente and Christine Ferraro, join us to discuss their careers in Sesame Street and how they created an animated series featuring young superheroes in training. But throughout their work in children’s television, they have also made a couple of celebrated autistic characters that have connected with young audiences.

Carol-Lynn Parente and Christine Ferraro
(Image: Carol-Lynn Parente ©)

I was really impressed that you both started your careers on one of the biggest children’s television shows of all time, Sesame Street. How did you both land your first jobs on a property filled with iconic characters and what was it like to progress through your careers there?

CLP: I started at what was then called, Children’s Television Workshop in 1988, in the Talent Payment department.  It was a finance job and only my 2nd job out of school.  I graduated with a double major in Economics/Marketing, but I did an internship at NBC in Manhattan in my senior year and was hooked on wanting to work in television after that.  I applied for every open job on the production staff of Sesame Street, and one year after joining the company,  there was an opening as the assistant to the Post Production Supervisor.  I steadily rose through the ranks over my 30-year career, going from Production Assistant to Associate Producer, to Producer and finally, Executive Producer and SVP of Creative before leaving in 2016 to pursue other interests. We were very lucky to begin our careers on such a special show that continues to be the gold standard in children’s content.  The show was already in season 18 when I joined, and well established.  The hardest part about the job over the years was working to evolve the iconic show, to keep it relevant and fresh for the current pre-schoolers, without disappointing the large adult fan base that had a real affectionate relationship with the show and characters they grew up with.

CF: I started working on the show as an administrative assistant, right out of college. I was lucky enough to have a teacher at my school who needed an assistant, and the timing was right. I grew familiar with the show and the scripts, and when they were auditioning new writers, I decided to give it a try. I’ve been writing for the show for 30 years now, and still going!

You were both also part of the team who helped to create Julia, the first autistic character on Sesame Street. How and why was she made for the show?

CF: Sesame Workshop had a nationwide initiative, See Amazing in All Children, aimed at communities with children ages 2 to 5.  Julia was a character created to be on the autism spectrum, to help introduce the topic to young children and their families.  The focus of the initiative was to reduce stigmas around autism and build understanding and acceptance.  Julia was created for a digital storybook.  But the response was so favourable to Julia that we decided she should be part of the Sesame Street show for all audiences.

Julia from Sesame Street (Image: Sesame Workshop ©)

How did you both come up with the idea of Hero Elementary and for those who may not have seen it, could you explain it in your own words?

CLP/CF: Hero Elementary is about a school for budding superheroes, where the students are learning how to master their powers, like teleportation or flying, while also discovering the most critical problem-solving abilities, the Superpowers of Science.  The series aims to give children 4-7 the tools to solve problems by thinking and acting like scientists to save the day.

The show was funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Ready To Learn grant, awarded to Twin Cities Public Television.  The proposal sought to use a book, Superhero School, to inspire the STEM-focused initiative.  We were brought on to develop the TV show as part of the project. The book had a math focus, so we really had to start from scratch to build a show idea around a STEM curriculum.  But coming from Sesame Street, we were so excited about the hook of superheroes to engage kids.  We spent our careers learning how to embed all kinds of the curriculum into content using the tools of lovable characters and humour, as how superheroes should make our jobs easy, right?

Well, it was a blessing and a curse.  The minute kids in our formative testing groups found out the show was about superheroes, they went off on wild tangents imagining all sorts of superhero powers that weren’t even in our stories.  It became clear that if we had any hopes of teaching the science practices, we needed to embed them more into the lore of our superhero world.  That’s when the “Superpowers of Science” were born as the foundation of the science curriculum for the show.

Out of your diverse cast of protagonists is AJ, an autistic character with a love for gadgets and who can project his thoughts. How did you both come up with the character and why did you write him specifically as an autistic person?

CLP/CF: Interestingly, AJ wasn’t initially written as a character with autism.  We knew we wanted a show led by a team of kids working together.  And when you are creating a show you want to create a cast of characters whose personalities work well for stories. These kids had to be friends, but also have different personalities that might clash or cause tension to make the stories interesting and authentic.

We had just come off of creating a character for Sesame Street with autism, so we were well-informed on the subject.  AJ was a character that had a deep passion for all things superhero and as we described him to others, it occurred to us that we had created a character that could have autism.  We were thrilled when everyone on the project supported our thinking.

The cast of Hero Elementary (Image: Portfolio_Entertainment ©)

What type of research did you do to make AJ and how did this mould him from concept to the final product?

CLP/CF: We were well-versed on the subject of autism, but once we confirmed AJ was a character with autism we did a lot of new research and hired expert advisors to guide us.  Having created a female character for Sesame Street, with the intention of breaking the male stereotype around autism, we were happy to have a male character on the spectrum in AJ, to differentiate the characters.

In addition to expert advisors, we also had a young man with autism as an advisor.  Dennis Taylor was someone that Christine knew was a young, black man with autism who helped inform who AJ became. We had further support from our expert advisors on AJ as a black character because of the statistics around the delayed diagnosis of autism in the black community.

When developing these young superheroes and their specific powers, what made you both give AJ his certain superpowers? 

CLP/CF: When deciding what powers each character had, we wanted them to have powers the audience would think were cool, but also powers that fit their personalities.

Sara Snap is impulsive, so teleportation fits her personality well. She is also tiny but tough and resilient, so she has the power of super strength.  With AJ, we wanted to give him powers that tied to his interests. Having a deep passion for all things superheroes, AJ has the power to build superhero gadgets as his favourite superheroes have. AJ also has the power of thought projection. This enabled us to give the audience some insight into how AJ might think a little differently about things because of his autism. And it was also super helpful in stories when you want a little flashback to what just happened.

PBS Kids have included a few key characters on the spectrum, including Julia from Sesame Street, Temple Grandin and Ben in Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, and Max from Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood. What is it about the channel that makes it stand out when representing neurodiversity and what was it like to have worked on shows that were part of that?

CLP/CF: This is the second character on the spectrum we have created for PBS, having shared that we created Julia as well. The wonderful thing about working on shows for PBS is that they care about representation across their audience and all of their content has positive messages of hope and kindness at their core. Having a character on the spectrum is not only to represent other kids or people on the spectrum, but also to break down any fear or stigma about autism to promote understanding and acceptance when you encounter someone that might think or behave differently than you do.

AJ Gadgets from Hero Elementary (Image: Portfolio_Entertainment ©)

The post Autism Awareness Month: Interview with ‘Hero Elementary’ Creators Carol-Lynn Parente and Christine Ferraro appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

One of the people who have joined us for this year’s celebration is Charles Johnston, an Emmy award-winning writer in children’s television whose credits include Paw Patrol, Odd Squad, and Detentionaire. But he was also part of the writing team behind Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, where he wrote a special episode on a particularly important figure.

Charles Johnston
(Source: Charles Johnston ©)

Before becoming an Emmy award-winning writer, how did you start your career in children’s television?

My very first writing job was at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) writing for two hosts (and a couple of sock puppets) who introduced television programs aimed at preschool kids in the morning. After that, there was just so much work in children’s TV animation where I lived in Toronto (they made Paw Patrol here!) that over the years it turned into a speciality.

While US readers may be familiar with Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum on PBS Kids, could you explain in your own words what the show is about for those who may not have seen it? 

Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum is about three kids – Xavier, Yadina, and Brad – who have access to a time machine. They use it to visit the past in every episode and have playdates with historical figures back when they were kids. On every outing, they learn a lesson from who they meet. They take that lesson back to the present to solve a problem one is facing, like learning how to stand up for others or get better at playing an instrument. This way, in each episode, a world-changing individual is introduced to a new generation. And if they could grow up to change the world, anyone can, because these renowned heroes were once kids, too.

Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum
(© 9 Story Media Group)

And how did you get involved as one of the writers on the show? 

I knew a producer named Tanya Green who helped develop the show and she suggested I’d be a good fit. And Meghan Read, the amazing head writer, agreed to hire me. We’d worked together previously on a show called Dot. We creatively clicked and enjoyed working together.

You’ve written about several key historical figures for Xavier Riddle, including Florence Nightingale, Leonardo da Vinci, and Ella Fitzgerald. How did you become involved with writing the episode on Temple Grandin, an autistic professor and speaker on autism and the behaviour of animals?

The short answer is I lucked out! If I remember correctly, I actually asked the head writer if I could do it. I took part in story summits where we would figure out stories to go along with already approved subjects. Meghan said to let her know if we felt a connection to any particular one. My mom had recently recommended the movie Temple Grandin to me and I honestly thought she’d be proud if I told her I was working on an episode about Grandin.

What were the biggest challenges when writing about Temple Grandin and Ben, the other autistic character featured in the same episode?

I knew I had the sensitivity to approach both characters but what I lacked was knowledge about autism and how to phrase everything appropriately when talking about the subject. I had quite a bit to learn there.

I Am Temple Grandin
(© 9 Story Media Group)

How much did you learn about autism during the writing process and what was your biggest takeaway from the experience?

We worked directly with Temple Grandin and also had a consulting firm help us with the subject of autism. It proved not only helpful but enlightening. I remember one time phrasing something in a first draft where I said that “an autistic person may do something that a non-autistic person might find odd” and the consultants advised me to tweak the wording to “an autistic person may do something that a non-autistic person had never thought of before.” I found these kinds of insights profound. Sometimes we get hung up on being tolerant instead of just being appreciative. We should be thankful that everyone thinks and sees the world differently.

Did you know how Temple Grandin herself thought about the episode with both her portrayal and how autism was represented?

I heard she was pleased. She agreed to let us profile her if she could weigh in at every stage of the process. We pitched her a few scenarios, but she insisted she just wanted to teach kids how to make and fly a kite. It all fell into place so elegantly. It was like she was ten steps ahead of us in how she saw what the episode could be, which of course is rather apt. Everyone involved with the show loved how the episode turned out. It’s definitely one of my favourites.

