Brad Bird recently previewed some Ratatouille footage at his Pixar edit bay in Emeryville, and Bill Desowitz reports on the tasty treats.
Wow! A chance to pitch an animation idea to Guido Manuli, one of the pantheon of Italian animation! Just fill out this online application...
What!? They didn't accept it?
Devastation. WHY O WHY? IT IS SO UNFAIR! It's all POLITICS! They don't like me because I'm a foreigner with funny colored hair who can't pronounce "mortadella" properly.
I'll get them. Now I will make like a reporter and observe this contest firsthand and expose the seamy underbelly of corruption in this contest as an outsider.
Actually this puerile exercise in first person narrative serves to point out that all contests are extremely personal for those who participate.
The Pitch Me! Pier Luigi De Mas (the awkward name of the contest that honors the legendary Italian animator) consists of three rounds: the online application process, the first round of 27 selected pitches (10 minutes), and the final round of six (15 minutes). This contest has high stakes for the participants, because it is literally the crowning of the prince of small Italian animation studios. Milan-based Maga Animation won the contest two years ago and, due to their quality projects and explosive growth, was awarded a Pulcinella award this year for studio of the year (see accompanying article).
My hopes devastated, I decided to root for two young animators from Gomma Animedia in Milan, Fabrizio Rebagliani and Leonardo Sala. Their project for the pre-school market featured egg-shaped creatures gallivanting around in a gorgeous landscape of striking colors. They had a full-color pitch brochure and even buttons to pass out. Unfortunately, they also had huge technical problems launching their reel during the first round pitch. Rebagliani braved ahead, however, and they managed to make their presentation.
"Some of these artists have great intuitions" Guido Manuli sighed, "I put myself in their place and I suffer with them."
Other pitches included imaginative ideas, such as Giuseppe Ferraro and Luca Peretti's Freezerdom, where heroic battles between legendary characters take place... among the vegetables in the refrigerator. Pietro Carone's Fingers featured a hot date between two live-action hands with animated eyes at the points of their index fingers, leading to some very offbeat body language. Anna Lucia Pisarelli presented the project, Save Your Health! Use Condom! from Bologna-based Achtoons, wherein a dim-witted alien gradually learns the use of a contraceptive device through trial and error. The latter made headlines on the culture pages throughout Italy for its "provocative" content.
Despite the technical difficulties, the Gomma guys found themselves in the second round, along with Rebagliani's ex-student Giorgio Scorza. Scorza was presenting a CGI project, Pennarelli, for his Milan-based studio Movimenti (also a pre-school project), recounting the tribulations of a box of coloring pens that solves their quotidian challenges by drawing pictures.
After their final presentations, Rebagliani, Sala and Scorza huddled around a table on the terrazzo, forgetting even to order something from the bar. The tension was palpable. A rumor circulated that the jury was undecided between two projects. "We're just assuming it's between the two of us," Scorza laughed, as Sala nearly nodded off in a chair from the fatigue of it all. Underneath the bonhomie, the fact still remains that it is very difficult for a small animation studio to make it in Italy, and the process of the contest is a brutal Darwinian struggle.
On the other side, the judges were having their own difficulties. They truly were deadlocked between the two projects -- The Cocchi by Rebagliani and Sala and Pencils by Giorgio.
"It's usually a grueling prospect to sit in a room for four hours listening to pitches," said judge Michaela Haberlander of the FilmFernsehFonds in Bayren, Germany. "I was surprised by the quality of the projects." "Some contestants have presented the idea of doing the entire Divine Comedy of Dante," Manuli continued "We are more interested in projects that are limited in scope, with well defined stories, projects which have a chance to move forward." The jury asked if they could award the prize to both projects and were told they could not.
That night the winner was announced. It was Pencils, Girogio's project. There was good sportsmanship as Rebagliani and Sala congratulated Giorgio and they all staggered out of the theatre to eat something. Guido Manuli admitted that it came down to The Cocchi project and Pencils, and they had wanted to give the prize to both projects.
Michaela Haberlander dragged Rebagliani and Sala off to a party of German producers and they were able to pitch the Cocchi project over and over again to companies that were looking for pre-school product.
Well, all contests are about winning, and my team... Well, they didn't win, but we did get the happy ending...
Well, they would have won if it weren't for the politics.
Shut up, you, you're just jealous because they didn't pick your project.
