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Andrea Miloro is resigning the role of Co-President of Fox Animation, Variety reports. Co-President Robert Braid, with whom Miloro oversaw Fox’s Blue Sky Studios(Ice Age, Rio, Ferdinand), will remain.
In a note to staff, Miloro wrote: “Blue Sky has always been a force for powerful family entertainment, and for the last 10 years I have loved being a part of the family. While this is the end of my Blue Sky journey, I know that this studio will continue to surpass the very high expectations we set out for ourselves.”
The reason for Miloro’s departure has not been revealed, but there have been several rounds of layoffs since Disney acquired 21st Century Fox, including pink slips for top executives such as the heads of film (Stacey Snider) and home entertainment (Mike Dunn). Miloro and Baird were confirmed to maintain their roles in an announcement of the new leadership structure in March.
Also unclear is the future of Blue Sky. Despite delivering extremely successful franchises and earning an Academy Award nomination for its most recent feature, Ferdinand (2017, directed by Carlos Saldanha), Disney and Pixar Animation do quite adequately for the Walt Disney Co.
Fox Animation’s upcoming slate includes Christmas release Spies in Disguise this year, and Nimona (adapted from the comic by She-Ra and the Princesses of Power creator Noelle Stevenson) in 2021. Blue Sky has a number of projects in development, including its first woman-directed feature: Foster (working title), directed by longtime studio story artist Karen Disher and Steve Martino (The Peanuts Movie).
Centered around the theme of “Thrive,” the 46th edition of SIGGRAPH is right around the corner, featuring the latest innovations in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Running alongside the Conference July 30-August 1, the Exhibition provides a comprehensive view of the newest hardware systems, software tools and creative services from hundreds of companies ranging from established leaders to emerging innovators. Attendees can explore the latest technologies that are changing the workplace for CG and VFX professionals, bringing their questions directly to developers and watching demonstrations of the latest workflows by industry-leading talents.
From Adobe through Vicon, Animation Magazine has rounded up details on what attendees can expect from developers at SIGGRAPH 2019. Here are 11 of the hottest technologies in the spotlight at this year’s show:
AdobeAdobeAdobe
Adobe
While Adobe has been mostly silent about what it would be unveiling on the show floor, including any advancements in its flagship Creative Cloud suite, the company did offer a sneak peek at a new project from Adobe Research aimed at bridging the “style gap” between 2D and 3D animation.
“Stylizing Video by Example” will be presented on Thursday, August 1 as one of four Technical Papers showcasing the most recent advancements in video. The paper details the development of an automatic video stylization method that can transfer custom visual styles from a few keyframes to an entire sequence while maintaining the fidelity of the original hand-drawn look:
“Our method gets as input one or more keyframes that the artist chooses to stylize with standard painting tools. It then automatically propagates the stylization to the rest of the sequence. To facilitate this while preserving visual quality, we developed a new type of guidance for state-of-art patch-based synthesis, that can be applied to any type of video content and does not require any additional information besides the video itself and a user-specified mask of the region to be stylized.”
Autodesk Booth #1211
Autodesk will showcase the latest features and upgrades for its media and entertainment tools at SIGGRAPH 2019, with improvements targeted at connecting creative workflows, streamlining production and helping teams achieve their artistic visions and bring more engaging content to audiences worldwide.
Stay tuned for news at SIGGRAPH about Bifrost procedural framework, AI-enhanced workflows, artist-friendly pipeline tools and much more. New features will extend creative options for VFX and animation development, and introduce more artist-friendly approaches to visual effects and animation content creation. Autodesk will demonstrate exciting new updates to Maya, Shotgun Software, Arnold and Flame, along with the latest version of 3ds Max from the show floor and during sessions at the SIGGRAPH Vision Series and Shotgun Day, featuring industry-leading technology previews and a full slate of programming spanning visual effects, animation and beyond.
Conductor Booth #1003
At SIGGRAPH 2019, Conductor will showcase its latest advancements in cloud rendering for VFX and animation, including a new partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), that will be announced ahead of the show. Conductor will support AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), bringing the virtual compute resources of AWS to Conductor customers. The integration will provide content production studios with new secure, powerful resources to quickly and economically scale render capacity.
AWS EC2 instances, including cost-effective Spot Instances, are expected to be available via Conductor in Summer 2019. Simple to deploy and highly scalable, Conductor is equally effective as an off-the-shelf solution or customized to a studio’s needs through its flexible API. Conductor’s intuitive UI and accessible analytics provide a wealth of insightful data for keeping studio budgets on track.
Applications currently supported by Conductor include Autodesk Maya and Arnold; Foundry’s NUKE, Cara VR, KATANA, MODO and Ocula; Chaos Group’s V-Ray; Pixar’s RenderMan; Isotropix’s Clarisse; Golaem; Ephere’s Ornatrix; Yeti; and Miarmy.
Epic Games Booth #1319
Epic Games’ Unreal Engine team will be at SIGGRAPH showcasing the latest advancements in real-time and virtual production workflows. New Unreal Engine features empower artists to push the boundaries of photorealism in real-time environments in feature film, broadcast, VFX, animation, games, design visualization and immersive projects. Unreal Engine advancements in virtual production enable teams to capture and record complex live performances and composite them in real time, and even direct scenes with multi-user editing.
Many of the world’s top VFX artists are using Unreal Engine in groundbreaking productions, and at SIGGRAPH creatives from Digital Domain, Stargate, Disney Imagineering, ILMxLAB, The Third Floor, Framestore and more will be presenting their use of Unreal in the making of projects ranging from Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series to Game of Thrones to the design of Disneyland’s new theme park attraction, Millenium Falcon: Smugglers Run, and the list goes on. Epic will be hosting an open-to-the-public Unreal Engine SIGGRAPH 2019 User Group Meeting on Monday, July 29 from 4-6 p.m. at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. Many of these customer projects will be highlighted via presentations in Epic’s Unreal Engine booth and at Tech Talks open to SIGGRAPH attendees.
Foundry Booth # 925
Foundry’s tools empower artists and studios all over the world to do amazing work no matter their location or size. This year will see the company’s third annual All Stars Event on Sunday July 28, which will showcase the breadth of creative and innovative productions using Foundry’s industry-leading tools such as Godzilla (DNEG), Wandering Earth (More VFX) and Avengers: Endgame (Digital Domain), among many others.