Last year, ‘I am Temple Grandin’ was nominated for a WGC (Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting) Award in the Children’s Category, competing with major titles like The Snoopy Show. What was it like to have your work on this particular episode recognised by the guild?

It was an honour. It was also nominated for a Canadian Screen Award the same year. I was proud of being rewarded for exploring new ground. I was especially delighted that through this kind of recognition, we could reach more people with the episode’s message: that everyone thinks differently. That’s the only way that innovations can happen.

The post Autism Awareness Month: Interview with Children’s TV Writer Charles Johnston appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

As children and families around England were sitting in front of their television sets on a wintry afternoon in 1973, little did they know that they would be watching a children’s show that would be truly special and groundbreaking for the time. Introducing everyone to The Wombles, this family of furry creatures taught everyone how to recycle and clean, all the while making everyone smile with their funny antics.

These five-minute episodes would go on to not just create a successful stop-motion animated series, but become a big name across popular culture that not many animated children’s shows were able to accomplish. But with a talented bunch of creative individuals behind the scenes with some big and bold ideas, it’s not hard to imagine that these creatures couldn’t hit the right tune with audiences. After fifty long years, these animators, writers, and key figures should be remembered for playing a large part in the history of creating one of the biggest British children’s series of all time.

The origins of The Wombles all started from a simple and innocent mispronunciation from a happy and excited child one festive morning. Deciding to take her two children for a drive on one particular Boxing Day, a writer named Elisabeth Beresford (1926-2010) took them to Wimbledon Common, a large nature reserve in South London. As they were all running around and enjoying the beautiful place to themselves, her daughter, Kate, expressed with joy how wonderful “Wombledon Common” was. And with that one particular mispronunciation, Elisabeth was inspired by an idea for a new children’s book.

Coming up with little creatures called The Wombles, she based each character on members of her own family which led to the creation of Orinoco, Wellington, Bongo, Tomsk, and Uncle Bulgaria. After years as a ghostwriter for Woman’s Hour at BBC Radio and a reporter for The BBC, her children’s book was finally published in 1968, introducing young readers to the small furry characters that helped to keep Wimbledon Common nice and clean.

Some of the stories from the book were eventually told on Jackanory, a BBC series that saw different presenters telling multiple stories to children at home watching the programme. Aware of The Wombles from some of their stories that were being read there and familiar with Elisabeth’s previous work on BBC Radio’s Woman’s Hour when she was an editor herself for it, Monica Sims (1925-2018) suggested that The Wombles could be adapted for a potential new series for The BBC. Looking for new shows to create for the channel since becoming the head of children’s programming in 1967, Monica thought that the furry family would be an ideal addition and she knew exactly who could bring the stories to life: Ivor Wood (1932-2004.)

Known for his work in the sixties for popular stop-motion animated shows like The Magic Roundabout, Paddington, The Herbs, and Postman Pat, Ivor was invited to direct and animate the series while FilmFair, the production company who he collaborated with on previous productions, would help produce the episodes. But before filming could commence, however, there was one problem that Monica wanted Ivor to help solve and that was to redesign the adorable little family. The original illustrations by Margaret Gordon (1939-1989) for the book appeared more teddy bear-like and they might not stand out in the growing children’s television market if their look wasn’t altered.

With his talents as a character designer with his previous attempts on Hatty Town, Ivor would have the daunting task of redesigning the characters altogether. Yet despite his talents, he and Monica would come to some creative differences when it came to giving these literary characters their new look. Encouraging Ivor Woods after the initial rejection in their first meeting, he eventually got the look that she was searching for. Giving them light brown faces, grey shaggy fur, and pointy noses, Monica finally gave Ivor the green light to go ahead with production now that the Wombles were given a unique redesign that both could be happy with.

Ivor Wood and Bernard Cribbins recording The Wombles narration

With the first batch of five-minute scripts written by Elisabeth Beresford and all the Wombles received their makeover, Ivor jumped straight into the director’s chair and collaborated with another animator named Barry Leith. Like Ivor, Barry worked on some French productions, including working under Jacques Forgeot, a well-known French animator in the sixties, before joining FilmFair. He worked with Ivor as a budding animator as well as being responsible for the show’s cinematography and design for the sets used across various episodes. Even with the time required to bring each five-minute story to life, the two collaborated and used their skills effectively to bring Orinoco’s shenanigans or Uncle Bulgaria’s movements to life. And with only £24,000 to produce the earlier series, the two jumped into the challenging production head-on with the scripts that Elisabeth Beresford wrote herself.

But who would bring the voices of each character to life? That honour would be given to actor Bernard Cribbins (1928-2022,) who was previously known for his work on more mature titles like the Carry On films and The Railway Children. Demonstrating his ability to adapt to various roles, not also was Bernard given the role of narrator, but would provide the voices for all of the Womble family. He was even given the freedom to add his own improvisation to give each character their own quirks that helped to make them stand out even more from one another.

With the first series now completed in post-production with Bernard’s vocal talents, The BBC was ready to broadcast The Wombles for Britain to see. “Orinoco and the Big Black Umbrella” would be the first episode to start the whole series. On the 5th of February in 1973 at 17:40, children and families everywhere would fall in love with the laid-back and sleepy young Womble as he found himself flying around Wimbledon Common with comedic flair. Airing each episode before the news, the show gained a lot of viewers from those looking forward to the then-new children’s show and tuning in early to get ready for the news segment.

Over the course of the year, The Wombles would become a recognisable household name where everyone grew attached to a particular member of the beloved fictional family. Between the first series in 1973 to the second series in 1975, they became one of the most unexpectedly major pop bands of the seventies, which helped to make the show even more popular, even earning £17 million a year during the height of their success. The man responsible for the band was also the same man behind the catchy theme song, Mike Batt. Rather than accepting a payment of £200 to write and perform the theme song, he asked for the character rights to form a band with the Wombles instead. Called simply The Wombles, the success of the music group and their eight top ten tracks made even more people fall in love with them, helping to cement their impact on popular culture between both the first and second series in the seventies that not many shows did then.

The Wombles Legacy

While they are remembered this year for their fiftieth anniversary, what was the original animated series’ legacy between then and now? Elisabeth continued to write entries in the literary series, with the last one titled Wombling Free being published in 1978. Her work in literature and television saw her receive an MBE in 1998 before the show’s second iteration was broadcasted on ITV as part of their children’s segment, CITV. And her books are still being published today for children to rediscover and see what made them such appealing stories all the way back on Jackanory.

The last attempt to introduce The Wombles to a new generation of audiences was back in 2015, but the company that was producing it hit major difficulties. Attempting to bring Uncle Bulgaria and co to modern audiences, Dramatico Animation was making the first computer-animated series based on beloved characters, moving away from the stop-motion animation that previous productions relied on. Founded by Mike Batt, his ambition to reinvigorate the Wombles’ prior popularity, unfortunately, backfired, having to abandon the production due to financial difficulties and, ultimately, was forced to sell his rights to the property.

It would be wonderful for fans old and new to see The Wombles return from the underground and make a musical return overground with the current climate and waste issues the world faces today. Helping to teach the children about environmental awareness and how to make the planet a cleaner place, they deserve another chance, whether it’s as a new series or a one-off special to mark one of Britain’s most iconic children’s television shows in history. Until then, we will just have to remember what wonderful Wombles they were.

The Wombles have have had 10 of their original episodes remastered and uploaded to their YouTube channel @womblesofficial, with the rest arriving later this year,

The post Remembering The Wombles: 50 Years of Ivor Wood’s Classic Series appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

The story focuses on two aliens named Janet and Bill, whose families, the red Smeds and the blue Smoos, dislike one another, but they see past the prejudices and grow to love one another. After waking up to find the lovers have gone missing, their families go on a space-filled adventure to find them while slowly learning to accept one another.

Recently, Skwigly was invited to attend a press event where not also did we have an opportunity to see the film early, but we also had the opportunity to interview producer Barney Goodland and executive producer Michael Rose. From discussing what went on behind the scenes to tips and tricks of being a producer, to even sharing some love for Aardman, it was both a pleasure and honour to sit down with these gentlemen for what could arguably be one of the best Magic Light Pictures productions to date.

Barney Goodland and Michael Rose. Photo provided by Faber & Bishopp PR

Why did the team pick The Smeds and the Smoos as the tenth Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler adaptation?

Barney Goodland: Well, it’s a lovely book. It has a wonderful, timeless theme with fantastic rhyming from Julia, and rich, imaginative illustrations from Axel that explore an absolutely incredible universe, so it was actually quite an easy decision.

Michael Rose: I think it was just a beautiful book. When it came out, in 2019, we immediately thought “this is something that could make a really lovely film”, because there’s this great story and characters at its heart, underpinned by a wonderful message that is appropriate for our times.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

As well as co-director Daniel Snaddon, who co-directed The Snail and the Whale, animator Samantha Cutler also joined him in the director’s chair. What was it like to have these two directors with different experiences between them?

BG: It was great. We often have two directors on the films who work together really well. Daniel previously co-directed Stick Man and Zog for us; and Samantha has worked on many of the previous films – I think pretty much all of them from Stick Man – as a character animator, and she’s tremendously talented. She’s developed into a fantastic storyteller in the last few years. We just went and asked her if she was interested in directing. They’re very good friends and it was quite an easy partnership to put in place. They did a tremendous job and really complement each other’s skills.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

In comparison to the book, there are some new characters introduced for the animated adaptation, such as Aunt Smed and Uncle Smoo. Why were these characters created for this particular film?

