Lemonade3d blog

For the last few days me and Dennis kind of made it a daily thing to sit down for coffee before the busy day kicks in. I had the nerve to turn one of our talks into an interview and Dennis kindly agreed to have it recorded.Thank you for that. Just to start off with a bit of an introduction, Dennis is a long time film maker and lecturer. He has made both animated and live-action independent films as writer, director, producer, and animator. His filmography includes

Please Don’t Bury Me (1976, 4 mins, 16mm)

My Big Chance (1977, 1 min 30 secs, 16mm)

Dance of Death (1983, 7 mins 30 secs, 16mm)

The Bear (1990, 30 mins, 16mm)

The Darra Dogs (1993, 10 mins, 35mm)

His Mother’s Voice (1997, 14 mins 30 secs, 35mm)

The Heat, The Humidity (1999, 4 mins, 16mm)

Into the Dark (2001, 6 mins, 35mm)

Taringa (2002, 26 mins, Betacam)

Chainsaw (2007, 25 mins, 35mm)

Make shure to see his movie if you get the chance.

First off, we talked about the animation techniques used in Chainsaw. It is a very interesting movie, balancing, like Dennis, between documentary, live action and animation.In this case, i feel the combination worked well for him. Dennis talks about combining various techniques for Chainsaw- 3d animation (for the cars, chainsaw, particles..), 2d animation (for all the animals) and rotoscopy from live action and documentary footage. He points out that even in the rotoscopy they traced only the key frames while animating by hand the inbetween keys.

Dennis talks about his passion for writing and how in chainsaw the process of the script writing took a few years in between projects. He feels this gave the film its final storyline which differs a lot from the original idea which was an 8 minute film, first created 8 years ago. Once he had the final script things progressed really quickly and the production was a straight forward one. He remembers how they had to get in a rig for the sex scene, which would allow the actors/acrobats to play out the sex scene in mid air. This allowed interesting camera positions which gave the sex scene an underlying quality.

For the software, they used TOONBOOM for the 2d, training students to use the software and then animating for the film. Dennis was involved in the animation process and the design of the film, aswell as the editing.

Besides this he remembers the grueling meetings with financiers, and the difficulties getting the funds for the film, which he openly says were about 250 000 dollars . He also talks about how the success of previous 20 minutes Australian films paved the way for him to get the funds (like Harvie Krumpet).

For the end I asked him about some of his favourites from this festival season. He sets apart SKHIZEIN, and MUTO

I would like to thank Dennis for his time and for his kindness-

I had an opportunity to sit down this morning with Jeremy Clapin, the author of SKHIZEIN, short animated movie which has shown over 50 festivals and won a great deal of awards including a Cezar nomination-Hopefully he will win it!

I asked Jeremy about his film, the festival circuit, the Oscars…

Lets start from the top:)

We opened up the discussion with a curious fact that, SKHIZEIN was not shown in many American festivals. Quickly Jeremy replies that the fact that most of the American festivals require an entrance fee turned him off the American scene, as is the case with many other authors.  Jeremy talks freely of the film budget which in his case was around 100 000 euros.He also pointed out that this was enough for the film production but they had to find alternative sources for the transfer to film and festival money. This meant that spending a lot of money on entrance fees was not an option.

When talking about production, then next important aspect is the crew, and Jeremy blow me away when he said the movie was made by him self and a friend- He admits a few people would come and go, but the core team stayed the same.  On top of this he “mentioned” that his friend lives and works in Lyon while he works in Paris. The key was in the fact that they knew each other from a while back and managed to keep the work flow simple and effective, says Jeremy. The production time for the film was just under a year. Well, all this left me speachles- my hat goes off to you my friend.

As for the tools, they used 3D studio MAX for the 3d stuff, but Jeremy is quick to point out that he also mixed in stop motion and video to give the film its look an feel. As he says it, he is not much into a naked 3d look, and always tries to give his films a more poetic, artistic and human feel to it.

When asked about any big problems in the production, Jeremy answers that there were no big problems but a lot of small ones, and he feels that this is the way of the modern animation production.

When asked about the Oscar nominees, Jeremy admits that he was sad not to see his film in the final nominations. He reveals that his film was in the final 8 and was told it would get the nomination. Now, looking on the nominees, he realized that his film has a different quality and understands why it would not fit in, with the rest of the nominated films. He puts an interesting point on the table, drawing a parallel between the nominate movies and the hollywood film production. Jeremy points out how in the nominated films you can see the academy rewarding films that are based on the same principles as the commercial Hollywood production, in this way validating their own efforts and stile of animated movie making.

For the end of the talk i asked him if he had a favourite film, from the ones he saw on the festival circuit. His recommendations are “camera obscura”

Chainsaw

and “she who measures”, allthough i would venture to guess the last one was added to please the author of this text:) Never the less, i will take the compliment and thank Jeremy for the time and for such a nice end to a nice conversation.

Hi!

This is the first post from the Clermont Ferrand short film festival held in France from 31.01-07.02.

I have the pleasures to be here for five days with our film in the LAB competition. The town it self is very nice, with a gorgeous cathedral, but what we are all interested in, is what is happening within the walls of the 14 movie theaters, screening around 170 films in 19 film selections . It is truly the biggest festival of short film in Europe, but it has managed to keep its people friendly atmosphere which, i found, lacks in many of the large festivals. So, good for them, and for us! Since it is a short film festival that is not oriented solely to the animated form, i found the international competition uninteresting and concentrated my efforts on the LAB competition “dedicated to radical, pioneering visual adventures. Electrifying bridges, arresting viewpoints, accomplished risk-taking, Clermont-Ferrand’s Lab swings the door open onto fantastic regions where imagination thrives and images fly out in an impressive number of exciting directions.”

From the selection 1,2,3 which i watched so far i would have to pick out from the live action movies

Ah liberty! Ben Rivers
United Kingdom, Scotland / 2008 / Experimental / 19′00 / Beta SP

And from the animated ones,

Codswallop
Myles McLeod, Greg M
United Kingdom, England / 2008 / Experimental / 03′40 / Digital Betacam

Kodomo no keijijogaku
Koji Yamamura
Japan / 2007 / Animation / 05′00 / 35 mm

Magnetic Movie
Semiconductor, Joseph Gerhardt, Ruth Jarman
United Kingdom, England, United States / 2007 / Animation / 04′50 / Digital Betacam

Rabbit Punch
Kristian Andrews
United Kingdom, England / 2008 / Animation / 05′30 / Digital Betacam

Besides these i noticed a lot of old festival friends such as Dennis, well i should call him Mr.Tupicoff, but he is souch a great guy, he will not mind- I had the pleasure to meet up with him over coffe. With his excellent looong short movie (25 minutes) CHAINSAW,

and Jeremy with SKHIZEIN- My favourite of this festival seazon, and alot of other peoples aswell since it cleaned up on the festival circuit…

If anyone wants to go into the business side of the short film world he should mark this festival on his calendar. The short film market place is small but packed. With all the pitches for buyers and special screenings for distributors makes a great place to sell and buy movies.

well, that is it for now!