Exhibitor sessions focused on Education, Look Development and Lighting, cloud-based solutions and solving creative challenges with Nuke and Modo are scheduled for Monday, July 29 and Tuesday, July 30. Foundry has exciting product updates from the upcoming release of Nuke 12.0, with a focus on core performance and interactivity at scale, industry standards, and expanding the artist toolkit within Nuke and NukeX. In addition, Foundry will announce a new material shading system for Katana 3.2 and will showcase details on performance improvements in the upcoming release. The company will also show the ability to create automated look development with the Mari material system, Katana and Maya, via Foundry APIs.
ftrack Booth #1131
Project management and production tracking developer ftrack will be showing off its two new integrations with the Unity and Unreal Engine real-time graphics and game development engines at SIGGRAPH 2019. Real-time technology occupies a pivotal role in animation today, an increasingly rapid process with ever-shorter iterative cycles. ftrack Studio’s Unreal Engine and Unity integrations help optimize this process by freeing up time spent on repetitive admin tasks. Working in a native ftrack Studio panel inside Unreal or Unity, artists and animators can communicate on uploaded assets, view assigned tasks, and check notes and updates on their work. Producers and supervisors can monitor and optimize team workflow and run online reviews on content.
ftrack will also demonstrate its Perforce Helix Core integration, which brings all the benefits of ftrack’s artist-friendly collaborative production tracking platform closer than ever to the world of video game development. Together, these three tools will empower real-time animation and game development studios to better track and manage projects. The company will also be showing off the latest features in ftrack Studio and its new review and approval tool for content creators, ftrack Review.
Maxon Booth #1227
Maxon’s company team members will showcase the latest developments in its industry-leading 3D software application, Cinema 4D. A spectacular line up of 3D motion design and VFX professionals will present daily at the booth. Presentations will be live-streamed and highlight Cinema 4D’s ease of use, quick workflow, fast rendering and unmatched integration into leading software applications on a wide variety of professional projects for feature film, motion graphics, games, VR/AR, visualization and more.
Earlier this year, Maxon acquired Redshift Rendering Technologies, Inc., developers of the Redshift rendering engine. Throughout SIGGRAPH, the Redshift team will be present at the Maxon booth showing off its powerful and flexible GPU-accelerated renderer, built to meet the specific demands of contemporary high-end production. Redshift will also have a standalone exhibit booth, #747. An area of the Maxon booth will also be dedicated to a number of third-party partners, who will demo popular solutions that integrate with Cinema 4D to transform the 3D content creation workflow experience. Presenter schedule and streaming information will be available on C4DLive.com.
NVIDIA GauGAN
Nvidia Booth #1303 and #1313
Powerhouse developer Nvidia will be showing new hardware and software solutions and technologies that are changing the way artists approach their work. Nvidia RTX GPUs will power the world’s top graphics software applications, bringing hardware-accelerated ray-tracing, AI, advanced shading and simulation to creative professionals. RTX Studio laptops enable real-time ray-tracing, AI processing and high-resolution video editing on the go, with performance up to seven times faster than MacBook Pro.
The Quadro RTX Server, a reference architecture for highly configurable, on-demand rendering and virtual workstation solutions, will also be on display. Get a demonstration of Omniverse, an open collaboration platform to simplify workflows for real-time graphics. Omniverse includes portals — two-way tunnels — that maintain live connections between applications such as Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. This new open collaboration platform streamlines 2D and 3D product pipelines across industries.
Nvidia Research will unveil new techniques for creative workflows and conduct live interactive demonstrations of GauGAN. Named after post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, GauGAN creates photorealistic images from segmentation maps, which are labeled sketches that depict the layout of a scene. Artists can use paintbrush and paint bucket tools to design their own landscapes with labels like river, rock and cloud.
Sherman
Unity Technologies Booth #1241
Unity will be out in full force at SIGGRAPH, demonstrating the latest advances in real-time rendering, including its High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP), which allows developers to unleash the full graphical capabilities of high-end hardware.
Unity will demo several projects using HDRP and other off-the-shelf Unity technologies, including The Heretic, the latest real-time cinematic from the award-winning Unity Demo Team behind Book of the Dead and ADAM, showcasing CG humans and an array of VFX capabilities. At Real-Time Live!, Unity will reveal how the team made “Boston,” a procedural VFX character that can take various shapes and reacts dynamically to the environment.
“Reality vs. Illusion: Unity Real-Time Ray Tracing,” which will also be shown at Real-Time Live!, uses Unity’s real-time ray tracing technology to create photorealistic images and lighting at a fraction of the time of offline solutions. In the demo, Unity seamlessly transitions from a real car to a ray-traced one, demonstrating advances in rendering that make the vehicles indistinguishable from one another.
Sherman, an animated short from the Emmy-award winning team behind Baymax Dreams, demonstrates how Unity can create gorgeous animated shorts or episodic content, including pioneering a new way of rendering fur in real time.
Shogun
Vicon Booth #741
At SIGGRAPH 2019, motion-capture leader Vicon will be demonstrating the effortless power and accessibility of Vicon’s Shōgun platform, including the upcoming Shōgun 1.3. At Vicon’s booth on the show floor, attendees will be able to direct their own full performance virtual production shoot, live in real time, all within Epic’s Unreal Engine.
Using high-quality assets that are readily available in Epic’s Marketplace, Vicon will deliver final, fully rendered cinematics in real-time, including face and high-fidelity finger animation. A process that normally takes days or weeks with other mocap systems can now be done instantaneously!
This Saturday (July 27) at 11 a.m., Universal Kids debuts a new stop-motion series about Mother Nature’s son, Norman Picklestripes! The whimsical, music-filled show centers on the adventures of Norm, who spends his days helping his quirky and demanding animal neighbors. Produced by BAFTA-winning Manchester-based Factory, Norman Picklestripes features Broadway-inspired musical numbers in each episode, celebrates the great outdoors and proves the positive impact of working together with others.
We had the chance to catch up with the show’s Emmy-winning exec producers Alex Rockwell (Word Party, Pajanimals) and Judy Rothman Rofé (Julie’s Greenroom, Madeline) to find out more about Norman and his pals:
Animag: Congrats on the debut of your new series. Can you tell us a little bit about how the show came to be? Alex Rockwell and Judy Rothman Rofé: About a year before the channel rebranded, Universal Kids approached us with a short animation test of a green striped creature. We were asked for a take on a comedic series featuring the design. We pitched Norman Picklestripes — the son of Mother Nature and the fix-it guy of Plywood Forest — as a musical sitcom for preschoolers. If your maple tree is leaking sap or the possums are having a loud party, Norm’s the one to call (kind of like a New York super). The team at Universal Kids loved the idea as a flagship series for the network and ordered a mini-bible and pilot right away.
When did you start working on the series?
We pitched the concept in August 2016 and got a greenlight for 52 eleven-minute episodes in March, 2017, which was a relatively quick process.
Where is the animation produced and how many people work on the production?
We are very fortunate to work with Factory in Manchester, U.K.. A very talented crew of 128 work or have worked on the project, including the head of the studio Phil Chalk (also an EP on the series) and two outstanding directors, Chris Sadler and Geoff Walker.
What do you think makes the show stand out in the crowded preschool arena?
Our series is a true sitcom for preschoolers with a quirky cast of characters and loopy storytelling designed for silliness and laughs. It was a refreshing mandate to put comedy first, and stop-motion animation is the perfect medium for preschool-friendly physical comedy. Norm functions as a therapist as well as a fix-it guy – He’s always working hard to help his friends, who include an entrepreneurial bunny, an alien-obsessed raccoon, an artistic skunk and a neurotic porcupine. In the process, Norm turns an eccentric community into family. Each episode features a rousing Broadway-esque song. The stop motion is a star unto itself with its extraordinary expressions, props and nuances. And the series is prime for co-viewing, with humor that often works on two levels.
