Lights, camera, animation

Blockbuster animated films with an African theme like The Lion King and Madagascar have reaped rich rewards for Hollywood studios.

Now it is South Africa’s chance to shine.

Although not the first to be produced here, Zambezia will be the biggest animated film created in SA.

Cape Town-based Triggerfish Animation Studios, which has three full feature animated films in the pipeline, is already in pre-production on Zambezia, the first film of the three.

Last week, the Industrial Development Corporation, when announcing its financial results, confirmed that it has approved a R17- million investment in the film.

Triggerfish director Anthony Silverston said the pilot was produced in 2006 and it has been a long slog since then to perfect the script and to secure funding.

Both issues are at an advanced stage and Triggerfish is recruiting production staff for the film.

While Zambezia cannot compete with Hollywood budgets, Silverston said, in local terms, the creators were working with a comfortable budget financed largely by the IDC but also by US investor Wonderful Works, US finance group 120db Film Finances, Triggerfish itself and the National Film and Video Foundation.

Silverston said while it was not the first full-length animated film from SA (Lion of Judah has been completed, but not released), it would be the biggest, and pre-sales have already been extremely positive.

Zambezia, which will be directed by local writer and director Wayne Thornley, is a coming-of-age adventure about a falcon from the plains of Zimbabwe who travels to the big city, where he is tested to the limits when he has to protect Zambezia against a horde of aggressors.

While the scriptwriters are from SA, including Thornley, Silverston, Raffaella Delle Donne and Andrew Cook, they have been consulting with Kiel Murray from Pixar and an experienced UK Film Council script editor.

There is a lot of local talent on which to draw. Silverston said there has been a huge response to the call for applications. “We were excited by the level of talent,” he said.

The film is in pre-production where design, storyboards, characters and environment are being finalised and it will take 18 months to finish, with a 2011 release planned.

Since 1996, Triggerfish has been doing animation for commercials including the Royco Potato Bake potato head ad, and the Plascon Woodcare ad, and has done a lot of work for Takalani Sesame.

Silverston said the creators wanted the film to be authentic and wanted to use local voice talent, but American audiences struggle to understand the accent, so it may have to be dubbed for some international audiences.

Music also plays an important part, and will be a mixture between traditional and contemporary African music.

 The Lion of Judah, the first CG local full-length animated film, was produced by Sunrise Productions and animated by Character Matters, both local, but was largely funded and is owned by an international investor.

by Marcia Klein

www.thetimes.co.za

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Top creative team for Zambezia Pre-Production

Two of SA's finest artists in the animation field, Lindsay van Blerk and Allan Cameron were recently appointed to oversee pre-production of Zambezia. 

Triggerfish producer Mike Buckland with Allan Cameron and Lindsay van Blerk

Lindsay van Blerk, one of SA's most experienced animation directors was appointed as storyboard supervisor and in just one month, has already completed a first pass of the film together with his storyboard team.

Lindsay is well-known to Triggerfish, having founded Xyzoo in 1991, working with original Triggerfish founder, Jacquie Trowell. Starting in 1983 at Klaybow Films, Lindsay has produced, directed animated and designed over 60 commercials as well as five award-winning films including “The Velveteen Rabbit”, winner of the Booklist USA Editors Choice 2004, amongst others. Most recently, Lindsay has been developing new projects and supervising storyboard on TV series at Clockwork Zoo. 

Allan Cameron, another top veteran in the SA animation industry has joined the team as Production Designer, relocating from Johannesburg for the project. Allan has a wealth of illustration experience and is no stranger to 3D either, having worked as a designer/director in CG since 1994. He has worked on at least 60 commercials, various pilots for a range of projects, working internationally at studios such as The Works, and locally at Luma and VideoLab. For the last few years, Allan has been at Anamazing Workshop, working as series director, and designing story, characters, sets, storyboarding for their APTI project as well as  handling art direction and direction on a feature film project of “Liewe Heksie”.

“The creative department is working extremely well together,” says director Wayne Thornley. “I welcome the best idea in the room and here we have a constant flow of ideas between the artists. It is an exciting and fun environment to be in – and a pleasure to witness such creative minds as Allan and Lindsay collaborating to create something special and unexpected”.

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Zambezia recruitment

We’ve had an overwhelming response to our call for applications for the various positions for Zambezia. Our new HR consultant, Cathy Bradley is helping us structure recruiting and training and we will be contacting all applicants as soon as we can. We have been encouraged by the level of experience and talent of the applicants, and are busy drawing up a short list. Thanks for your patience! And to all of you still wanting to join us on this exciting project, fill out your details here:  http://www.triggerfish.co.za/jobs/

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Foux du Fafa - Annecy

I think Annecy International Animation Festival is probably a bit like Mecca for animators - everyone working in the industry should make a pilgrimage there at least once in their lives. 

Almost 7000 animators descend on Annecy each year.

