Screenings Come to a Close at ICM

With a late 5 o’clock screening at ICM, many of the nominees couldn’t make it to the Q&A. Peter and the Wolf producer Hugh Welchman, Madame Tutli-Putli producer Marcy Page and her exec producer David Verrall were able to meet the agents. I Met the Walrus director Josh Raskin and his producer Jerry Levitan arrived right after the agents left because they went to the old ICM address by mistake.

I caught Hugh in the lobby and finally got to ask him about his conversation with Brad Bird at Pixar. Hugh said that they had a nice chat about what they liked about each other’s films. Hugh also said that as a WGA member Bird hadn’t been working lately because he wasn’t crossing the writers strike picket lines. In another star sighting, Hugh went to a glitzy party the night before and got to meet Quentin Tarantino. Josh told me that he heard Sean Lennon saw his film and said that he loved it and that it made him cry. Josh added that when you think of John Lennon as someone’s dad it puts a whole new perspective on his film.

After the screening, the agents were very impressed with this year’s nominees. The questions covered many of the typical questions. David explained how the human eyes were done on the puppets in Madame Tutli-Putli. Marcy told them that the film took four years to complete, while Hugh said it took the same amount of time to make his film. When the agents cringed at the time it takes, tour host Ron Diamond said, “Animation is a painful process and this brings it to a new low.” Hugh added that he would have liked more time to finish Peter, but they had already sold out the Royal Albert Hall for the premiere and they wanted to continue working in the U.K., so they had to keep the debut date.