BG: This is a story about families and so when we were developing the script, we wanted to make it more so. It wasn’t just about Grandmother Smoo and Bill, Grandfather Smed and Janet. We wanted to add some characters to the extended family, so we created Uncle Smoo and brought forward other characters which Axel illustrated. By giving them lines, we made them a more active part of the story which helped add a kind of richness and texture.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

What was your favourite scene to work on as the producers of the film?

MR: Well, one scene I absolutely love is a moment where Grandmother Smoo drinks the pink milk. She recognises that it’s good and it’s time to put aside animosities. Conveyed without words, she just keeps looking straight ahead, then moves her bag off the seat next to her as a signal to Grandfather Smed that he can now take his place alongside. I think it’s a beautiful moment and an important one in the film,  conveyed through pure character acting.

BG: Another sequence I love is when we see Janet and Bill sneak off to the woods, when we see this montage that shows their relationship developing as they get older over a series of time jumps.  There’s a rich detail to the animation, the lighting, the compositing – and it’s got an absolutely tremendous music cue from our composer, René Aubry, that just gives me goosebumps, even now. It still just carries me away, beautifully.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

When families sit down to watch The Smed and The Smoos for Christmas, what is the big thing you hope they will learn from it?

MR: We don’t set out to teach or educate; our aim is to entertain, really. But if they enjoy watching it, which we hope they will and have a great time, one hopes they’ll take away a sense of the underlying message of the story – which is that life’s too short to live in disharmony – and to respect our differences and that we’re all human beings who can all live together in harmony. I think that’s a wonderful thing, but most of all I just hope they have a great time watching it.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

What advice would you give someone who wants to work within the animation industry, wherever it’s working as an animator or perhaps wanting to become a producer such as yourselves?

MR: If you want to be an animator, there are plenty of diverse art colleges, courses, training areas and so forth. If you want to be a producer, there are many different routes these days. I think you have to have real excitement and passion for it and come at it with a can-do, make-it-happen attitude.

BG: Wanting to tell stories to audiences is so important.  I would say to just study stories that you enjoy, see why they’re working, why they’re not working. That’s the cool thing. Most of the crew we work with want to be storytellers and enjoy telling stories.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

Michael, everyone at Skwigly are huge fans of Aardman. What was it like to have worked as an executive producer on Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit?

MR: It was a fantastic privilege, really. It was tremendous because Aardman  was much smaller in those days than it is now. With Chicken Run we set out to make the first stop-motion feature film for many years in the UK, and to make a family film that would play to the world. I’ve always admired Aardman’s art,  their commitment to quality and doing the very best work.

When Martin Pope and I started Magic Light in 2003, we imported that idea of wanting to give family audiences the very highest quality we could. That’s something we’ve kept doing, year-in, year-out ever since. So now we’re on our tenth special and I think we all feel really proud of these beautiful films that audiences watch again and again, not just in the UK but all around the world.

I loved Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I think it’s not just a great parody of stories like The Wolf Man, it’s just great for kids on Halloween. It was just great to see Wallace and Gromit on the big screen rather than on television sets.

MR: It was a long held dream of Aardman to make a Wallace and Gromit feature film  – and, of course, it’s rooted in the genius of Nick Park. His early short film,  Creature Comforts, is one of my all-time favourites.

Oh, really? Why Creature Comforts just out of interest?

MR: I think it’s sublime, how Nick used the technique of animation to subvert or invert a documentary style of filmmaking and create stories and meanings that have so much resonance about the human condition. To me, it’s the perfect short film.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

So after working together for years now, what are the big things you learned from one another when producing these animated films?

BG: I think one thing I’ve learned is that films are really about collaboration and so it’s being open to the views of everyone on the team, and taking those on board. Everyone on the crew is immensely talented and I’ve learned the real benefit of tapping into that. Quality underpins our films and we’ve worked very hard on making the stories work and we’re also always thinking about our audience. That’s the main thing I take away – quality, story and audience are always in my mind.

 And Michael, what have you learned from Barney from all these years?

MR: Whether it’s a small group or  the wider teams we put together, everyone sets off with a common, clear vision and, as Barney said, a clear view of the audience who we’re making it for. I think that’s something that we’ve collectively done well over the years – to pull that vision through the long process of making any animated film.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

What was the biggest takeaway from your previous work like Superworm last year, when producing this film?

BG: One of the great things about Julia’s stories is that they’re all different and have a slightly different feel. Superworm was tremendous fun with a bombastic hero and a really delicious villain.

With Smeds and the Smoos we’ve had to balance the humour with the emotional elements in the story. It’s quite finely balanced, and there’s a theme of division without going too over the top.

I really liked the small touches with that, like the picture of Bill and Grandmother Smoo, because it’s clearly a drawing from Axel.

BG: He did that for us. It’s tremendous. It’s not in the book, but you feel it. And I think it’s a good example of how the books and films interrelate. It doesn’t feel out of place, it’s wonderfully natural.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

With such different locations compared to your previous productions, what creative challenges and opportunities were there when making them?

BG: The challenge is always realising Axel’s worlds and converting them into CGI and 3D. But that’s also an opportunity we love because he has such a specific style. There’s just so much detail that we can explore, alongside Julia’s texts and how they flow together.

That’s why elements like the Smoos’ pet and the little spacecraft that Grandfather Smed made appear in the background. Even the boundary line is actually quite a major element of the film, becoming a key visual motif. It’s actually quite liberating having this amazing source material to start working from.

The Smeds and the Smoos (Magic Light Pictures)

Alongside the returning cast member, Rob Brydon, are other familiar big named actors and comedians. What was it like to collaborate with them on this upcoming production?

BG: It was wonderful. They bring so much to the characters in the story. We filmed their recording sessions for lip sync, and the animators take so much inspiration from little movements or expressions that they make. They bring such rich emotion, and then a wonderful delivery of Julia’s words. Sally Hawkins’ narration is beautiful, warm and comforting. It sort of developed the story as well, which is an absolute treat, and helps gently move the narrative along.

Janet is played by Ashna Rabberu and Bill is played by Daniel Ezra. They are both tremendously talented young actors who are really going places quickly, and had absolutely wonderful voices for these two characters. They feel young and charming, it’s really engaging and quite sweet. So we feel very lucky to continue to work with such big names. These are some of absolute top British acting talents and we’re very grateful for their work in the projects and the fantastic elements they add to the story.

MR: It’s the quality of their voices and their ability to create the character through the words that is just invaluable, which is why we’ve been very lucky with these amazing casts in all our films over the years. They elevate the films and provide real inspiration for the animators to respond to as well.

The Smeds and The Smoos will be released on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Christmas Day.

The post The Smeds and The Smoos – Producers Barney Goodland & Michael Rose Talk Latest Magic Light Pictures Christmas Special appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Finally released for Disney+, fans can check out Filoni’s latest animation offering. With such a rich history of successful animated shows and intriguing expansions of the franchise’s lore, does Tales of the Jedi stand up to its predecessors or fall short into the Dark Side?

Poster for Tales of the Jedi

Made up of six standalone episodes, this anthology series follows the backstory of Anakin’s Padawan Ahsoka and the early Jedi years of Dooku before he became the Sith Lord known in the films’ prequel trilogy. Diving into their relationships with fan-favourite characters as well as some fresh faces that have never been seen before, each episode tells its own singular story while also splicing between the events from the films and the television shows that came before it.

While Ahsoka is certainly given some great moments throughout this series such as using her Force abilities for the first time and a showdown with an Inquisitor while surrounded by flames, Dooku’s arc across the series is an entertaining and emotional one that brilliantly stands out. Being tested by the loyalty of the council he serves, his stories become far more dramatic and saddening as his journey eventually leads him to the Dark Side which is as engaging as it is heart-breaking to watch.

A young Dooku in Tales of the Jedi

As for the animation itself, it should come as no surprise that it lives up to the same level of quality and detail that The Bad Batch and the final season of The Clone Wars have offered that will please fans from those two acclaimed shows. With such brilliant use of lighting and colouring as well as the high quality of the background art, it features many of the same design choices that made those shows stand out from Disney+’s already large collection of animated content.

But what makes this a standout and memorable inclusion in the entire Star Wars franchise when it comes to animation is the new locations and character models. While its predecessors have featured many new and exciting places over the years, the ones included here really stand out here as they are unlike anything seen before from the abandoned sections of Coruscant to never-before-seen areas of the Jedi council, they are greatly diverse and memorable. As for the new character models for the younger Dooku, baby Ahsoka, and the new Inquisitor, they are given the same level of care and stand out among the familiar faces that make up a majority of the cast.

Ahsoka in Tales of the Jedi

Although it would have been great to have seen more storylines and episodes that explored other key characters, it’s just a testament to Dave Filoni and his team’s abilities that they can tell such great stories while being beautifully animated. Hopefully, Tales of the Jedi will receive a second season, but until then, Star Wars fans have another great reason to log back into their Disney+ accounts again.

The post Review – Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi | Does it Stand up to its Predecessors or Fall Short into the Dark Side? appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

On the last day of their workshop in Plymouth, I got the opportunity to speak with Dani in person as well as Sandy Vielma, the Social Media Director of DaniMation, and Joe Westlake, founder of DaniMation UK, to discuss what made them want to expand their classes outside of the US and how the week-long workshop has impacted their students.

Joe, would you mind just telling everyone a bit about yourself and how you got involved with DaniMation Entertainment?

Joe: It originally started out when I was working within the autism community for advocacy. I ran a host of online radio shows and that’s how Dani found me and we kind of grew a connection. Dani was doing animation when she established DaniMation in 2009 in the US, so that was quite a bit of time before we actually established it here with DaniMation UK.

