Delgo represents a major victory for independent animation filmmakers: it was conceived, written, financed, animated and distributed totally through Atlanta's Fathom Studios. All Delgo images © Fathom Studios.

On Dec. 12, the long-gestating animated film Delgo will begin playing in theaters across the country. This film represents a major victory for independent animation filmmakers: it was conceived, written, financed, animated and distributed totally through the efforts of Fathom Studios. Located in Atlanta, far from the major studios of Hollywood, Fathom also broke ground by allowing the public to visit the Delgo website and view the raw, unpolished, day-to-day process of creating the CG film. Fans were able to see artwork, test scenes and refinements in realtime as the animators worked on them through the courtesy of Fathom's "Digital Dailies."

Delgo boasts an impressive voice cast that includes Freddie Prinze Jr, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Burt Reynolds, Michael Clarke Duncan, Lou Gossett Jr., Eric Idle, Malcolm McDowell, Chris Kattan, Kelly Ripa, Val Kilmer, Sally Kellerman and, in her final film role, Anne Bancroft. As Delgo neared release, Animation World Magazine talked with Marc Adler, Fathom's CEO (and Sublime Patron of Dreams), and Warren Grubb, Fathom's talented head animation director (Master Artisan of Kinematic Wonders).

Martin Goodman: Delgo now has a best feature award at Anima Mundi as well as being in the running for a Best Animated feature nomination at the Oscars. Do you think that this will finally change the minds of reluctant distributors as far as independently produced animated films are concerned?

Marc Adler: Hollywood is known for being creative, but they still have a formula for creating animation. The formula, as most of us know, is talking animals, comedy, a known story, and those animals have to be big-eyed furry creatures that are cute and merchandisable. That's about 90% of the films from the big studios.

Delgo didn't adhere to the Hollywood formula for creating animation and Adler hopes that the film's critical acclaim and potential commercial success will change distributors' approach to the genre.

With our feature we didn't necessarily match that formula, and it's really my hope that other animated films don't, either. Will Delgo change the mind of reluctant distributors? I hope it does. Once there are enough films that prove that you can do something out of the norm and make it commercially successful with wide appeal, it will change everyone's minds.

MG: Let's talk about independent filmmaking. I read a quote by you, Marc, stating that "Independent filmmaking offers freedom to break molds and disregard orthodoxy that places limits on creativity." How was this most true during the making of Delgo?

MA: I always thought that independent film meant doing something different, unique and creative. However, that also makes a project more difficult to distribute. We didn't just want to make a film, and then just hand it off to a distributor and say, "Oh, please do a great job!" and then walk away. But that's where the journey for many independent filmmakers ends. Blood, sweat and tears go into your project, but, in the end, if you're lucky to sell your movie at a film festival, it's picked up by a distributor, and then it's all up to them to find your audience and market your film.

Making an independent animated film in the U.S. -- I know there are some that were shipped overseas to be done, but this may be the first independent animation production in the U.S. and that's independently distributed theatrically on any kind of scale. When you have a studio that you're attaching your movie to from the beginning, then it's not an independent production. If you get involved with a studio after the movie is made, what does that studio care about a film that they didn't put any money into? If they have a $150 million tentpole film four weeks away, which project are they going to devote their best resources to? They're going to get a fee off your success, but would they put their money in? Even if we went with a studio instead of a direct distribution deal, the studio has its own model, its own formulas, and its own partners. Those might not be the best partners for your particular project.

In our case, we have an animated fantasy film that's an action-adventure. It's already out of the box in terms of what people might be used to, so if the studio's PR department or the PR firm they hire, or their media-buying firm, or any number of these disparate groups they have internally or outsource to don't appreciate or understand the film or the audience that it will attract -- they aren't the best people to work with. That wasn't something we were ready for. We wanted to not only create a project independently, we wanted to take the "biz" part of the showbiz and market and release this film on our own. We weren't really driving toward a date; we were driving toward a product. We tested the script and the characters, and we wanted to go at a pace that would let us deliver the quality of product that we would want representing our studio.