"I actually had those ideas and it never panned out that way of course. I don't know if it was because I'm really not a good pitch person and don't know how to do the Hollywood routine. Maybe I'm lazy and I like sitting here in my New York apartment making my films and hoping that they will come to me -- which they probably never will (laughs). I'm not complaining because things are working out really well. I do a feature every two to three years. I do two or three shorts a year. I make enough money to keep up my studio. That's all I can ask for really."

Despite the different origins and techniques, both Idiots and Sita took about three years to make. The budget for Idiots was $150,000. "I still finance the films out of my pocket," says Plympton. "A lot of that money came from the shorts, merchandise and TV sales. I did get some money from a French distributor, about $30,000 pre-sales from France, but other than it's all out my pocket. The hope, as it is with all my films, is that a distributor will be excited about it and give me money to pay off my costs. That rarely happens and I've never really made a lot of money with my features. Quite frankly, the features barely break even. It's the shorts that are the big money-maker for me."

Sita Sings the Blues set Paley back about "eight million dollars": $200,000 in money, and $7,800,000 of her time. "If you subtract money I used for food, rent, travel, and other living expenses over the three years of production, the budget is more like $70,000. But I hope to recoup my $7,800,000 on the back end."

Now, people with vested interests like me [Robinson is the artistic director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival] will always rant and rave about the importance of festivals. But, I gotta admit that I've started to wonder about how effective festivals really are these days in terms of promoting animators and getting them some concrete returns (i.e., distribution, jobs, cash).

"Well," says Paley, "a lot of people have now heard me cry, which was my main goal. My art is never complete until it reaches an audience. All that angst I put into the film is received by the audience, and they each take a little piece of it home with them, dispersing it into harmless particles. It's a convoluted way for me to socialize, but it seems to work."

In terms of distribution, she's had some interest, but doubts Sita will score a theatrical release in the U.S. "As the 'buzz' builds, distributors offer better deals, and the festivals and reviews and awards help a lot. They also help my reputation as an artist, and I'm getting more invitations to speak at colleges, which actually pay. Next year, though, we might see a trickle of income. Distributors and international sales reps themselves spend most of their money on marketing, not filmmakers."

Plympton believes that "reviews at festivals are very important for the distributor. For me, I need to make the money and pay my employees and pay the labs. So I need the money. I need the press. I need the awards and the buzz. It's a very important part of my survival. I think festivals are the place that you should take your film if you want to get into the business. That's what happened to me. Start at the festivals first, because that's where you get the reviews, the buzz, and make your name."

All this talk about festivals and features starts getting me all steamed about the way bigger-name features have bypassed animation festivals like Annecy and Ottawa in favor of the big live-action festivals like Toronto, Venice, etc.... On one hand, I understand it. Features cost a lot of coin and you'll find that money at the big-market live-action festivals. Besides, how do Pixar or DreamWorks benefit from showing at animation festivals? Still, given that some of these creators got their start at animation festivals, howsabout a little payback? [Editor's Note: we are aware that the author has drifted off onto his own freakish perverse road again. We are doing all we can to put an end to this nonsense and have threatened to withhold his fees unless he gets on with the task at hand.]

While I know that Plympton will make another feature (in fact, he's already at work on it: "I'm going through the same process. It's about jealousy. It's darker, a David Lynch kind of film. It will have a somewhat happy ending though"), I wonder if Paley has caught the feature virus now that's she had a slurp of it.

"Maybe," she says. "I'd need to be fiercely compelled by my muse and demons first. I'm getting there. It would be easier for me to finance another feature, now that I have a 'reputation'. It's tempting, but I don't want to make a film just for that reason. That way lies madness, or at least crappy art."

Never have sweeter, truer words been spoken.

(If you want to see Bill drawing Idiots and Angels, stop by idiotsandangels.com. You will not see Nina drawing at sitasingstheblues.com, but you can read her blog and learn about her experiences with bugs and her exciting life as a hobo.)

Chris Robinson, an author, commentator, curator and the artistic director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF), is a leading expert on Canadian and international independent animation. For five years, he wrote the "Animation Pimp" column for AWN, the best of which is collected in the book of the same name. His latest books Canadian Animation: Looking for a Place to Happen and Ballad of a Thin Man: In Search of Ryan Larkin (co-published by AWN Press) will be released this September. Robinson lives in Ottawa with his wife Kelly and their sons Jarvis and Harrison. His dog is Molly.