2- 4 November Planner 17- 19HOME 20- 22
The World Animation & VFX Summit brings the global industry to the California Yacht Club. [animationmagazine.net/summit] The SIGGRAPH Asia conference and expo is set for Kobe, Japan this year. [sa2015. siggraph.org]
disc today:
and Skwigly.com present the inaugural Manchester Animation Festival. [manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk] Panels, demos and recruiting mixers feature at L.A.’s CTN Expo. [ctnanimationexpo. com] The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 brings VFX magic to theaters. Academy and complete sets are on Blu-ray today. On DVD is
As industry veteran Rita Street stated regarding the book’s launch, “This is literally everything I’ve learned from buyers over the last decade on how to develop a kids’ comedy show for 6- to 11-year olds. It’s casual, dense and full of real exercises that will help you create rockin’ sales materials.” She should know, as founder of Radar Cartoons, a producer, consultant, founder of Women in Animation and — ahem — former publisher of Animation Magazine.
Available as a free e-book through radarcartoons.com and gumroad.com, this Secret Guide is your shortcut to knowing the ins-and-outs of selling the next SpongeBob (hint: you have to do more than tell people your show is “the next SpongeBob”). Street has done the hard work for you over the last decade, having landed more than 1,200 pitch meetings with key development executives and selling a record 15 shows into development. If you can’t make it to one of Street’s workshops or speaking engagements, this is the next best thing.
— Mercedes Milligan
Funding for the movie mostly came from government programs that subsidize movie projects or offer tax breaks, with a small amount coming from private investors, says Riva Palacio. Videocine and Pantelion also supplied significant funding. Pursuing some of those tax breaks led the company to open a studio in Guadalajara, but when that funding failed to come through production on Un gallo moved back to Mexico City.
Focus on Story Production took about 2½ years, with much of the effort going into developing the story. “We did 13 different drafts of the script before going in and recording with the actors and once we recorded the actors, we went into the animatic, and the animatic really had to be almost what the movie was going to be in the end,” says Riva Palacio. “We spent months trying to get the right rhythm, changing lines, changing recordings and so on in order to get the movie where we wanted it, where we thought the movie would work.”
With Gabriel Riva Palacio supervising the animation, the company had to develop much of its own software as an alternative to the expense of buying licenses for top applications for the 120 artists who worked on the movie. There also was programming developed to help speed up the pipeline, all of which took several years of research prior to animation starting on the feature.
Having a tight animatic also made sure there was no waste. “You won’t see any materials like a directors cut, like DVD extras — there are none,” says Rodolfo Riva Palacio.
Nearly all of the animation talent on the film was from Mexico. Riva Palacio says the schools in Mexico are graduating a lot of talented animators, though they still needed some training to adjust to the pace and output required in a working studio environment. They also had to learn new skills because, for example, the pipeline on Un gallo was streamlined to save time by having animators light their scenes.
Un gallo is the first animated movie distributed by Pantelion, which Televisa and Lionsgate founded in 2010. The filmmakers’ relationship with Televisa and its Videocine division opened the door for a deal with Pantelion, which Riva Palacio says was convinced to try the project based on some clips.
The studios’ research with focus groups backed up its initial support for the movie, he says. “The movie got one of the highest scores for Lionsgate in years,” says Riva Palacio. “We had over 98 percent acceptance and 98 percent of people said they would recommend it.”
Pantelion planned the release to target Spanish-speaking markets in the United States, eschewing the idea — and cost — of attempting a wider release with an English dub.
“That would have cost Pantelion about $20 million, at least, and they didn’t want to risk it because it was an experiment,” says Riva Palacio. There is an English-language version of the movie that likely will get a home-video release.
For Riva Palacio, a graduate of the American Film Institute, having the film released in the United States has been extremely exciting. “It was a dream come true, having the premiere here and doing all the junket press. I felt like a Hollywood star,” he says.
And, as with any success, discussions of the follow up are already happening, though Riva Palacio says he may try to make a non-egg movie first. “The studio has already asked me for the sequel; they want it right away,” he says. [