What do you personally love about it?
We’re thrilled with the mix of heart and comedy, as well as the positive messages about community and nature. We were lucky to assemble a diverse group of the very top Toronto voice-over artists. We worked with some very funny writers, who maximized both the verbal and physical comedy in their scripts, and Factory took it a step further with their meticulous execution. Our five composers delivered some of the best songs produced for preschoolers. Our music director/underscore composer Jeff Zahn got brilliant performances from our artists. We also loved working on an international production with frequent trips to Toronto and a few magical visits to Factory in the U.K.
What was the biggest challenge for your as producers?
The international production set up was also our biggest challenge. We had many early conference calls and got used to communicating with the directors 24/7 via WhatsApp. The writing schedule was fast and furious, and there was also a learning curve for writing for stop motion. We had strong backgrounds in 2D and CGI, but we found that our experience in puppetry was most helpful for understanding the physics and limitations of shooting live.
What are the visual influences?
We ended up with our own look and unique style for Plywood Forest, thanks to a giant mood board, a stellar design team, and many years at summer camp.
How would you describe the animation?
Traditional stop motion, augmented with CGI and 2D. For comedy, reaction shots are so important. Factory has maximized a method to capture nuanced expressions using a 3D printer to create a multitude of mouth replacements. CG was also utilized to enhance BGs, plus add depth and detail (like fireflies lighting up a field), and 2D is used in our limbo sets for songs.
Who are your animation idols?
For stop motion, we’re both fans of the brilliant Wes Anderson and the team at Aardman. For CGI, 2D and puppetry, Jim Henson, Hayao Miyazaki and Pixar are our heroes.
Can you offer some helpful advice for producers who would like to follow in your footsteps?
Maintain a strong vision as the beacon that guides you through development and production. Surround yourself with talented people and give them the space to do what they do best. Be obsessive when it comes to rewriting. Do as many read-throughs as possible/tolerable. Always leave space for improvisation from talented performers. Partner with someone who complements your experience and keeps you laughing through the ups and downs of a long production cycle.
Norman Picklestripes premieres on Universal Kids Saturday, July 27 at 11 a.m. You can watch a full episode on the Universal Kids Preschool YouTube channel here.
***This article originally ran in the August ‘19 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 292)***
When SIGGRAPH attendees congregate in the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 28 to August 1, they’ll see signage proclaiming the conference theme: “Thrive.” And as they explore the menu of production sessions, panels, papers, screenings and demos, they’ll understand that what’s thriving at SIGGRAPH 2019 is diversity.
That’s especially true when it comes to the leadership role of women, notably conference chair Mikki Rose and Computer Animation Festival director Emily Hsu, who’ve worked their way up SIGGRAPH’s ranks over the past decade. As Rose remarks, “Growing up in this industry, without even realizing it, I didn’t understand how underrepresented I was. We’ve done a lot of work specifically to include women from all over the world,” she says. Rose, who worked on the Rhythm & Hues team for the vfx Oscar winner The Golden Compass, is now a technical director at Greenwich, Connecticut’s Blue Sky Studios. “I’m glad to be in a position at SIGGRAPH to help make some changes.”
Rose’s goal was to make sure that the people on SIGGRAPH’s various committees and juries represented the diversity of the conference attendees. Historically, SIGGRAPH attracted mostly men, but women are more visible in 2019, including keynote speaker Victoria Alonso from Marvel. According to festival director Hsu, “Victoria said she was excited to see that there were lines for the ladies room!”
Especially noteworthy were the selections for SIGGRAPH’s premier nighttime show, the Electronic Theater. The diverse jury that Hsu assembled included pros from Laika, Animal Logic, NASA, Netflix and Nickelodeon. They chose 24 pieces from nearly 400 submissions — sometimes with mere decimal points separating their scores. Without knowing the identity of the films’ creators, the jurors bestowed Best in Show, Best Student Film and the Jury’s Choice Award to creative teams led by women. “It was a pleasant surprise,” says Hsu. “But the time when that is not notable will be when we know we’ve made it.”
Purl
Female Empowerment
The Best in Show winner Purl, from Pixar’s Kristen Lester, actually addresses the challenge facing a female who strives to succeed in a workingman’s world. Also encouraging was the Jury’s Choice prize for The Stained Club, a poignant student film by Mélanie Lopez from France’s Supinfocom Rubika. Remarkably, that same school produced the show’s Best Student Film honoree, Stuffed by Elise Simoulin.
Stuffed
The 11 student selections in the Electronic Theater, which also includes entries from Ringling, Gobelins, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and École des Nouvelles Images, are technically accomplished as well as emotionally powerful. As Hsu notes, “These students are telling original stories and taking bold risks, but they’re still very relatable. When you think about how students are expressing themselves as they’re leaving college, they’re capturing what the world is feeling at the moment. The jury was blown away.”
Hsu’s own background includes production work at Blizzard Entertainment and Laika. Still, she “did her homework”to make the Electronic Theater a well-rounded show by including scientific visualization alongside the animated and visual effects pieces. So, the two-hour show contains Expedition Reef from the California Academy of Sciences, NASA’s post-hurricane LIDAR exploration in Puerto Rico, and The Birth of Planet Earth from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “It’s the kind of work you don’t see unless you seek out a visualization conference,” says Hsu. “But a lot of what the scientific visualization community does feeds into other forms of animation. I’m hoping this comes across as people watch the show. We have so many different attendees at SIGGRAPH that I wanted to make diversity more than just a buzzword.”
Game of Thrones
Capturing the Moment
The professional entertainment pieces shown at SIGGRAPH — ranging from advertising and games to film and television — will be represented in both the Electronic Theater and in venues like Real Time Live and various “Making of” Production Sessions. This year, that includes animation from How to Train Your Dragon 3, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse , game cinematic World of Warcraft “Old Soldier” and Unity real-time demo short The Heretic.
Rose observes, “SIGGRAPH is a home for both computer graphics and interactive techniques. We want to make sure that anyone in those areas feels comfortable coming to our conference. Both our Immersive Pavilion and our VR Theater have grown for SIGGRAPH 2019. The VR Theater is now up to 55 seats, so we can get a lot more people through that. Our Immersive Pavilion will have a museum space where you can watch artists working, and can interact with them. The coolest things in the Pavilion are the shared experiences.”
A key industry trend is real-time rendering, and Rose notes, “Our Real Time Live program has developed into one of our premier events, where you see real-time rendering play out.” She adds that, “We have a couple of courses — one of them by Natalya Tatarchuk [Graphics Director, Unity] that she does every year — called Advances in Real Time Rendering in Games. We have people who specifically come to SIGGRAPH for that course. We know that people rely on it to see the latest and greatest, and we try hard to focus on the content that we know people need. We also try to go out and find the things that they don’t know that they need!”