I really liked the model of DaniMation. It’s helping individuals on the spectrum with animation which is such a niche area and I realised that what’s happening in America is fantastic, but it’s not something that we really appear to have in the UK. There’s a lack of opportunities for people on the spectrum to pursue the skills for animation and to go into a career of animation or digital arts. I was a student here and we came up with a great partnership with the Plymouth Institute of Education, and Dr. Suanne Gibson, who was one of my lead lecturers. She’s really been great and piloting this whole project with us.

We held our first camp here at the University of Plymouth in August 2019 and we had 14 students. We had some come from as far as London and Manchester, as well as the surrounding area. We tought the basic principles of animation. We did storyboarding, voiceovers, learning the Toon Boom software, and the basic principles of animation and in view of them having 15 to 30 seconds of animation, there’s so much work that goes into animating.

Dani: They could become voice actors if they can, or they can be storyboard artists or people who do visual development like backgrounds or somebody who’s good with computers and CGI animation and programming. They can work on that, so it’s not just the art side of animation.

Sandy: This week’s an introduction for youth on the autism spectrum to learn about all the different areas of animation, but it’s being presented and shown in a way to create a future for themselves by a peer. Because Dani is on the autism spectrum, just like them, they are shown that she’s doing it so therefore, they could do it too. And that is the main message that we try to instil upon all the students is that it doesn’t matter how young they are, because she started when she was 11. No matter what people tell you if “you can’t do this, or you can’t do that,” don’t listen to them, you could do anything you want. And because somebody just like her was doing it, you could do it too.

One of Dani’s students she had from the camp in 2019 is now here as an intern, working with us and teaching the other students right now. She started off as a student and now she’s decided to get her degree in animation. But this is just one example here in the UK. We have the same exact scenario happening all over the US. It’s more than just a fun camp.

Joe Westlake and Dani with their students. Photo provided by DaniMation.

Dani, with your success with the workshops in the US, why did you turn your attention to the UK?

Dani: It was all thanks to Joe Westlake’s idea of wanting to start the UK branch and because he wanted to start the UK branch for DaniMation, I felt so invited and I felt so eager about doing this offer for Joe.

Joe: I think the key thing is that we’ve been really lucky because having the partnership with the University really helped us because it also goes hand in hand with what goes on in the Institute of Education here because a lot of research and work goes on around autism as well. So we’re able to establish a number of partnerships which benefits not only animation, but also the university and the outreach work that goes on in a community of families with children with autism or young adults. Whether or not they live on their own or they’re on the spectrum, it’s all about advocating and helping them to pursue their passions because of limited opportunities.

Dani: I’ve always wanted to teach animation to us on the autism spectrum to different parts of the world, not just in person, but online as well. I think that helped open doors.

Dani, why do you teach your students Toon Boom Harmony?

Dani: Toon Boom Harmony has been my sponsor when I started my animation company in 2009 and it was all thanks to Patrick’s (Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder) relationship with them. He was searching for professional software for me to use. At first when Patrick put me on the software, I was a little confused and not so sure what to do. But over time, when I got used to it, I liked doing all the animations on it.

Sandy: It’s accessible to us because they’re her sponsor, and all animation studios actually use it. It’s not just a game to play with. It’s pretty amazing the way that in five days, they learned how to tell a story, how to do a storyboard, they learn the software and how to put their stories into a little animation. They create the animation, they add sound, they add music.

Dani: It can be really fun. You’re not here to be watching cartoons. You are here to learn the animation production pipeline from development, pre production, production to post production and seeing the results from the audience. This year, we do have an assistant who was a previous student and we have seen her development from when she first attended our camp and we looked at her and saw a big improvement.

Photo of Dani and her students, provided by DaniMation

According to a poll conducted by Respect Ability, just 12% of employees in animation and visual effects in 2019 had a disability of some form or another. How do you think Danimation or other animation studios and companies in the UK could change this?

Joe: What I would say is yes, up until now, there is a low level of people with autism working in industries, particularly animation. However, there is a clear shift in that happening. I would say that in animation, we strive to make that change. But we also realised the importance of working with other large organisations in terms of this question and changing patterns in this.

Sandy: It’s always been really, really low, historically. But we’re really excited to see companies opening up more to the possibilities of working with us and helping out our community and other abilities, but especially our community, because that’s what we focus on to accept and understand.

Joe: You can imagine, for somebody on the autism spectrum, who may have varying sensory issues or a whole host of things, is immediately more accessible to them as well because they can do it from their own home on Zoom. So it’s actually becoming more friendly that way as well. Whilst we foster in our in person camps, the importance of working on social skills, we’ve got that hybrid which is great because we’ve kind of got the best of both worlds and supporting them. If this doesn’t work for you, let’s start with this and then work towards something in the middle. That’s our main aim is that they envision the spectrum that can be done in motion are progressing, we’re teaching them the basic skills but also pointing them in the right direction of companies or further study to actually pursue what they want to do in the animation industry.

This year’s students from the Plymouth workshop with their certificates. Photo provided by DaniMation.

What impact do you hope the workshop will have on your students after this week?

Dani: I’ve thought the impact I will always want for my students is to feel that they can do animation. And they feel like they’re motivated, they’re able to do it. They could be able to finish the job and finish the deadline, they should feel that they’re accomplished and wanted to do more. It’s only the beginning after they finish the camp and if they want to do more, they’re more willing to do it.

After the interview, I was invited to meet the students who showed me their work and discussed their projects. Seeing their work on the big screen and meeting with the parents and guardians, it was clear that everyone in the room was behind Dani and what she was bringing to the UK. And hopefully, we will both meet again to discuss more about her work and the growth of the animation industry.

Below are all of the students’ work as well as the people who contributed to this year’s workshop in Plymouth for everyone to enjoy.

The post DaniMation Returns for Animation Camp for Autistic Students to UK: Interview with Dani Bowman, Joe Westlake, Sandy Vielma appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

With a new form of animation to explore and new foes to fight, does it prove to be their most exciting and ambitious title yet or will it be no match for the series’ past installments?

Set a few years after the events of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, the villainous organization The Red Ribbon Army have returned and set its sights on revenge after Goku and his allies were able to defeat them from the series. With a new generation of antagonists leading the revived group and creating a new threat in the form of two powerful androids, it’s up to the Z Fighters to stop them and save the day.

Changing the focus away from protagonists Goku and Vegeta, the story instead tells the story of Piccolo and Gohan and is a refreshing change of pace, especially with how much they have been downplayed throughout the Dragon Ball Super show. Not also does it see them having to handle the situation head-on, but rebuilds the chemistry between the two as former master and student while also building on parts of the series’ lore in some creative ways.

As for the new villains, androids Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 are easily one of the biggest standouts as they aren’t the conventional villains that many have seen in Shonen Jump anime shows before as they truly believe themselves to be the heroes. But as the film goes along, they start to question the objectives that make them surprisingly compelling characters rather than just simply fighting against the true heroes of the story as huge obstacles to overcome.

While the story does a great job at being entertaining for those who have stuck with the series after all these years, how much does it fair as the series’ first foray into computer animation?

It may not be the best when compared with the likes of Disney and Pixar, but the animators did bring these characters seamlessly well into 3D and with the use of cel-shading, they were able to use the technology to recreate the designs effectively. Unfortunately, at times, the emotions through conversations and subtle movements during the film’s quieter moments do look stiff compared to the animation from previous installments.

But when it comes to the brawls and intense scenes, the animation goes into full gear as the animators and director were able to create some of the best brawls seen in the series. With the technology of the animation and the brilliant choreography, the fighters flawlessly fly and exchange blows as the camera moves around and follows the action without breaking the pace. And the sharp colour palette, lighting, and shadows all make the film look that much more appealing and engaging to watch. Hopefully, future releases will be able to adopt and build on this film, but it was a pleasing series of fights and character journeys to watch with this animation.

Despite some of the animation’s odd stiffness, the focus on Piccolo and Gohan as well as exploring the series’ lore with a fresh coat of paint makes it a refreshingly fun and enjoyable adventure that will surely please fans. While it may not be a great entry point for newcomers, the high octane and well-choreographed action sequences might be enough to keep them entertained from start to finish.

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This year marks the 40th anniversary of legendary animator Don Bluth‘s first feature-length animated film: The Secret of NIMH. Starring a cast of anthropomorphized animals living on a farmer’s field, the story tells of the brave widowed mouse Mrs. Brisby as she tries to seek help from the rats to move her children to safety before the farmer can plow their home away.

If it wasn’t for this film and the hard work of everyone involved, traditional animation and the impact on the industry for years to come would probably never be the same. So let’s look at the history of Bluth’s career, his associates, and how they would create this beloved cult classic.

Between 1971 to 1979, Don Bluth returned to Walt Disney Studios as an animator after briefly working at the studio in 1956 when he was just eighteen years old. During his eight years working at the studio throughout the 1970s, Bluth worked on animated features that would eventually become classics like Robin Hood and The Rescuers.

But during the production of The Fox and the Hound, Bluth and several other animators were starting to feel ignored by their ideas towards the animated features and wanted to grow within the studio. He and, then Disney animator Ken Anderson, wanted Disney to adapt Robert C O’Brien’s book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, but the studio turned Bluth down.

Tired of being shackled from exploring other creative avenues within the studio, Bluth left with other animators in the middle of the production, including Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy. Not only was this his last film associated with the studio, but it would cause a massive delay in the production of The Fox and the Hound. The reason behind his decision to leave, according to Bluth in an interview with Cinfantastique in 1982:

“D-(for Disney) Day. It got to be that we couldn’t be creative in the true sense of the word. The red tape, the bureaucracy, the chain of authority — everywhere you turned, someone was saying, ‘we don’t do that at Disney,’ or ‘that isn’t what Walt would have wanted.’ When we realized how difficult it was to grow in those confines, we decided to leave the organization.”

