MADE RIGHT HERE
WHEN it comes to films and television nominated for all the big international awards, the focus tends to rest mainly on “live” action.
However, animation is an increasingly significant category and there’s a studio in Cape Town which is attracting attention for its work.
Adapted from Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake’s brilliant book of surprising fairy tales, Revolting Rhymes is produced by Magic Light Pictures (London) and animated by Magic Light in Berlin and Triggerfish in our southern suburbs.
Originally aired on BBC at Christmas 2016, Revolting Rhymes has already won best TV production at Annecy and best animation at the Bafta Children’s Awards, among several other major awards. It has been nominated for 2018 International Emmy Kids (April 10) and Annie Awards (February 3) and – most excitingly – it is one of 10 semifinalists for this year’s Best Animated Short Oscar, selected from 63 qualifying films. The five nominations will be announced next Tuesday, with the awards ceremony taking place on March 4.
Animation is a wildly diverse genre and every competition has different judging criteria.
“We got in touch with Magic Light about 10, 15 years ago to ask for help with our own features and built a relationship with them. They approached us for a quote to work on Stick Man – our first collaboration. We’re now busy with our fourth,” says Triggerfish chief executive Stuart Forrest.
“They find a director, usually out of London or Berlin, and writers from Los Angeles or London. They write the script and do the pre-production then they give it to us to execute and create.”
Some films are art-directed by the books upon which they are based, because they are well known. Revolting Rhymes is different, explains Forrest.
“It was inspired by the Quentin Blake drawings Roald Dahl used, but we needed a lot more leeway. That was done in Berlin, but we did everything else – the lighting, the rendering and so on.”
Triggerfish works in two ways: servicing jobs for other clients and producing its own films. As a service provider, the studio carries out the animation produced elsewhere, while also creating its own original content. For example, it has produced two of the top-five highest-grossing South African feature films – Adventures in Zambezia (2012) and Khumba (2013).
“Triggerfish is 21 years old and we spent the first 10 of those just doing service work, for Sesame Street mostly,” says Forrest. “In the second decade we did a combination. We currently have 35 of our own films in development.”
It sounds like a lot, and it is, says Forrest with a chuckle. “We have projects in-house and throughout Africa, working with artists in Nigeria, in Kenya, in Zambia, where we mentor them. All they need to do is get their concept into a place which we can take to Cannes, for example, and if enough distributors get excited about it then we can go to the funders.”
When it comes to the actual animation, it’s somewhat of a shattered illusion that no one draws by hand any more. The artists and illustrators at Triggerfish work in what they call The Barn, where the walls are adorned with drawings of concepts, and tables hold 3D models. So at least there is still a tangible element involved.
“It’s more impressive than people just sitting drawing; it’s engineers working with high-level software to develop incredibly complex animation,” says Forrest.
“When we started there was no animation industry in South Africa, so it’s amazing to have worked on a film which is now on the Oscar shortlist,” says Forrest.
Magic Light Pictures’ third collaboration with Triggerfish, The Highway Rat, an adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s bestseller, premiered on BBC 1 last Christmas.
For more information, go to www.triggerfishanimation.com, www.magiclightpictures.com and www.showmax.com.