Major draws at SIGGRAPH are always the Production Sessions, where award-winning experts pull back the curtain to show how complex animation and visual effects were achieved. This year, 11 sessions include inside looks at the making of Toy Story 4, The Lion King, Avengers: Endgame, First Man and Game of Thrones. As Production Sessions Chair Derrick Nau explains, “The general goal was to do about half animation and half visual effects. I wanted to break them out because the process isn’t necessarily the same. When you dive into the techniques and tools, the challenges are pretty varied.”
Nau’s own professional background includes working at DreamWorks Animation and Nickelodeon, but he also sought out an interactive Production Session exploring the Electronic Arts/BioWare game Anthem. “We wanted content from the production of games which have become more and more filmic and immersive.”
Anthem
International Perspectives
One of the most notable aspects of these production presentations is the global nature of the participants. The Avengers: Endgame session, for example, includes collaborators from Marvel Studios, Digital Domain, Industrial Light & Magic, Weta Digital and The Third Floor. As Nau puts it, “We’re reflecting the seamless collaborations in the industry today. It’s important to represent what today’s production process looks like.”
Rose adds, “SIGGRAPH benefits from having many different voices in the room to show the different kinds of companies that are doing the work, and how they’re coming together. It’s so much easier now to work with shared assets, and there’s a fellowship among them.”
“Fellowship” might be too narrow a term for this latest SIGGRAPH, given Rose’s emphasis on making the environment more female-friendly. One of her additions to the conference this year is virtually free childcare. “It’s kind of a limited ‘starter program,’ but I hope it will help more women attend — and also help some dads. It’s another way that we’re trying to raise our diversity game.”
If there’s an overarching goal for Rose’s leadership of this SIGGRAPH, it is to spark a sense of inspiration. “I personally go to SIGGRAPH to be inspired,” she says. “Throughout the year, you can get ‘heads-down’ in the trenches trying to get your work done. Going to SIGGRAPH inspires you to get excited about the work again.”
Netflix has announced that it will not be ordering additional seasons of Lisa Hanawalt’s colorful urban bird-women series Tuca & Bertie — currently the streamer’s only adult animated comedy original from a solo woman creator. The decision came down despite the show’s positive critical reception (100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and the outlet’s ongoing ramp up of its originals slate — including a huge push for animation.
A statement from Netflix read: “Lisa Hanawalt created a relatable yet whimsical world in Tuca & Bertie. We’re grateful to Lisa, and her fellow executive producers Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Noel Bright, Steven A. Cohen, and EPs/stars Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong, along with all of the writers and animators for sharing the funny and dynamic female bird duo of Tuca and Bertie with the world. While Tuca & Bertie won’t have a second season, we’re proud to feature this story on Netflix for years to come.”
In addition to Haddish and Wong as titular cocky toucan Tuca and anxious songbird Bertie, the series also voice starred Steven Yuen and featured guest performers including Nicole Byer, Richard E. Grant, John Early, Reggie Watts, Tig Notaro, Amber Ruffin, Jermaine Fowler and Tessa Thompson. The animation was produced by ShadowMachine.
The project from Hanawalt and her BoJack Horseman colleagues stood out as an adult-targeted animation from a female creator, starring two women of color — but also as a contemporary, relatable “odd couple” comedy buoyed by Hanawalt’s vibrant and whimsical designs. The artist-animator told Hollywood Reporter in an interview in May:
“I wasn’t consciously thinking, ‘How do I make this more relatable to women?’ I was just writing stories from my own life, stories from my friends’ lives and things that I specifically haven’t seen in adult animation before. Like, that feeling when a plumber is in your apartment and you don’t know if he’s going to attack you or not. That’s really common for women.
“I’m horrified that it’s taken so long and so much work for more women to start being able to create animation, especially for adults. It just feels like the stars aligned and I was given the chance to do it, by sheer luck. But I’m hoping that more will get to do it, because there’s just so many experiences that we aren’t seeing reflected, and representation really matters.”
Netflix’s other mature auds toon with a woman creator, raunchy coming-of-age comedy Big Mouth, has been renewed for a third season. It is created by Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett.
’Lord of the Rings’ Series at Amazon Taps First Cast Member
Aussie actress Markella Kavenagh (Romper Stomper) is in talks to play a new character named “Tyra” — details are being kept under wraps. The show will explore new storylines from J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth, and is being developed by writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay, with Game of Thrones alum Bryan Cogman as a consultant and J.A. Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) set to direct multiple episodes. ’90s Cartoon ‘Recess’ Is Getting a Live-Action Remake in a New Movie
De-animating your childhood isn’t just for big studios! A new fan-film project featuring some of the stars of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Deadly Class seeks to explore the lives of the Recess gang after elementary school.
Netflix Hit with Class Action Shareholder Lawsuit Following Dismal Q2 Earnings
The suit comes after the company’s report of poor Q2 earnings, which saw a decline in paying subscribers for the first time since 2011. The suit by Johan Wallerstein claims “materially false and/or misleading” statements were made in an April letter to shareholders which forecasted 5 million new subscribers in the second quarter.
Rutger Hauer: ‘Blade Runner’ Actor Dies Aged 75
The Dutch actor, writer and environmentalist was well known for horror and noir-tinged projects, playing vampires in Dracula 3D and Salem’s Lot and appearing in other popular films and series like Sin City, Batman Begins and True Blood. Hauer also voiced Master Xehanort in the Kingdom Hearts III video game.
TIFF 2019: Special Presentations & Gala Films Announced
Representing feats of feature animation around the world at the Toronto fest will be Jill Culton’s family yeti adventure Abominable, Yonfan’s animation debut/ode to 1960s Hong Kong ”>No. 7 Cherry Lane and Makoto Shinkai’s highly anticipated Weathering with You. Other notable selections include black-and-white psych thriller The Lighthouse from Robert Eggers (The Witch), Marie Curie biopic Radioactive by Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Joaquin Phoenix’s interpretation of Joker, directed by Todd Phillips (War Dogs), and Jojo Rabbit — a return to indie comedy roots for Taika Waititi before he tackles Thor: Love and Thunder.
WATCH: Daniel Radcliffe Plays a Plastic Hero in ‘Playmobil: The Movie’ Trailer
In ON Animation’s upcoming action adventure inspired by the classic toy brand, a top secret organization has caused citizens from different lands to vanish from thin air. The dashing and charismatic secret agent Rex Dasher ( Radcliffe) must partner with smooth-talking food truck driver Del (Jim Gaffigan) and Marla (Anya Taylor-Joy) a smart, savvy civilian with her own secret agenda, to rescue them. Against unthinkable odds, the trio go on a fantastic journey across stunning new worlds as they gather clues for their rescue mission.
Hoho Rights, the commercial arm of kids’ production company Hoho Entertainment, announced that award-winning preschool series Hana’s Helpline (52 x 10’) is launching in China on Tencent and MangoTV, two of of the country’s most popular VOD channels.
Tencent Video, which has over 900 million mobile monthly active users and around 90 million subscribers, has signed a five-year deal for non-exclusive VOD and exclusive TVOD rights to the show in Mandarin. MangoTV’s five-year deal is for non-exclusive SVOD. The deals were brokered by Chinese distribution specialists The Media Pioneers, a London-based U.K.-China media group.