Now on his own two feet, Bluth was able to form a brand new independent studio named Don Bluth Productions, with Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy becoming his partners. With the freedom to experiment, they invested in new equipment to play with animation with the creative freedom they desired. They also wanted to test the old technical skills used for Disney’s first theatrical classics like Fantasia and Snow White. This ranged from scintillating lights to rotoscoping to xeroxing cels, and they also used modern technology at the time like early computers to create some psychedelic effects that would eventually be incorporated into the film.

After Disney turned down the opportunity to adapt Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Bluth knew what their first film would be. While science fiction writer Steven Barnes attempted to write a synopsis for the film and change elements of the original story for the adaptation, Bluth eventually took over the story and he and his team changed it as they worked on one scene at a time, starting the intense process for the entire team to get the film made and released on time.

From the start of the production, Bluth and the team had a large obstacle ahead of them. While Aurora Productions co-produced and financed it with a $7 million budget, it was only 25% less than what Disney would spend to produce their animated features in the 1980s. Furthermore, they had only thirty months to make it before the 2nd July 1982 release date, which was half the time that Disney would take to animate their films at the time.

But during this short timeframe, however, everyone would learn a lot from each other and those that would eventually join their venture in the production. Comedic actor Dom DeLuise would teach Bluth, Goldman, and Pomeroy about comedic timing while he performed improvised and written lines for Jeremy the clumsy crow. And composer Jerry Goldsmith would learn the intense process for his first animated feature as he mostly worked with unfinished sequences, daily rushes, and story sketches to score the film.

And as for Don Bluth, his pursuit to learn and lead a team of animators saw him with his own fair share of challenges too. Despite fourteen other animators making up his team, he storyboarded the entire film and would take charge of a lot of elements of the animation including creating the layouts. His deep involvement in the film even saw him animating the climactic fight between the rats Justin and Jenner. But he alongside his partners and several other team members would work between 6 am to 11 pm in the last six months of production in order to get the film completed. And Gary Goldman can attest to that, as he discussed the hard work that they put into it within the same 1982 interview in Cinfantastique:

That’s why you’ll find Don and John and myself the first ones here in the morning and the last ones to leave at night. We’re running hard, and we want everyone else to run hard.

The film ended up with 65,000 feet of film reel, 1,000 paintings used specifically for the backgrounds from it, and at least 120,000 drawings. Aurora Productions would put $4.4 million into the marketing for the film and expected United Artists to help get the film released in many cinemas. Before the film’s release, United Artists and Bluth Productions made newsletters to promote it and they branded it as the second age of animation before its release on 2nd July 1982.

Despite the newsletters’ attempts as well as the film’s advertising, it had two stiff obstacles to come over that would impact its theatrical performance. The first was that United Artists opened up in approximately 100 cinemas and would slowly build up the numbers each week as part of a roll-out campaign before it was eventually released in 670 theatres. The second was that it competed with the summer’s biggest releases, including Steven Spielberg’s E.T, which would become one of the most celebrated family films of all time. Despite being outperformed by this and other theatrical releases, it did well enough to place in 3rd place at each cinema it was screened at.

By the end of its first month, it only garnered $5 million at the box office and by the end of its theatrical run, it grossed around $12 million. While it wasn’t the most successful film that summer, it did really well within the video market and saw it reach Gold status with its VHS sales, and was a popular film to rent. It did receive a re-released version in 1990 with a remaster and a $20 price tag compared to the original release’s $79. With a new advertisement campaign and fresh critics praising it, the film managed to find some success in the 1990s as a cult classic.

Today, many would associate Don Bluth with the films that came after The Secret of NIMH before thinking or being aware of the existence of this film. But its legacy is the films that Bluth continued to create alongside his team and the skills they continued to develop that saw the likes of The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go To Heaven, and An American Tail so fondly remembered by children growing up in the 1980s and 1990s.

But it was also one of the key films responsible for re-igniting passionate Disney productions with fresh talent that gave birth to The Disney Renaissance. As Bluth, Goldman, and Pomeroy were young and ambitious, so too were the new and emerging talents behind Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid that saw Disney creating some truly inspired animation and storytelling between the 80s and 90s. As stated by Gary Goldman in an interview for Traditional Animation that celebrated the film’s 30th anniversary:

Sounds a bit over-confident, even arrogant, but at the time we meant it with great sincerity. However, I hear so often from friends in the industry that our departure from Disney, the fruit of our efforts, and because that film made a huge impact and helped usher in the renaissance, a second golden age of animation in the eighties and nineties. In a way, it was a huge sacrifice to make the point. But, it’s been worth it. Especially, the fact that the film seems to hold up after all these years.

Whether you’re a fan of Don Bluth or unfamiliar with his work, The Secret of NIMH remains one of his most important pieces of work, but more importantly, one of his best too.

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Chickenhare – which was pitched at last year’s CARTOON Movie – is the latest animated feature on Netflix for the whole family to enjoy. But with nWave Pictures and Sony Pictures International producing the film, could this be the next big hit for the studios and for the platform?

Chickenhare Poster

Loosely based on the Chickenhare graphic novel series by Chris Grine, the story sees Chickenhare (voiced by Jordan Tartakow) attempting to find the Hamster of Darkness, an ancient artifact that holds great powers, before his villainous uncle Lapin (Danny Fehsenfeld) can use it to take over the kingdom. Along his journey, Chickenhare will meet some unfriendly brutes, encounter deadly boobytraps, and befriend the confident treasure-hunting skunk Meg, who teaches him to embrace who he is to become the adventurer within him.

While adults will be familiar with the tropes and beats from older treasure-hunting films, this very much acts as a great entry point for younger audiences. But as entertaining as it is to see animals swinging with a whip through the trees and encountering a tribe of cubicle piggies, Chickenhare’s adventure does act as a good setup to tell a message to children about accepting yourself and embracing everyone’s unique qualities.

It’s just a pity that despite a fairly straightforward, familiar, and sometimes fun adventure, it does get impacted by some unnecessary comedic side characters that unnecessarily pad out the film and make some quick cringe-worthy moments. While some of Lapin’s henchmen are only there to create some scenes to cause him frustration and create some funny moments, one of Chickenhare’s allies Abe (Joey Lotsko) is constantly sarcastic. These characters do become repetitive to their tropes quite quickly and can often become more annoying than funny.

Chickenhare and Meg

As for the animation, nWave Pictures and Sony Pictures International Production did a good job to adapt the pages of the graphic novel, trying to redesign the characters to fit the world that they created. While some character models don’t look too different from most animated anthropomorphic animals that audiences have been used to, there are some that do stand out. Most notably, Chickenhare, as he slowly reveals more of his unique features of chicken and hare attributes and a design that stands out as he embraces more of who he is.

And the animation quality is well done too, especially as it has a smaller budget than what audiences expect from Pixar, Dreamworks, and Walt Disney Animation productions. With a budget of twenty million euros, the animators were able to make a colorful and fun adventure, even if it doesn’t look and feel too different from other animated adventure films that have come out before it.

While Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness is not the best film to be released on Netflix so far compared to their other titles in 2022, it is still a fun adventure that families are guaranteed to enjoy. Let’s just hope that the hero will have another adventure that will be a bit more experimental next time.

Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness is now available to watch on Netflix UK.

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One of the people who have joined us for this year’s celebration is Dani Bowman, an autistic animator who founded her own company, at the age of fourteen. She also teaches animation to children and young adults on the autism spectrum to give them the skills needed to boost their opportunities for work within the animation industry.

Dani Bowman

How did you start your journey into the animation industry and can you tell us about how you founded your company?

Like many individuals on the autism spectrum, I had a language delay and didn’t speak until age six.  During this time, my parents fed me a steady diet of cartoons and animated characters. My father had a camera store and I started using the equipment to create stop motion animation from the age of three.  You can say I was doing animation and telling stories before I could speak.

My uncle had his engineering company, and my aunt had her travel agency, so I just thought it was natural for everyone to have their own company. I asked my aunt how starting a company works. She kind of explained it to me, not really taking me seriously, but I was serious since I was recently inspired by Satoshi Taijiri.  With their help, I started to do everything that I needed to do like register an original name for my company, designed a website, and started to compile my art, my animation, and pitch bibles that I had created so far to include in my website.

By age 14, my uncle helped me register my company DaniMation as Sole Proprietorship at first. Now it’s LLC Social Enterprise because I originally just wanted to start an animation company, period. However as I started to research more about autism and employment, I found out that more than 80% of us people with autism are unemployed or underemployed regardless of IQ or education.

You have made some award-winning short films and PSAs over the years (such as the Autism Society of America’s PSA and the short film, The Audition), some of which were screened at Comic-Con. Among your animation productions, which one would you say you’re most proud of?

I am most proud of the latest short film that my team and I won for “Best Editor” from the 2021 EasterSeals Disability Film Challenge.  In this contest, the team had just 5 days to complete a film; and the crew had to include at least 1 individual with a disability.  Realizing the amount of work that goes into animation, they didn’t allow animated films but I convinced them to include animation in 2020 and we submitted our first film.  It’s important for us at DaniMation to give our animation students opportunities to participate in animation challenges to teach them the importance of teamwork and finishing within deadlines.

Our film won in the “Best Director” category in 2020 and it was so amazing for our team of 12, 9 who were my DaniMation students on the autism spectrum. We all came from different parts of the world to produce this film via Zoom during the Pandemic, and our entire team stepped up to the plate.

On March 31^st, we received an award for “Best Mockumentary Short” during the Marvels of Media Awards at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York and four of my team attended.  I was so proud of our team and all that we’ve accomplished.  Our short film is displayed among many other great works made by people with autism for the entire month of April.

