As technologies improve and the market for animated features becomes more broad and active, animated feature production outside of the major U.S. studios is on the rise. Let's hear from four independent studios taking the plunge and creating animated features. How are they tackling such hurdles as staffing, funding and distribution? Read on...

© Castelao Productions.

El Cid: The Legend
Paco Rodríguez, Head of International Sales and Co-Productions
Filmax Animation

The Filmax Group, through its production arm Castelao Productions in co-production with Bren Entertainment and Toon Factory, is producing the new animated feature film: El Cid: The Legend. Based on a Spanish literature classic, El Cid was brought to the screen in the past by Hollywood (El Cid with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren). El Cid is like Cleopatra or Napoleon, a 100% historical character that can be easily dramatised since it has been done for centuries. The most famous, El Cantar Del Mio Cid, the first masterwork of Spanish literature, was written by an anonymous minstrel of Medina Celli or from San Esteban de Gormaz in the XII century and was composed of 3750 verses. El Cid: The Legend depicts a time of feuding warlords, unscrupulous princelings, robber barons and marauding invaders. A time when courage had few principles, when ambition tore apart families, where loyalty bowed to the biggest bidder. A time when half the world was the battleground in the struggle between Christianity and Islam.

We think the project is a good bet because it involves a few strong ingredients:

• A great hero such as Sir Lancelot, Robin Hood or Richard the Lion Hearted.
• Adventures that shape civilisations, humour, the deep universal values of family, honour, love and friendship.
• A journey from hero to legend, which is a classic and historical story.
• It has national and international appeal.
• The strength of the historical facts (900 years later the story is repeated with the arrival to the Iberian Peninsula of a great number of Muslims from the northern part of Africa), where Spain has to be tolerant and support once again a religious and cultural co-existence and foster mutual respect. This is very much a message for today; we have to transmit to the new, upcoming generation that are going to live with this in the short and long term.
• The quality of the graphic designs and the strength of the characters.
• Plus, it is a children's/family feature film.

The pre-production studio is based at our headquarters in Barcelona, Spain. The work is shipped to our main studio in Valencia, Spain, where the production is centered. From there we feed other studios, such as Time Lapse, Monigotes, Accio and Canuk, the animation work. No animation has been done in Asia so far. We aim to produce an animated feature film totally produced in Europe with European artists. Around 10% of the film will be done in 3D in our 3D studio Bren Entertainment, based in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

It is a very ambitious project for Spanish production standards. The production budget is $US 5.1 million. It is currently in production with most production being done in Spain with Spanish artists. Delivery is planned for December 2002. The funding for the film comes mostly from Spanish TV presales, Spanish subsidies (ICAA and the regional government of Valencia), a loan with the Instituto Catalan de Finanzas (against international presales) and proper resources from our production company Castelao and our 3D studio Bren Entertainment.

The film has already been presold for theatrical release to France & French speaking countries, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Turkey, Arabic countries, Greece, Argentina and others. Deals are on the way with the U.S., Germany, Scandinavia and the U.K. We hope to be able to close a U.S. deal and have the film released first in the U.S. Then we aim to release the film in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2003 in Europe depending on the strategy of our partners in these territories. The film will be shown at the following markets: NATPE, AFM, MIPTV, Cannes Film Festival, MIPCOM and MIFED in 2002 where more presales will be done.