“We’re thrilled to be bringing this beautiful stop-motion series to preschoolers in China and it’s been a pleasure working with Maggie and her team to make this happen,” said Helen Howells, Joint Managing Director, Hoho Ent. “Hana and her friends are there to remind little children that they should never fear talking about their problems, no matter how big or small.”
Maggie Liang, MD, The Media Pioneers, said, “We are proud to represent Hoho Rights to distribute Hana’s Helpline, a classic and innovative IP, to the Chinese market. The show’s concept and characters bring fun and positivity to kids and their families. We believe Chinese audiences will enjoy the show and fall in love with Hana and her friends.”
Produced by Wales-based Calon TV for S4C and Channel 5, Hana’s Helpline is a stop-motion animation series about a dedicated duck “agony aunt” who is always a phone call away from those in need. The series deals with the kind of social and emotional issues that young children experience when they first start going to school. Together with her son Francis, Hana helps animals with all sorts of problems, whether it’s a giraffe that’s being bullied because it’s so tall or a little duck that’s too scared to go swimming. Her patience and sympathetic response either helps them solve the problem, or cope with it if it can’t be fixed.
Emmy-nominated studio One Animation has scored a slew of new broadcast partners for its hit series Oddbodsand its newest animated show, Antiks: a minimal-dialogue goofball comedy featuring a pair of sibling ants with an insatiable curiosity and a passion for all things shiny, sticky and sweet!
Antiks is marching its way onto LittleBe, British free-to-air channel ITVBe’s preschool line-up, and Kidoodle, the global kidSAFE, COPPA-compliant streaming service. Existing VOD partner Toon Goggles is also adding Antiks to their slate while renewing Oddbods for a second year after seeing great audience figures for the first season.
Meanwhile, Oddbods and Rob the Robot are amongst One Animation’s titles launching on both HOOQ and iflix, an Asia-based OTT media services, along with Kidoodle, taking both titles to 140 countries across the globe. Oddbods has also bounced onto U.S.-based zone·ify™ TV, a multi-channel video service which uses AI technology for content curation.
The new distribution deals build on Oddbods’ already impressive broadcast portfolio, which covers over 180 countries, including existing VOD partners, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.
“Not only is twice Emmy-nominated Oddbods on fire and reaching a broad range of new audiences around the world, but our new show, Antiks, is making great strides right out of the gate and we can’t wait to see these loveable ants entertain millions more!” said Michele Schofield, SVP Content Distribution for the studio. “One Animation will continue to work relentlessly to deliver fun and relevant stories, full of heart.”
The sublime combination of music and animation strikes a fresh cord in Sound & Fury, a new anime feature from Grammy Award-winning recording artist Sturgill Simpson and writer-director Jumpei Mizusaki (Batman Ninja; founder, Kamikaze Douga). Set to stream globally on Netflix this fall, the film is set entirely to American rock music off Simpson’s forthcoming album of the same name, to be released simultaneously by Elektra Records, and will feature a different anime segment for each song.
The project was announced by Simpson at a panel at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend.
Sound & Fury is produced and based on a story by Simpson. In addition to the considerable talents of Mizusaki, the project’s key creatives include Afro Samurai manga creator Takashi Okazaki, handling character designs; directors Masaru Matsumoto of Grayscale Arts (Starship Troopers: Traitors of Mars), Michael Arias (The Animatrix), Henry Thurlow and Arthell Isom of D’Arth Shtajio, and Koji Morimoto (Akira animator). Shunsuke Ochiai is co-executive producer.
The album Sound & Fury is produced by Simpson and marks his first full-length release since 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, which won Best Country Album and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 59th Grammy Awards.
Animation, gaming and comedy brand Rooster Teeth (part of WarnerMedia) had a full schedule of announcements to make at its Comic-Con panel this weekend. At a panel hosted by the outlet’s founders and talent, Rooster Teeth revealed several details for its live-action and animated series, as well as the launch date and price for video game Vicious Circle.
Vicious Circle will be available on Steam for $20 as of August 13. Set in a colorful yet gritty sci-fi universe, Rooster Teeth Games’ first original IP project is a multiplayer first-person shooter, with gameplay described by the studio as “Overwatch meets Mario Kart.” RTG previously created the multi-platform hit RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, based on Rooster Teeth’s super popular anime-inspired series. Learn more about the new title at viciouscirclegame.com.
Speaking of RWBY, the panel followed up on the previous announcement that Volume 7 will premiere November 2 for Rooster Teeth subscribers by confirming that episodes will roll out free to stream a week later. In RWBY Volume 7, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang have fought hard alongside their friends to bring the Relic of Knowledge to Atlas, the northernmost Kingdom in Remnant. However, the futuristic urban-sprawl may hide just as much danger as the Grimm-infested tundra that surrounds it. Enemies and allies will collide as our heroes fight to stop Salem’s forces, but banding together is dangerous when you don’t know who you can trust.
The iconic heroines of RWBY will soon become playable in the hit multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) action game SMITE. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long will face their toughest challenge yet: The Battleground of the Gods. Fans will be able to see if the huntresses can stand up to the gods of ancient myth like Zeus, Thor, Anubis and Sun Wukong in this crossover event. Further details will be revealed later this year.
The panel reminded fans that its mech series gen:LOCK will make its broadcast premiere on Adult Swim’s Toonami block on August 3 at 11:30 p.m. ET, the same day a special Shark Week episode of pop culture moments-meet-real life series Immersion airs on Discovery at 10 p.m. ET. A new sketch comedy show from Rooster Teeth and Funhaus, Arizona Circle, will premiere on RT on October 23. And comedic ghost hunting show Haunter, from Achievement Hunter, will return with a new season on RT in January 2020.
The Rooster Teeth SDCC panel featured Gus Sorola (Rooster Teeth co-founder and executive producer), Geoff Ramsey (Rooster Teeth co-founder and executive producer), Adam Kovic (Funhaus member), Lindsay Jones (voice of Ruby Rose in RWBY, Achievement Hunter member), Kara Eberle (voice of Weiss Schnee in RWBY), Arryn Zech (voice of Blake Belladonna in RWBY) and Barbara Dunkelman (voice of Yang Xiao Long in RWBY).
Event organizers Reed MIDEM have confirmed the initial phase of its previously announced transformation of MIPTV 2020: a redesign of the exhibition. MIPTV 2020 (March 30-April 2) will introduce a dual-focus presentation, with content distribution set up alongside content development, creating two markets in one.
Aimed at bridging these two sides in one fluid, interactive event, MIPTV’s fresh approach will offer flexible, scalable options for exhibitors based on innovative turnkey solutions. It will also better integrate communal workspace and networking areas into the exhibition, reflecting the changing priorities and business needs of those attending the market.
The new experience will be redesigned in the three principal halls including Palais -1, Riviera 7 and Riviera 8, where 80% of the exhibition takes place, allowing exhibitors to adapt their participation according to their needs whilst maintaining a premium quality presence.