You’ve been teaching animation to autistic students for over nine years. What made you want to do this and how has animation impacted your students?

I first started teaching animation camps when I was 16 years old with Joey Travolta of Inclusion Films—a film workshop that works on elevating people with disabilities in the film industry. I was first introduced to Joey Travolta by a mutual friend of my uncle when I was about 15 years old. He was so impressed with what I was doing with my animation that he asked me to come to teach animation at his workshops in Burbank and Bakersfield. A year later, he invited me to teach animation at his summer film camps around the country, and that is when it all started.

Soon after, at age 17 in 2012,  I branched out on my own to teach in other locations like OCALI in Columbus OH, and in 2014 ‘Animation Gets Real’ at the University of South Florida with Arts4AllFlorida in Tampa, and in 2017 expanded to locations in Miami FL, teaching three weeks of workshops every summer in Florida.

We expanded again in 2019 with two more camps, one in my hometown in Montrose (Los Angeles) CA, and at the University of Plymouth in Devon, England, UK, which was the launch of our CIC in the UK

Originally in 2020, we were scheduled to teach at over 11 camps around the country and the UK until Covid-19 Pandemic hit. We had to cancel 7 out of 11 camps and for the remaining camps, I quickly pivoted online.

How have you felt the representation of Autism in animation has changed since you started your career?

In some ways, the amount of change seems to be amazing, and in other ways, seems too slow.  When I was growing up, people, including my own parents didn’t really understand autism as the information was not widely available.

Things have changed, and we’re now seeing more authentic autism representation in media, real people with autism playing as characters with autism in live-action shows like “Atypical”, “The Good Doctor”, “Everything is Going to Be Okay”, and “As We See it”.  I also see animated characters that are officially autistic or at least “Neurodiverse” coded, including Julia from Sesame Street.

Organizations are now more autism-friendly in their hiring practices, but we have so far to go to improve the poor employment statistics for individuals on the autism spectrum as well over 85% of working-age individuals are under-employed or unemployed.   We’re working to do our part to provide job skills and employment opportunities but there is much more that can be done.

Dani Bowman

What advice would you give autistic individuals who want to study and become animators?

For those of you that want to be in the animation field, you are never too young to get started. Focus on your niche and the strengths that you are good at.  If you cannot find work, create your own job!

There are many ways to do that. You can put a little ad on craigslist as an animator for hire. That’s how I started. Don’t wait for a company to hire you, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Nobody does it alone, not even me!

Also to the parents, just support your child’s passion, whatever that may be! If they love drawing, coding, whatever they love, support them, encourage them, and help them develop that passion into something that can support us as adults.

You can find Dani Bowman’s work, and information on her upcoming classes, on the Danimation website, or YouTube channel, or Instagram.

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One of the people who have joined us for this year’s celebration is Jorge R. Gutiérrez, who is best known for his work as director and writer on the 2014 film The Book of Life and Netflix’s 2021 mini-series Maya and the Three. But he is also an autistic animator who has worked in the industry for many years and currently collaborates with Netflix.

Jorge R. Gutiérrez

How did your autistic journey start in life? I understand that you were not diagnosed until you were an adult…

My son was diagnosed autistic when he was about to turn 3 years old. After he was diagnosed my parents said I was exactly like him at that age. So at 40 years old while we lived in Dallas, Texas, I contacted a specialist and was professionally diagnosed as “Twice-Exceptional with ASD”. It explained a million things from my past and frankly has made me more aware of my strengths thanks to ASD.

Looking back at your previous work now, did you recognize any autistic behaviors in the approach to your work?

Absolutely! I’m hyper emotionally sensitive and find myself studying the lives of others around me constantly which has obviously informed and inspired all my art and stories in animation. I can remember things very clearly and emotionally so this has been a kind of superpower for me as a filmmaker. I’m very methodical but at the same time, I try to constantly change things up to keep myself interested. I can easily hyperfocus and work for 4 to 6-hour chunks uninterrupted. Creative multitasking also comes naturally and this allows me to work on multiple short and long overlapping projects at once. I can also turn off my emotions when my work is not well received which comes in very handy in my profession.

Since discovering you are autistic, how have you personally felt the disability reflected on your work, especially with your more recent titles like Maya and the Three and your collaboration with Netflix?

As an autistic creator/writer/director it’s impossible for my work to not have that reflected. Any character that is based on me in any of my work is naturally autistic. Netflix has been incredibly encouraging when it comes to neurodiverse representation and I could not be more thankful. Characters like Rico and Chimi (in Maya and the Three) represent people that are born “different” and don’t allow that difference to define them. That’s me with autism.

MAYA AND THE THREE (L to R) GABRIEL IGLESIAS as PICCHU, ZOE SALDAÑA as PRINCESS MAYA, ALLEN MALDONADO as RICO and STEPHANIE BEATRIZ as CHIMI in MAYA AND THE THREE Cr. NETFLIX © 2021

As someone who has directed large teams of people and collaborated with different studios, can you explain to any aspiring autistic filmmakers (or parents with autistic children) what it’s like?

I’m going to guess that maybe 1/3 of all the film directors and show creators I have met in animation are more than likely autistic and they just have never been diagnosed or rather not discussed it publicly. This is an industry that is very welcoming to people on the autism spectrum.

What has been the reaction of the autistic community, since you opened up about being autistic yourself?

It’s been really great and heartfelt! As an autistic father with an autistic son, I have felt very welcomed into this worldwide community. Everyone’s experiences are completely different but we can all agree that autism acceptance is our communal goal.

For those of us on the spectrum who are trying to break into animation, what advice would you give them?

With or without being on the spectrum, animation is an incredibly competitive industry. But there are thousands of us making a living from it. My advice would be to figure out how to use your autism to develop your skills and post your art and start making shorts. The only way to become a creator or director is to make things. It’s how everyone, autistic or not, gets started. If I could do it, anyone else can do it!

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One of the people who have joined us for this year’s celebration is Grainne McGuinness, who is the creator behind Pablo, an award-winning animated pre-school series about an autistic boy and his imaginary friends as he tries to make sense of the world through his art. She is also the creative director at Paper Owl Films, an Irish-based animation studio that also animates the series.

Gráinne McGuinness

As Pablo‘s creator, how did you come up with the concept of the show? And why did you want to make a series around an autistic character?

At the time, I had preschool children and a preschool nephew. I remember thinking that things would be an awful lot easier if my children understood an autistic child better if they knew what his world was like; what his processing was like. I thought it would be a great idea if there was a show that would put on screen an autistic character and the traits of autism so that young children would be exposed to these traits before they go to nursery or school.

As I did the research, I realised that exposure to things does create understanding, empathy, acceptance, and engagement. So simply: the idea was to come up with a show that really put the traits of autism on screen for young children to relate to and respond to. And that’s how we came up with Pablo.

For Pablo, he is in this creative world that we see on screen filled with his book and animal friends. Each one of those big animals are all based on a specific trait of autism. And all those traits co-exist within Pablo. That’s something that became more important as the series developed as well; to really say that if you’re autistic, you don’t just have one trait of autism. It became a very nice way of saying ‘here are all the traits of autism, they co-exist with one person and in given situations – one comes out stronger than the other’.

One of the most important elements of the show to me, as someone on the spectrum myself, is having writers that are also autistic tell Pablo‘s stories. How did you and your team make a decision on this? And how do you think it impacted the show overall?

I think having autistic writers write autistic characters is the success of the show. In the animation industry, we make fifty-two episodes of a show, because it has to sell internationally and it has to be big in order to sell. So to come up with fifty-two stories on anything in an industry like that, the fight for freshness and originality is ever-present.

We ended up coming up with a world, and set of stories, that were quirky, fresh and original and it really led to the success of the show. We have had some anecdotal feedback where children have been saying to their mothers and fathers “that’s me.”

Children watch Pablo all over the world and they’re looking at these stories that are very relatable to them and the traits of autism are human traits. So we can all relate to the humaneness of the situations that Pablo finds himself in. But then we’re giving this alternative view, this other way of looking at the world and seeing things differently that really makes those stories original for all children.

We had a head writer, Andrew Brenner, who is very experienced in writing for preschool animation and he was so passionate about finding the right way into the stories of an autistic five-and-a-half-year-old. The first thing he did was he talked to lots of people about their experiences and the more he talked to autistic teens and adults, the more he learned about their stories. He nurtured them and looked into how those experiences could be relatable in the world of Pablo; and how you could tell that as a story for preschool animation. He mentored a lot of those people to actually write scripts for the show themselves and that whole process was an absolute joy.

The reason that we were able to do it was because we had development money and that flexibility was so important because in animation it has to be on time and on budget. It’s a big project, so having the flexibility outside of that to really develop it, nurture new talent, hear their stories, and get them written was absolutely crucial to the success of everything. I have to say, Andrew was such a good listener from the beginning, really creating a safe space for people to express themselves creatively. It took a lot of time and a lot of effort and it was absolutely the creative joy of my life, certainly. And still is.

Pablo and Friends

Since the show’s release, do you feel that representation has grown for autism, whether it’s on-screen or opportunities within the animation industry itself?

I think I have definitely seen improvements in representation and diversity across the board. But I think there’s still an awful lot of work to be done in terms of this industry opening its pathways for diverse talents.

At Paper Owl Films, we’re passionate about it, because we can see the amount of talent that’s out there and the amount of creativity in our own circle. But they’re not getting in because, in order to make recruitment processes fair, it involves a lot of paperwork. So you have to fill out a form, you have to see if you meet the criteria, you have to maybe do an interview; there are so many barriers within that for Neurodiverse people. And so I think we really need to look at our recruitment processes.

