Hasta La Motion!

For VFX Voice, I talked to a number of VFX artists who have made the jump to directing: Hasraf Dulull, Victor Perez and Miguel Ortega. Check out the projects they’ve worked on and tips for becoming a director.

Founder and CEO of Xilam Animation Marc du Pontavice began his career with Gaumont (1991-1995) where he supervised production of over 100 hours of prime time drama, including the series Highlander. He then went on to create Gaumont Multimedia in 1995 to develop new business in animation, internet and video games. In 1999 he purchased the company’s assets to form Xilam Animation, which entered the stock market in 2002.

Since then Xilam has become one of the world leaders in animation production for television with successful series like Oggy and the Cockroaches, Space Goofs, Zig and Sharko, under his supervision. It has also produced 2000 episodes of animation programming that have been broadcast in 150 countries. Xilam is one of the top content providers to YouTube currently with over 200 million views every month. The company has also produced three animated feature films – Kaena, Lucky Luke and Oggy and the Cockroaches.

Pontavice is also the founder and CEO of One World Films, a production company of live action feature films. Its library includes Gainsbourg (A heroic life), a critical and box office success with three Césars (French Oscars), War of the Buttons, Far From Men (adapted from Albert Camus’ short story The Guest). He has also been vice chairman of the French Animation Producer’s Union (SPFA) for 12 years.

Following is the interaction with him:

What were some of your considerations when originally designing the characters for Oggy and the Cockroaches, 20 years ago?

I had something specific in my mind. I really wanted to get back to having the reference to the tradition of the Hanna-Barbera style. I wanted to bring back into fashion that kind of non-verbal show. I told the creator, Jean-Yves Raimbaud to think of how Tom and Jerry would look like in 2000.

He thought about it for a couple of weeks and we decided to keep the blue cat and change the mouse for the roaches to revert the dynamic between the characters. It’s not the cat after the mouse, but the roaches that makes the life of the cat difficult. That was pretty much how it all started. It is obviously a little more complicated than that but that was the dynamic.

Then we started to work on the characters and their personalities, because 20 years ago it was very daring to do a non-verbal show. You can’t ground your story on dialogue which means you need to have strong personality that can sustain a seven minute episode. And, as I always say, slapstick is not only about gags. Gags are an important factor but you can get bored of it, so you need strong stories and strong characters as well.

So the whole thing was to create very strong characters. Obviously Oggy has this wonderful and endearing personality, the roaches have their own personality, and then we added Jack and more characters like Bob and Olivia, Oggy’s love interest over the years. All of that creates a circle of characters that the audience likes to come back to.

If you are a kid watching today for the first time, is there any backstory you are missing out on because you haven’t watched the first season?

Every episode and each season can be a stand-alone story and you can dive straight into it and absorb it. The beauty of the show is that you don’t really need a story. The humour comes from the complexity of the relationship between Oggy and the roaches.

There are episodes when the roaches are not around and Oggy is not happy about it. And there are some when Oggy is not there and the roaches are bored. It is an ongoing relationship with much love and hate.

The viewing experiences are very different now than what it was when you first started making the show. Do you think about things like capturing kids’ attention, and do you think about the competition you are up against in terms of the way they get distracted easily…(watching Oggy one minute, playing games the next)?

Oh, yes we think about it. These days we are entertaining a different audience who consume content in a different way. But they are still kids, and they still enjoy funny cartoons. Yes, they can be easily distracted and the story structure is vital.

In some of earlier episodes, there were often just gags and situations that would develop in a certain way. Now we believe the story structure, even for a seven minute non-dialogue show, is crucial to hold attention spans. In some way, you want kids to want to know how it is going to end and how the story will evolve. So we pay much more attention to it.

With so many channels and competitors these days, we need our show to talk very strongly, both visually and aurally. We want kids to recognise and understand Oggy quickly. With Oggy, there is a very strong signature that creates a bond with the audience and they love it.

Do you think the action in Oggy and the Cockroaches is the show’s most distinctive feature? Maybe it’s not action but slapstick?

Yes, there’s action in the sense that there is lot going on and that physical comedy plays a big role. I always say that it can’t only be about the action, or otherwise the viewer will get bored. It is about the characters and how much empathy you have towards their personality.

For example, there’s a scene where Oggy is simply taking care of his garden. Story-wise it doesn’t seem to be that important, but character-wise it’s essential because it reveals something unique about the character. Kids adore this hero not only because they are doing something heroic but also because the character is very lovable and relatable.

Can you talk us through the episode of when Oggy goes to India?

When Oggy was getting more and more popular in India, we really liked the idea of setting an episode there. But we were very frightened about telling the wrong kind of story that didn’t do justice to the place or was very cliché. It felt a bit odd for us to create a show like that out of a studio in Paris basically.