“Flexibility is a top priority for our exhibitors, and this came through very strongly in our industry survey earlier this year,” said Laurine Garaude, Director of Reed MIDEM’s Television Division. “So, in redesigning MIPTV we have been inspired by new agile workspace concepts such as WeWork, and will be transforming the way the Palais can be used. We will offer solutions that are both affordable and premium, paying attention to company branding and personalisation which are both very important to the industry.”
“We have brought in these changes in close consultation with our exhibitors and are now beginning to bring this new vision to life with many of them, with very positive feedback so far. We are confident that this first major phase, along with a new buyers programme and changes to the schedule and format that we will unveil over the coming months, will streamline and transform the MIPTV experience,” added Lucy Smith, who is spearheading the transformation of MIPTV.
Launched in 1956, MIPTV is the leading international market for content development and distribution. The 2019 edition gathered approximately 9,500 TV and digital entertainment professionals from around the world to launch and discover new content, forge partnerships, negotiate financing and distribution deals, find co-production opportunities and check out the latest trends.
Visual effects pros Ben Lock (Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Ready Player One) and Patric Roos (Avengers: Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) have joined Outpost VFX as Executive Producer and Executive Creative Director, respectively. Based in the Asia-Pacific region, the duo will work closely with Outpost’s senior management to establish a footprint in Asia, with a remit to support the studio’s global production, cement relationships with key partners and provide high-end management and creative leadership.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time to be joining such forward-thinking and progressive company, which is looking east to what will become a massive market for VFX,” said Lock.
“I’m very excited about the opportunity to do something truly original in APAC while also working with the Outpost management and creative teams in the U.K. and North America,” said Roos. “In an ever-changing VFX industry branching out in APAC will see Outpost VFX become a global partner for our clients, offering greater flexibility and leveraging the best talent worldwide.”
As part of Outpost VFX, Lock and Roos will bring their extensive knowledge of the Asian film and television markets to bear to augment the company’s global capacity and enhance its ability to deliver large-scale projects for leading international clients in the film and high-end TV sectors. The company’s operation in the region will give Outpost access to up to 300 additional artists, adding to its capacity of 150 in the U.K. and 150 in Montréal. Working alongside the company’s existing facilities, the addition of Lock and Roos will enable Outpost to support clients 24 hours a day with a cumulative capacity of close to 600 people.
Following the recent additions of Karsten Hecker as CTO and Andrew Morley as Head of VFX, the appointments of Lock and Roos add two more internationally renowned veterans of the visual effects industry to the leadership team at Outpost VFX.
“The team and I are delighted that Ben and Patric have joined the business, and that only a few months after establishing a base in Montréal we’ve been able to diversify our global offering even further,” said Duncan McWilliam, Founder and CEO of Outpost VFX.
Outpost’s drive to establish its presence in Asia follows the launch of its Montréal facility in early 2019. It has recently worked on Watchmen for HBO, Black Mirror for Netflix, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw for Universal and more.
DreamWorks Animation has announced the cast of its Netflix original series Archibald’s Next Big Thing from the creative mind of Emmy Award-winner Tony Hale, slated to debut this year on Netflix.
Inspired by the critically acclaimed children’s book from Hale, Tony Biaggne and Victor Huckabee, Archibald’s Next Big Thing follows the adventures of Archibald Strutter, a simple chicken who “yes-ands” his way through life. Though living in the moment often leads him astray, Archibald always finds his way back home. It is a fresh comedy about one chicken’s joy for life and celebrating the journey, not just the destination.
The series is created and executive produced by Hale, executive produced by Eric Fogel (Descendants: Wicked World), and was developed for television by Drew Champion (Game Talk Live) and Jacob Moffat (Tiny Tiny Talk Show).
The cast includes Tony Hale as “Archibald,” a cheerful and curious young chicken who embraces life to the fullest; Adam Pally (The Mindy Project) as “Sage,” Archibald’s older brother who adores the outdoors; Chelsea Kane (Baby Daddy) as Archibald’s sister “Loy,” a science whiz and master inventor; Jordan Fisher (To All the Boys I Loved Before 2) as “Finly,” Archibald’s singing, dancing and all-around-artistic brother; and Kari Wahlgren (Spirit Riding Free) as “Bea,” Archibald’s best pal and sidekick who speaks in a language only he can understand. Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) rounds out the cast as the playfully sarcastic “Narrator.”
Feathering the nest as series guest voices are Casey Wilson (Black Monday) recurring as bubbly local reporter “Wendi Powers;” Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep) as a brilliant astronaut monkey with an unfortunate fear of space; and RuPaul (RuPaul’s Drag Race)as fashion designer llama “Jonathan Jagger.” Christine Baranski (The Good Fight), Eric Bauza (The Adventures of Puss in Boots), Matty Cardarople (Stranger Things S3), Gary Cole (Veep), John Michael Higgins (Pitch Perfect 3), Marc Maron (GLOW), Joel McHale (Santa Clarita Diet), Chris Parnell (Archer), Sally Phillips (Veep), Adam Ray (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), Kevin Michael Richardson (Trolls: The Beat Goes On!), Rob Riggle (American Dad!), Roger Craig Smith (Harvey Girls Forever), Fred Tatasciore (Trollhunters), Alan Tudyk (Star Trek) and “Weird Al” Yankovic (Milo Murphy’s Law) also guest star.
With his surreal, poetic and historically inspired animated feature set for a limited U.S. release this summer, Spanish director Salvador Simó sat down for an on-camera discussion about bringing Luis Buñuel’s experience in Las Hurdes to life in Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles, using the particular magic of animation.
Synopsis: Paris, 1930. Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel are main figures of the Surrealist movement, but Buñuel is left penniless after a scandal surrounding his film L’Age d’Or. However, his good friend, the sculptor Ramón Acín, buys a lottery ticket with the promise that, if he wins, he will pay for his next film. Incredibly, luck is on their side, and so they set out to make the movie, an ambitious documentary on the Las Hurdes region in Spain. Both a buddy adventure and fascinating episode of cinematic history, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles presents a deeply affecting and humanistic portrait of an artist hunting for his purpose.
Winner of the Annecy Jury Award for Feature Film 2019 and the Special Jury Prize of Animation Is Film 2018, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles is produced Sygnatia and The Glow (Spain), in co-production with Submarine (Netherlands). Manuel Cristobal served as producer.
GKIDS is presenting Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles in select New York and Los Angeles theaters starting August 16.
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Nike and Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products (VNCP) have announced the launch of the Kyrie x SpongeBob SquarePants collection. The collection features five shoes inspired by the signature characters from SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as apparel and accessories, including t-shirts, a hoodie, socks and backpacks. The crossover is the latest part of the show’s 20th anniversary celebration to kick off this year.
Basketball superstar Kyrie Irving’s latest collection is suited for on-court competition and off-court jellyfishing with dedicated colorways for favorite characters. The three high-top sneakers in the collection showcase the signature Kyrie 5 silhouette in bright yellow for SpongeBob, pink and green tones for Patrick and turquoise accents for Squidward. The low-cut silhouette of the Kyrie Low 2 pays homage to the currency-crazy crustacean, Mr. Krabs, as well as a Sandy Cheeks version with colors inspired by her iconic space suit.