The big problem in this industry is always going to be talent, people, creatively-led people getting into the industry and getting into the right jobs, and the industry needs that. So I think we have to find ways of making sure that our recruitment processes are fair and equal, but that it’s striving for that equality through our processes. We don’t exclude the very people that we need to be including because just working on Pablo, production is a very big thing and you have so many people, you have funders, deadlines, budgets to stick to, everything. The process of production can be very, very rigid. And so maybe sometimes they keep a project safe all the time within those rigid structures. We find it very hard to open up to new ways of doing things and I think that’s what we all need to do, we need to do things differently. And so we need to make particularly sure that the neurodiversity entrants are getting in and that’s something that we’re very active on the point at the minute.

Pablo has a third series currently in development. Can you explain how the show has evolved and what viewers can expect?

So we’re developing series three at the moment. Pablo’s problem in series three is going to be in school. And the point of that show is that it’s a comedy and the whole worldview comes directly from Pablo’s take on school and the rules of the school. His point of view sheds a light on the nonsense of the social script that we all follow; like how stupid the rules that we invent for children really are. And so the artistic point of view in Pablo series three has a very powerful setup because the comedy comes from laughing at the neurotypical classroom space.

It’s not the autistic person that needs to adapt to the world; it’s that the world actually needs to change its very rigid rules sometimes. The comedy comes from laughing at the small stuff – what Pablo series three is going to try and do is get us all laughing at ourselves more. And that’s a change that needs to be seen. I think all too often autistic children and their parents are trying to fit in or trying to adapt to the world. But it’s time that the world made some changes.

Pablo Series Three

For the third series, you have added comedy writers into the mix, as well as well as the autistic writers from the previous shows. How well do you think this new collaboration will work between these different experienced writers?

That’s for the older age group. So we’re making animation for five to eight-year-olds and trying to attract older kids because the show has such an important job today, we need to make sure that our audiences all over the world really want to watch the show and really want to engage with it. This show needs to be an international hit if it’s really going to deliver on its job. We know that what engages this audience the most is funny. So we have to be funny and our kids need a laugh these days.

Encouraging them to engage and laugh at themselves and at the nonsense of the world, and make sure that every single story is a real experience written by autistic hands; that’s really important to do that in a sensitive way and that engages a large international audience. So that’s a challenge.

Pablo (series 1 and 2), will air on CBeebies every day throughout April to mark Autism Acceptance Month.

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While wrapping up the end of post-production on the film, I spoke with the director Massimo Fenati and as well as getting an insight into what it was like to direct an animated film, he also shared his journey into the animation industry.

Massimo Fenati – Image Provided from Eagle Eye Drama

How did you start your career in animation and how did it lead you to be the Head of the Animation Department at Eagle Eye Drama?

I started doing small Flash animations in 2006 to create little marketing assets to promote my first illustrated book (Gus & Waldo’s Book of Love, Orion) and its characters. I rapidly became quite keen on that, as animation had always been my dream since childhood. That led me to a few years of work as a motion graphic designer for the TV industry, working on exciting projects like the BBC4 documentary on Dadaism Gaga for Dada, for which I put together a dozen fully animated segments.

As my illustration career took off, I put animation aside for a while but then the covid pandemic changed everything: as I saw my colleagues at Eagle Eye Drama stuck with two productions about to start but ground to a screeching halt, I thought that that was the right time to pitch animation projects to TV channels, as animation, unlike drama, can be done all remotely.

I had a contact with Quentin Blake so we pitched Channel 4 the idea of a Christmas special based on one of his books and we got the project green lit in the space of a few days! Quentin Blake’s Clown was a big success on the channel, and with Eagle Eye Drama we are now building on that, developing a number of new projects after having just finished the new Channel 4 Christmas special for this year.

You were an Executive Producer on the adaptation of Quintin Blake’s Clown last year for Channel 4. What did you and your team of animators take away from that production for this new venture?

It was an absolutely hectic production as we only had 5 months to deliver a 21-minute animation! We worked around the clock, but the learning curve was incredible. The first thing was to learn to manage a big team remotely. Of course having everybody under one roof is preferable, but the pandemic really rewrote the rule book and I think that remote work is here to stay. But at least, since we couldn’t be all in the same room, we felt we could reach out to great animators around the globe. The biggest problem we had in that production was the absence of an animatic, due to lack of time. We used the book itself as a storyboard but I now can say how vital a proper animatic is and how much it has made our lives on the new project much better.

The Abominable Snowbaby

How did your team get involved with adapting Terry Pratchett’s The Abominable Snow Baby and why did you want to become its director?

I am a creative and production management doesn’t come natural to me. I worked as an executive producer on Clown because the Genoese animator Luigi Berio was my contact to Quentin Blake, and they had talked about adapting that book together in the past so it made perfect sense for him to be the director on that show. But my skills are in storytelling and leading a team creatively rather than organising a production schedule, so as soon as I could, I jumped the fence and became a director.

It was also the perfect project to involve my good friend Tess Cuming, who’s been a perfect EP on this. I have adapted a number of books in the past for my graphic novels, and I co-wrote the script for Clown, so I felt I could do a good job to adapt that charming Terry Pratchett short story into a full 24-minute animation and I had also huge fun designing the characters, aided by some of my best animators. Setting the whole style, coming up with the narrative and aesthetic vision, and choosing the right people for the team was a fantastic experience.

What unexpected obstacles did you face in the director’s chair?

For me the biggest (but somehow also most exciting) challenge was to understand how much of my original vision I could push for and where my briefs should stop to allow the great artists involved (background artists, animators, compositors, sound designers) to also have their own input. It’s a very fine balance as a project needs proper consistency of vision but I also really value teamwork and I think that a film can only be improved by the additional input of more creative minds. That also involved understanding the strengths of each team member (i.e. action vs. dialogue, humorous vs. serious, etc.) and assign the right shots to let them make the most of their talents.

Without trying to spoil the film, what was your favourite part or element to work on?

There’s a shot where Granny and Snow Baby (the two protagonists) have just met and walk down the street together, it’s the start of their bonding, they’re seen walking from behind, making eye contact, holding hands. When I first saw the rough, which my animator and animation supervisor Reg Isaac had done, it was a very emotional moment: it’s not just a very poignant stage in the film, but also what I could see on screen and the original images I had in my mind coincided so perfectly that I lived a few seconds of pure, deep happiness.

Model Sheet of Granny

Having now directed the film, what advice would you give to upcoming directors or people who want to get into animation?

Spend as long as possible on the animatic, refine it to the finest detail, even draw architectural plans of the characters’ layouts and movements in their environments to study camera angles and movements. Be as accurate as possible and the rest of the process will run much more smoothly.

Now that the film is nearly released, what is Eagle Eye Drama’s next project or what role would you like to do next?

I’ll keep my director’s cap on! And for the next few months I will also gladly dive into development, but we already have some very exciting projects we’re looking into, and that could be green lit at any moment… but of course I can’t jinx it, so watch this space!

The Abominable Snowbaby and Granny

The Abominable Snow Baby will air on Channel 4 on Christmas Day at 7.30pm.

The post Interview with ‘The Abominable Snow Baby’ Director Massimo Fenati appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

I had the opportunity to ask producer Barney Goodland some questions about the making of the film as well as career at Magic Light Pictures.

Barney Goodland
© Magic Light Pictures Ltd

How did you start your career within the animation industry and how did it lead you to become a Producer at Magic Light Pictures?

I joined Magic Light Pictures in 2008 when we were producing a couple of live action feature films, and starting work on ‘The Gruffalo’ with the animated feature ‘Chico & Rita’ in development. So I began by watching ‘The Gruffalo’ animatic and animation tests, setting up the voice records, assisting with production pipeline and seeing the film through post production and delivery. It was an amazing first experience working with really talented people. Since then I’ve been involved in all our animated films working my way up from assistant to producer on ‘Superworm’.

After crafting award winning films based on Julia Donaldson’s picture books, why did you and the team pick Superworm as your next adaptation?

‘Superworm’ is an wonderfully inventive and imaginative story – an action adventure about a worm and other garden creatures!  The story is rooted in a tender friendship and beautiful sense of community. All of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s books are unique with strong and relatable themes and our long-time colleagues, Max and Suzanne Lang, gave us a fantastic script that developed a relationship between Superworm and Butterfly which underpins the whole film. We then started work with directors Jac Hamman and Sarah Scrimgeour who delivered an animatic that was high energy, fun and touching. One of my favourite things about the story and its world is that a child can view it and imagine it happening in their own back garden, park or a patch of grass anywhere close by and that to me is really special.

Superworm (Matt Smith) rescues beetle from the well.
© Magic Light Pictures Ltd

For over ten years, you have produced many successful films for families around the world. What makes this new film different to you in comparison to your studio’s previous hits?

This story is different because it takes place in a macro world, the like of which we’ve never created before. The team at Blue Zoo Animation Studio in London have done an incredible job going into such close detail, designing rich and textured environments and characters, whilst staying true to the look and feel of Magic Light’s previous specials.

However, although the creatures are small this is definitely one of our biggest films! It features one of our largest all-star casts and the sound design and René Aubry’s score have had to balance a huge community of characters and bring to life the intimate world, whilst delivering the emotional moments and tense action sequences.

Throughout the production, what was the biggest challenge you or your team faced and how did you overcome it?

The Coranavirus pandemic of course posed a huge challenge. It took hold right at the start of the project’s development, which meant we were working remotely with a team spread across London, Dublin, New York and Los Angeles. As we started pre-production our directors, Sarah Scrimgeour and Jac Hamman, were both able to make it home to Cape Town, but they then had to quickly get used to connecting with the animation studio in London. Although we were already working with Blue Zoo Animation on our animated pre-school series, ‘Pip and Posy’, this was our first special together so it required a completely new creative approach and pipeline. Given all these factors and a production crew based around the world, who have all had to live with the pandemic, I think it’s incredible that we’ve been able to produce a film of the quality of ‘Superworm’ on schedule and entirely remotely.