So, we decided to send our director to spend a week or two to India, to find the inspiration and to try and avoid the stereotypes. He is a true traveler and it was a great opportunity to try and create an episode that would make sense to Indians. Most of the time we avoid cultural contexts because the show is meant to be universal. That was another reason we had to be careful and spent some time researching India.

Do you have a message for the Indian audiences watching Oggy and the Cockroaches?

We are incredibly happy, proud and very thankful that Indian kids love Oggy so much. It is incredibly rewarding that we are living in Paris, doing these drawings, writing these stories which are loved and much appreciated.

We certainly hope what we create will make people laugh as much as possible. Frankly, we did expect to crack the US, UK and Europe market, but we had no idea that it would work so well here in India. For us it is an amazing adventure, probably one of the best we have earned in my career.

This is the story that I share the most when I talk with someone who doesn’t know about cartoons. People have a hard time imagining success in international markets, and then I tell them about India and I should add that Cartoon Network has played a huge role in it.

The post Meet Marc du Pontavice, the man behind Xilam Animation and the creator of ‘Oggy and the Cockroaches’ appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Among the more exciting productions in line from Warner Bros., that of Batgirl is somewhere near the top. The female counterpart to the Dark Knight has many a fabled stories about her in the comics whilst also drooling the fans over in her thrilling animated series.

DC would be bringing this iconic character to screen soon, and thanks to Christina Hodson, the production can now safely kick into gear. The Shut In writer was roped in replace Joss Whedon, who left the project in February, a year after his appointment on the project. The 53-year old pulled back after going “months to realise he didn’t have a story at all.”

But much to the respite of the fans, Hodson has stepped in for the production’s second bite of the cherry at scripting a story. And perhaps, salvaging the movie from a premature demise.

Hodson is also writing the screenplay for Transformers’ spin-off film Bumblebee: The Movie, that’s currently in production too.

Batgirl would be based on Barbara Gordon, daughter of police commissioner James Gordon, who pulls on the role of the caped crusador in the city of Gotham. In comics, she works in alliance with the Batman and Robin primarily, before joining hands with a few more of DC’s masked vigilantes.

The post ‘Batgirl’ standalone kicks into gear with new screenwriter appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Women in Animation (WIA) has come together with a group of independent studios to take an anti-harassment pledge named ASAP, affirming that there is no tolerance for harassment in the workplace.

The pledge has already been adopted by OddBot, Six Point Harness, Titmouse, Bento Box Entertainment, Counter Punch Studios, Duncan Studio, Incessant Rain Animation Studios, Renegade Animation, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, Tonko House and Wild Canary Animation. A studio that commits to ASAP, will get the pledge counter-signed by each and every employee.

In 2017, WIA brought together many animation studio heads in Los Angeles for discussions about the safety in working environments after more than 200 women and gender non-conforming people in the industry, wrote an open letter against sexual harassment. That resulted in Animation Studio Anti-Harassment Pledge (ASAP), which commits the studios to provide safe and equitable work environments free of discrimination and harassment.

“Studio heads recognise that there is always more that can be done to educate our community and create enforceable policies that protect their employees. To extend this pledge to the entire animation industry, we will share it with all studios to encourage them to adopt it or some form of it, expanding the web of safety even further,” added WIA president Marge Dean.

The pledge outlines,“We will not tolerate discrimination and any form of unlawful harassment, including but not limited to sexual harassment. We understand that we all have a responsibility to ensure that each of our studios is safe for all employees and independent contractors.”

OddBot president Chris Hamilton said,“This pledge establishes a code of behaviour for all employees and a vow from studio leaders to enforce it. When employees move from one indie studio to another the same pledge will be waiting for them to sign in their new workplace, promoting a consistent net of zero-tolerance that stretches across the indie animation community.”

The pledge further defines harassment as, “unwanted conduct on the grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation which has the purpose or effect of either violating the claimant’s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them. Harassment is against state, federal and local laws even if it’s of a sexual nature, gender harassment and harassment based on pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.”

“The indie animation studios in Los Angeles are tight knit. Having come together in the past to address industry issues, we knew we could collaborate and act decisively in response to that letter. WIA is proud to be part of the kind of change that will have a lasting effect on how women and non-conforming people are treated in our business. I sincerely hope all studio owners, large and small, are aligned in these efforts,” quoted Six Point Harness owner and WIA treasurer Brendan Burch.

Adding to Burch’s comment, Titmouse president and founder Chris Prynoski and co-founder and VP Shannon Prynoski said, “Complementing our longstanding commitment to foster a creative, fun and safe working environment, we’re glad to stand with our animation colleagues in supporting the WIA anti-harassment pledge. It’s more than just the right thing to do. We feel fortunate to be surrounded by strong, talented and brave humans who speak up even when it’s hard so that collectively we can uphold this important code of conduct.”

The post WIA partners with independent studios to craft anti-harassment pledge appeared first on AnimationXpress.