“What makes our collaboration with Kyrie and Nike so special is that we are celebrating SpongeBob’s 20th Anniversary with one of SpongeBob’s biggest genuine fans,” said Jose Castro, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Collaborations, VNCP. “Everything from the characters Kyrie chose and how they were designed into the line was done from a true fan’s perspective, and it shows. The sneakers, clothes and accessories became extensions of SpongeBob’s world, and we know fans everywhere will love this collection, just as much as we loved creating it with Kyrie.”
Kyrie x SpongeBob SquarePants will be available in adult and kids sizes from August 10 on Nike.com and in-store. In Europe, the collection will also be available at Kickz stores
At one of the many buzzworthy Comic-Con panels this weekend, CBS All Access revealed the quality voice cast for upcoming animated sci-fi comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks — “the Downton Abbey of Star Trek,” according to panel moderator Jerry O’Connell.
Executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin and show creator/EP Mike McMahan (head writer on Rick and Morty) where joined on stage in Hall H by voicers Tawny Newsome (Bajillion Dollar Propertie$, The Comedy Get Down) and Jack Quaid (The Hunger Games, Harvey Girls Forever!).
Newsome will play “Mariner,” a no-nonsense engineer who gets the job done and does it well — but really doesn’t care. Quaid voices “Boimler,” a by-the-book ensign who gets his own way. Being polar opposites, these two frequently clash, opening up plenty of character comedy opportunities.
It was also revealed that Noel Wells (Master of None, Craig of the Creek) will play Starfleet mega-fan, ensign Tendi; Eugene Cordero (The Good Place, Steven Universe) is ensign Rutherford, a brilliant engineer who nevertheless rarely solves the problem by the end of the episode; and the cast is rounded out with Fred Tatasciore as Lt. Shaxs, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Freeman, and Gillian Vigman as Dr. T’ana.
McMahan also gave a wee preview of the ship, Cerritos, which belongs to a new Starfleet “California” class.
Star Trek: Lower Decks will be produced by CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Secret Hideout’s Kurtzman and Kadin, Roddenberry Ent.’s Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth, Katie Krentz and McMahan are exec producers. Aaron Baiers (Secret Hideout), who brought on McMahan, is co-EP.
The show will premiere in 2020 and stream exclusively on CBS All Access in the U.S., and will be distributed internationally by CBS Studios International.
We recently had a chance to chat with animation composer Vivek Maddala, whose many credits include The Tom and Jerry Show and Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? series. Here is what he told us about his career and the toon tune business.
Animag: Please tell us a little bit about your background.
Vivek Maddala: I’ve been playing music since I was a small child, and started composing when I was around seven years old. So, it’s been an enormous part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember. I think it’s inevitable that I had to focus my life on making music, despite inevitable pressures and expectations to do something else. When I was around eight years old, I saw the Hitchcock film North by Northwest on TV and the iconic Bernard Herrmann score made a huge impression on me. That’s when I realized that film scoring could be in my future.
How did you get your start in the music business?
Maddala: I studied performance (drums) at the Berklee College of Music when I was 15, but quickly determined that my main strengths were as a composer and producer. I had a good background in math and physics and had a keen interest in engineering — so, when I was 16, I entered Georgia Tech and majored in electrical engineering (with a special focus on signal processing, field theory and electroacoustics). Upon graduation, I had the good fortune of honing my recording studio chops under the direction of acclaimed musician Gino Vannelli while he was working on his album “Slow Love.” While I was pursuing a graduate degree in electrical engineering, I was hired by the celebrated rock band Boston to go on tour in support of their Greatest Hits album.These experiences helped me realize my passion was more in the realm of music than in engineering… that the latter could serve the former, but music had to be front and center.
Then, when I was 26, I won the grand prize in the first Young Film Composers Competition, which afforded me the opportunity to compose a 74-minute orchestral score for a silent film restoration for Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The success of this effort led to my scoring five more scores for TCM as well as several independent films and two modern ballets. In 2008 I was invited to participate in the Sundance Composers Lab, which helped cement my interest in scoring both independent feature films and documentaries.
How did you get the Tom and Jerry job?
Maddala: In 2015, my friend and colleague, Grammy-winning recording/mix engineer Dan Blessinger, brought the gig to my attention. He had an existing relationship with the show’s director and learned they needed a new composer for the show. So we went in on it together, with me handling the music side of things and Dan handling sound design. I auditioned for the job by scoring a 30-second clip, and then after passing that test we had a series of meetings with the director and studio. Three and a half years later, I’ve now scored 110 episodes (to date), and have received two Emmy awards (with three nominations) in the category of “Outstanding Music Composition and Direction.” So it’s been quite a ride.
The Tom and Jerry Show
What do you love about writing music for animation?
Maddala: Animation requires real music. It may sound glib to say that, but I think it’s an appropriate comment. Much of modern live-action film scoring may be dramatically compelling (when paired with other elements of the film, both visual and aural), but often it’s unexciting just as music. With animation scoring, and the music for The Tom and Jerry Show specifically, I really get to stretch out melodically and flex my orchestration muscles fully. Although the show is ostensibly for children, the music I’m writing never plays “young.” It’s more harmonically sophisticated than the music I’ve heard recently in any other modern television show or theatrical release. I’m scoring every episode from scratch (there’s no “music editing,” where previously written music is shoe-horned in to fit the scene). Each episode demands radically different musical treatment, and the music must be carefully sculpted to fit the exact dramatic contours of every scene. It’s also wall-to-wall score, with melody and counterpoint threaded into every moment. In fact, it’s the music that’s telling the story, as much as (or more than) any other element of the show.
How does it feel to follow in the footsteps of composers like Scott Bradley and other greats who wrote music for the Tom and Jerry shorts?
Maddala: It’s a huge honor to work on such a classic show. I spent a lot of time reviewing diligently the original 1940s Tom and Jerry episodes and their marvelous Scott Bradley music scores. My intention was to channel much of what was great about the classic scores (both musically and dramatically) into my new scores for the series, but while imparting my own musical “voice.” Indeed, I believe the new scores sound very much like me, and function with the picture much the same way Scott Bradley’s did. A lot has happened musically and culturally in the past 80 years since the Tom and Jerry cartoon first appeared, so I have a lot more influences to draw from. But fundamentally, it’s classic Tom and Jerry!
What is the biggest challenge about writing for this show?
Maddala: The biggest challenge is time. Because I compose, orchestrate, engineer, record and mix all of my music here at my studio, I have to wear a lot of hats. I do bring in other musicians to perform on each score, notably a string section on every episode, and often live winds and brass instruments as well. But there’s a lot that I have to do on each episode, and it comes out to 80-100 hours of work per week for me. So, I’m constantly racing against the clock.
What do you love about your job?
Maddala: Writing music for The Tom and Jerry Show requires a huge amount of focus and discipline, and I find I’m continually evolving and learning new things… like new ways to voice chords, or to write contrapuntal lines. I’m frequently exploring new idioms and sonic textures, in addition to revisiting 19th century classics and sophisticated 20th century jazz and modern styles. So it’s a wonderful vehicle for personal and professional growth.