Wizard Lizard (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) and Crow (Rob Brydon) look menacingly over Superworm (Matt Smith)
© Magic Light Pictures Ltd

Without spoiling the film, what was your favourite scene to produce?

If it’s ok I’m going to choose three!

The first is a long sequence that was called ‘Rainy Day Bees’ during production and includes Superworm acting as a skipping rope for some bored bees, becoming a fishing line to rescue a tiny beetle stuck in a well.  Superworm receives so much admiration from all the garden creatures for his feat that his ego explodes. It was a challenge sequence to get right because it contains a number of key story points and several shifts in energy and tone.

My other two favourites are Wizard Lizard’s magic flower dance where he casts a spell over Superworm so he can use him to search for buried treasure, and Crow taking delight in taunting all the garden creatures about Superworm’s plight from his moonlit perch above the garden. Both scenes look gorgeous, feature incredible cast performances and music cues and are very atmospheric and lots of fun!

You also had an award winning cast to work with as well. What was it like to collaborate with them on their roles?

It was amazing! We were overjoyed to get our first choice cast and are indebted to our casting director, Karen Lindsay-Stewart, for making it happen and the cast brought our macro world to life wonderfully.

Having to conduct the recording process remotely meant that it was a different experience for us all, but the quality of the cast and the skills of our sound team meant that it all went smoothly. All of the early records were Zoom calls but were wonderful treats and I remember them all fondly.

Olivia Colman’s narration delivers the story perfectly, taking us into the world alongside the characters, beautifully underpinning the comedic moments and deftly raising the tension when required.

Patricia Allison gave us a warm and resolute Butterfly, Rob Brydon’s Crow is a menacing and imposing presence, but also great comedic foil to Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s villain, Wizard Lizard. Kobna is deliciously menacing and mysterious and his performance means you can’t take your eyes off Wizard Lizard.

Matt Smith was perfect as Superworm. He gave the character such incredible depth and we subtly feel Superworm’s ego growing. Matt brought a great energy to the role and mixed comedic delivery and hubris brilliantly.

Superworm (Matt Smith) lands on top of a mole, while the other insects and critters cheer him on.
© Magic Light Pictures Ltd

What advice would you give to anyone who wants to become a producer themselves and get their first steps into the animation industry?

Immerse yourself in stories, think about how their constructed, how they are telling the story and engaging an audience (as well as how they’ve reached their audience). Watch animated films and explore their behind-the-scenes material so you can begin to understand the process. Look to meet animators, writers, directors and producers so you can collaborate and make films together. There’s lots of courses that train up animators and writers, who will want to make films and need a producer. I’ve been to animation networking events where 80-90%% of the people there are looking for a producer to work with.

Now that the film is nearly released, what would you personally like to see adapted or made at Magic Light Pictures?

We’re actually already working on a couple of animated projects that originate from material I was excited to see adapted. We’re looking forward to announcing these in 2022.

This current year has also been an incredible one for Magic Light Pictures – as well as ‘Superworm’ we’ve also just wrapped on our first animated series, ‘Pip and Posy’, which has been premiering on Channel 5 Milkshake! and Sky Kids.

We have new animation and drama projects for young audiences in development, while our international licensing programmes for ‘The Gruffalo’ and ‘Pip and Posy’ continue to grow strongly.  Alongside ‘Superworm’ we have 8 other animated specials (including ‘The Gruffalo’, ‘Stick Man’, ‘Zog’ and ‘The Snail and the Whale’) which have now been distributed to close to 200 countries.

Butterfly (Patricia Allison) cheers on Superworm (Matt Smith)
© Magic Light Pictures Ltd

Magic Light Pictures presents Superworm, an animated comedy for all the family, based on the picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. 

Voice cast include Olivia Colman (Narrator), Matt Smith (Superworm) and Rob Brydon (Crow), Patricia Allison (Butterfly) and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Wizard Lizard).

Superworm will air on BBC One, Christmas Day at 2.30pm and will stream on BBC iPlayer the same day.

The post Interview with Superworm Producer Barney Goodland appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Back to the Outback is their latest and one of the last big animated releases for the year and with the talented Australian cast and an experienced animation studio co-producing the film, does it turn out to be another beauty or a worthless trip down under?

Back to the Outback

Set in an zoo near Sydney, Australia, a group of deadly animals decide to leave their captive lives and break out to find their families in the outback after being tired to continuously displayed in shows and being feared by the visitors. But during their escape, they accidentally bring with them the star attraction of the entire zoo: the cute but obnoxiously unfriendly Koala Pretty Boy (voiced by Tim Minchin). Now forced to join them, they all set off to find their natural home while the eccentric zoo keeper Chaz (Eric Bana) is on their tails to return them back in captivity.

Some of the cast members were able to make their onscreen counterparts enjoyable (especially Isla Fisher as Maddie the snake and Guy Pearce as Frank the spider) to watch on a story that steps on familiar story beats and modern tropes that a lot of animated buddy comedies have done and unfortunately it doesn’t do anything new or better. And even the simplicity of the story and the character’s emotional journey across the film don’t feel natural and often feel forced, making the film feel lacklustre and artificial at times.

BACK TO THE OUTBACK – (L-R) Miranda Tapsell as Zoe the thorny devil lizard, Isla Fisher as Maddie the taipan, Angus Imrie as Nigel the scorpion, Guy Pearce as Frank the hairy funnel-web spider, and Tim Minchin as Pretty Boy the koala. Cr: NETFLIX © 2021

Reel FX Creative Studios co-produced the film with Netflix Animation and fortunately they were able to recreate some of the landmarks and natural wonders of Australia well. From the animal escapees sleeping under the stars near Uuluru to the forests of the Blue Mountains to the illuminating harbour at Sydney, they were able to recreate them with some lovely details. There’s even some use of Aboriginal inspired artwork that tells the backstory on one of the characters that doesn’t appear enough as the animators did a really good job at recreating and giving movement to those traditional painters.

Despite the efforts from the animators, the rest of the animation just doesn’t feel as inspired. While some of the deadly animal characters certainly have a cute design that makes them appealing, a lot of the supporting characters and humans aren’t quite given the same detail of attention. And as half the film takes place in uninhabited and similar locations, their journey can appear empty and not as visually interesting.

While first time directors Clare Knight and Harry Cripps did well to direct the animators for some nice scenes, their decisions also led to the film stepping in the same path as other modern animated films without gracefully holding up. From using chart topping licensed music for montages to the way characters will come together for a climatic showdown, these unfortunately don’t hold up to some of highlights from Reel FX Creative Studio and results in the film feeling like another typical family film that we’ve come to expect throughout these past few years.

BACK TO THE OUTBACK – (L-R) Eric Bana as Chaz Hunt and Diesel La Torraca as Chazzie. Cr: NETFLIX © 2021

Despite recreating some iconic locations of Australia into an animated form and some cute character designs, this is unfortunately a disappointing and boring entry in Netflix’s portfolio, treading in familiar narrative beats that have become almost too common in recent animated films. It’s hard not to compare this to other animated films that have been released this year, but it just doesn’t hit the same mark.

The film is scheduled to be released on 10th December 2021 on Netflix.

The post Netflix’s Latest Australian-American Feature ‘Back to the Outback’: Review appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Encanto

Set in a hidden, vibrant and colourful town within the mountains of Columbia, the story focuses on Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz) and her family The Madrigals, who all live in a magical house. And while her family are gifted with special powers, she never received her gift that their house bestowed on her sisters and cousins. Despite her willingness to help the family and the community without any powers of her own, she often gets overlooked for just being her ordinary self. But during her youngest cousin’s ceremony to receive his gift, Mirabel discovers that the magic that thrives among their family is in peril and she sets out to discover why it is under threat.

While recent Disney films like Frozen 2 (2019) and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) saw the protagonists go on a big adventure across distant lands, Encanto feels refreshing as the whole film is set within the community surrounding this magical house. This makes the story feel unique as it takes it’s time to focus on the relationships between the family members and Mirabel herself that much more emotionally engaging, giving time to really know The Madrigals and never push them aside for new characters, side plots, out of place musical numbers or action sequences. It makes Mirabel that much more likeable as she is able to build strong connections with the people around her and see her grow as a character without in a leisurely pace.

Mirabel

As for the sight and sounds of the film, it’s absolutely no surprise that the soundtrack is vibrant and Disney continues to produce high quality animation.

Lin-Manuel Miranda has written a great soundtrack and his talent once again shines throughout the film, playing a strong part in the storytelling. While there were songs featured in Moana and Frozen (2013) that were more memorable, Encanto’s songs are more emotional and are used more to continue the flow of the story rather than being elaborate or chart hitting musical numbers.

As for the animation, it’s no surprise that the animators at Disney are able to use the Colombian setting to create one of the most colourful and vibrant films in their catalogue. From the detailed body and facial expressions of the characters to making each room within the magical house be just as unique as the last, the new setting gives it some fresh flair with the south American fashion and the architecture that are rarely seen in big budget films.

The Madrigals

Encanto is another musical hit for Walt Disney Animation Studios and they have given audiences a more emotional and personal story that we don’t always see. A treat for the eyes and ears, this is another gem that will hopefully be cherished among its fifty nine predecessors in Disney’s vault of classics for many years to come.

Also read:

• Interview with ‘Encanto’ Producer Clark Spencer
• Interview with ‘Encanto’ Directors Jared Bush & Charise Castro Smith

The post Disney’s 60th Animated Feature ‘Encanto’ Review appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.