Cartoon Forum Celebrates Its Sweet 16
Other shows that proved popular with broadcasters included Where’s My Dinner? from London’s Arthur Cox. Faced with increasing government pressure to counter fast-food advertising in children’s programming, broadcasters are keen to find entertaining projects that promote healthy eating. The situation is particularly pressing in the U.K. where the massive success of Jamie Oliver’s investigation in School Dinners has ignited public debate on the issue. And here’s a show that does the job so well — a great mix of 2D and 3D animation styles bringing together cookery, geography and crazy capers in a single 52x5 package.
Coming out of left field and the only adult show to figure in the top 20 drawing attendance was Leningrad Cowboys from Finland’s Anima Vitae. It’s a madcap 26x3 tribute to the insane anti-establishment Finnish band who came to fame in the 1990s with a series of huge concerts such as their Berlin collaboration with the 160-strong Red Army Ensemble. The scripts are extremely funny with a crazy take on everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to George Bush.
Also aiming at an adult audience as well as at kids was Magma’s Footballer’s Husband — a fast turnaround concept of 52x2 Flash animation designed to tie in with sports programming next summer for the soccer World Cup in Germany.
>p?One of the best looking trailers was Dandy Production’s Pablo — a simple but beautiful pre-school concept about an artist with a set of magic crayons. The characters step into the childishly illustrated world that he draws for a series of 26x5 episodes.
Another striking and original design came from Hahn Film’s Tiki’s Band. A 26x4 series with an €8,000 per minute budget, it applies animated 2D facial textures to simple 3D models. Emerging from a greetings card, the four Tikis sing a wacky song on request.
The GB Animation Co. plans to use Toon Boom software for its entirely digital production of The Grimoire and Talisman — 13 half hours of comedy adventure that brings its young medieval heroes into the modern world.
And appropriately enough, after so much wonderful new animation, the final day ended up with Wake Up Sleepy —an intriguing and well-designed concept from another of the East European participants, Soffa Design from Bulgaria.
All that remained after that was to switch into party mood and head for the Cartoon d’Or ceremony — the annual award for the best short film chosen from those that have already won awards during the year at major European Festivals. This year’s winner of the €15,000 prize was Marc Craste from the U.K. for JoJo in the Stars. The runners-up were City Paradise by Gaëlle Denis (France), Falling by Peter Kaboth (Germany), Flatlife by Jonas Geirnaert (Belgium) and Little Things by Daniel Greaves (UK).
Bob Swain is an animation scriptwriter based at Sidewinder Films in the UK. He has attended every edition of Cartoon Forum since it began in 1990.
Ron Diamond is the president of AWN and the owner of animation production house, Acme Filmworks.
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