How do you figure out which instruments to use in the score?
Maddala: Every episode features an orchestra, but the story and characters determine to what extent it leans more classical or orchestral, versus big-band jazz or bebop. Sometimes, a story line will call for something totally different. One episode, for example, featured a plot that called for an early ‘90s indie-rock vibe, so that was a defining musical texture that I threaded into the score. Some storylines call for smaller chamber-sized string sections, and others for expansive orchestra sections. Ultimately, the music needs to serve the picture and the story, so I take my direction from that.
Any advice for musicians who like to get into writing music for animation?
Maddala: I think it’s extremely important to hone your orchestration chops and learn how to write with harmonic complexity, if that’s something you’re not used to doing. There’s something peculiar about the way music functions with animation. If the music sounds like what you’re seeing, I find it usually won’t work. It needs to be far more sophisticated and sonically rich than the visual animation in order for the entire package (visual and aural) to work. The music needs to sound serious and “expensive,” or the entire show won’t come off. Furthermore, due to shrinking budgets and schedules, you must have top-notch skills not just as a composer, but also as a music producer. In addition to having exceptional composition and orchestration skills, you must know how to program virtual instruments using MIDI in a way that sounds totally realistic, and how to deploy other skills and tools (balancing levels, audio editing, use of equalization and post production effects, mic techniques, etc.). It’s a set of skills that takes time and patience to refine.
Learn more about Vivek Maddala and his music at www.maddala.com.
A group of unusual kids with mysterious spots on their bodies form a special bond in The Stained Club, the winner of the Jury Prize at this year’s SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival. The six-minute CG-animated short is the stunning graduation project of Supinfocom Rubika (France) students Mélanie Lopez, Simon Boucly, Marie Cieseilski, Alice Jaunet, Chan Stéphie Peang and Béatrice Viguier, who worked on it for about a year and a half.
The inspiration for the powerful piece was a photography project by Angela Strassheim, which used UV light to uncover the traces of murders that had taken place inside seemingly normal American houses. “The pictures triggered something in me, and I linked these invisible traces to our emotional pain and the way it marks our bodies and our minds, despite not having a physical form,” says Lopez in an interview via email. “That’s how I came up with this story about a little boy with special stains on his body.”
Lopez says staying true to the core of the project and the original intentions was the greatest challenge. “You are constantly asking yourself, ‘Why am I doing this? Is it in the best interest of the project, is it coherent with what I want to convey?’, down to the smallest details,” she explains. “The second biggest challenge was to make sure everyone in the team felt involved in the creative process. It was important to me that each team member felt they could make the project their own.”
The Stained Club
Designing the Spots
Technically, one of the important decisions was figuring out the designs of the kids’ luminous stains. Lopez says they had to look endearing enough for the main character, Finn, to see them as harmless. “We also didn’t want them to look realistic, but more like the product of a child’s imagination,” she adds. “After a lot of tests we ended up settling on one of the first designs we had come up with – which I feel is often the case!”
Lopez, who fell in love with animated movies such as The Iron Giant, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Treasure Island as a young girl, says she was inspired by Claude Barras’ 2016 feature My Life as a Zucchini. “All of my favorite movies have good music, beautiful images and humanity,” she points out. “I also really liked Death Note and Claymore, which is full of interesting female characters that still inspire me today. I especially love multidimensional characters, which go through various stages and face moral dilemmas on the screen. For example, I was always fascinated by Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, for whom this kind of dynamic is taken to the extreme!”
She says she never thought she could turn her love for drawing and telling stories into a career, until she discovered the shorts produced by the animation students at French animation college Gobelins. “If I’d never stumbled upon those, I would probably be working as a therapist right now!”
Now that the short is making the festival rounds, Lopez is exploring various sophomore projects, including an animated feature which also centers on young children. This one is less realistic, and has more magical elements and some interesting wild animals.
The Stained Club
We ask her to offer some tips on how to craft an effective animated short. “Watch a lot of different movies and explore the various themes and mediums,” she says. “If you’re interested in a particular topic, do your research, watch videos, read about people’s experiences, etc. If you’re making a movie about the fishermen of Normandy, spending a weekend there with them will teach you so much more than reading an article. It’s important to breathe life into your story by incorporating details you will only be aware of if you truly get immersed in the topic or have experienced it. And of course, you have to put your heart into it!”
Lopez hopes audiences will take several things from her short. “I hope they get the main idea, which is that emotional pain, although invisible, can have and has a massive and everlasting impact on children,” she notes. “That this pain can be caused by our own parents. That you’re never alone once you start talking about it. And finally, that 3D is only a medium, which means that every 3D production doesn’t have to look the same!”
The Stained Club is screening in the Computer Animation Festival at SIGGRAPH’s Electronic Theater on July 29 in Los Angeles. Follow the film at www.facebook.com/stainedclub.
Indie entertainment company Stampede — founded by former Warner Bros. Pictures President Greg Silverman — will produce renowned Spanish animator Alberto Mielgo’s full length animated feature film. Mielgo will write and direct the film, which is based on an original concept. Title and story details are yet to be revealed.
Mielgo most recently wrote and directed “The Witness” episode for Netflix animation anthology series Love, Death+ Robots, which has been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program. He won a primetime Emmy and Annie Award for his animation work on TRON: Uprising. He is also well known for largely contributing to the groundbreaking look of Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA-winning feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Stampede has partnered with Vince Gerardis of Startling to produce the film. Gerardis will serve as producer, along with John Morgan.
“It’s a rare thing to come across a filmmaker and world-builder with as much ingenuity and panache as Alberto Mielgo. His sense of humor, character and whimsy – even in the darkest of places – put him in a class all his own. And his technical acumen to pull it off really is something to behold,” said Silverman. “We’re honored that he’s chosen Stampede as the home for his next project. Everyone is going to be waiting for this one.”
Mielgo commented, “I’m looking forward to working with Greg and the team at Stampede, as they understand both me and my art. We share the same vision of where we want to take animation with this film.”
Kyoto Animation has issued its first official statement since the arson attack that has claimed 34 lives. As tragic details continue to come to light and police await the hospital discharge of suspect Shinji Aoba to make an arrest, the beloved studio behind Violet Evergarden, Liz and the Blue Bird and A Silent Voice succinctly spoke to the impact of so much loss.
Many promising young lives employed under our company were lost or hurt by the incident that occurred on the 18th of July, 10:30 AM on the first year of Reiwa.
The futures of young men and women from all over the country dedicated to animation, who have, for many years, created many works under our company, have been closed off. There are truly no words to describe the lament and distress caused by this event.
The statement asserted that the studio had nothing to add or contradict as to the details described by Fushimi Police Department about the incident, and that as KyoAni works to support and assist the survivors and families of victims, any further media correspondence will be through the company’s lawyer — no interview requests will be granted until further notice.
“Reiwa” is the current era of Japan initiated at the ascension of Emperor Naruhito earlier this year.