This was my first trip and it was more of a recce mission than anything else. There is so much to see that it definitely takes a bit of planning to make sure you get to see or do everything you want. One person I met there said it takes at least 3 trips before you really "get it". The programme is so jam-packed, I often found myself sitting in the theatre already thinking about where I had to get to next or what I was missing out on at one of the other venues dotted around the old village.

 THE picturesque Annecy picture

I tried to cover my bases, and get in at least one show from each of the programmes - shorts, graduation shorts, features, TV films etc but unfortunately I missed the commissioned shorts so did not see either of the two South African animations in competition. I'm sorry not to have been there for the audience response because it's got to be one of the only places in the world where a piece of animation gets such a lively round of applause. 

I was surprised to find that of the animations that I saw, many of the pieces EITHER had a great concept or script OR they looked great with a strong visual design (mostly the latter).  Not many stood out as having both and although there were some incredible shorts in the competition, personally, I found none of them stood out for me as on obvious winner. There were without a doubt some stunning pieces, but I think I must be missing something, because the short that won special distinction (the same category as The Blackheart Gang's prize piece last year) just seemed crude in comparison, and maybe I was tired but I just found the grand winner long and in need of a bit of an edit. I left the festival feeling encouraged about the standard of animation coming out of South Africa and I'm sure we would get more of a name for ourselves if more local animators were to enter their pieces into all the festivals around the world.

A growing focus at Annecy seems to be on animated feature films and I got to see quite a few. The first was The Story of Mr Sorry which was a bizarre but intriguing film from South Korea. Impressively, it was actually made in 14 months as a student project. 

I'm always happy when stop-motion makes a come-back, so I was especially glad to see stop-motion came out strong this year with Mary and Max tied best feature with Coraline. From the opening shots of Mary and Max you know that this is not going to be a standard animated feature, and in typical Adam Elliott style, it proved to be something much more subtle and sophisticated using quirky characters and magical moments that build to create a moving film that will stay with you for quite some time. ( I visited the director, Adam Elliott, in Melbourne a few years ago - he was working on the storyboard at the time, so it was a special moment to meet him once again as well as see the completed film)

The Audience Award winner, Brendan and the Secret of the Kells was incredibly stylish with a very strong 2D visual design, and although the story was interesting and it had some beautiful moments, I found the end a bit of an anticlimax. I still hope it makes it to local screens though - I realised how many independent animation movies we miss out on here.

I managed to get his one blurry shot before my camera died - typical.

Besides watching many many films, a lot of my time was also spent at the Conferences where a number of high-profile people (including the legendary Henry Selick) spoke about their companies and projects. Since we are probably going to be doing both Zambezia and Khumba in stereoscopic 3D, a special discussion on this was particularly interesting. Another presentation on various case-studies of feature films including the 3D aspect of Monsters Vs Aliens was also very useful. 

Director Conrad Vernon signing posters. Got one :)

The making of the Tale of Despareaux was also very insightful especially the production designer Evgeni Tomov who also did Triplettes of Belville amongst others. I missed the Pixar presentation, but I did go to a talk by Bob Peterson co-director and co-writer of Up who spoke about a research trip they took to the Tepuis in Venezuala and it was very interesting to see how their experiences translated into the final film. Other talks from nWave, Buf, Lux animation and a number of others were all inspiring, informative and encouraging - and I left the conferences feeling encouraged about our own process and our own projects. 

Festival pro Bill Plympton

There is a whole other, social, side to the festival, but by the time I was done filling my brain with so much information and visual overload everyday, and with a looong, uphill cycle to my hotel awaiting each night I was quite happy to turn in sober. Maybe next time. Ah Annecy, au revoir.

Oh, here's a hint to anyone wanting to go next year: you need to know a few more French words than you can learn from one song in Flight of the Conchords.

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Storyboard read-through

Triggerfish recently invited a group of children to a slideshow of the storyboard progress on its current feature film, Zambezia. A good time was had by all and this quite discerning audience quickly gave us a clear idea of how well we are getting our story across. The verdict was an excited thumbs up.

Wayne Thornley, the director gets into character.

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Triggerfish is hiring for Africa’s biggest Animated Feature Film, Zambezia

Cape Town-based Triggerfish Animation Studio is expanding its team for the production of "Zambezia", a pioneering CG animated feature to be produced in Africa. 

Imagine if birds could build a city, an African city…. These were the seed ideas that started an epic journey to create the biggest animated film ever made in Africa.

We believe story is paramount, therefore, since the completion of the pilot animation, a team of scriptwriters including international consultants such as Kiel Murray (Pixar), who has worked on some of the best animated stories ever written, have been perfecting the script .  We are now ready to go into production.

And now is your chance to become part of this exciting project!

We are looking to fill a wide variety of positions to build up our team of skilled and passionate individuals. We also have short term consultancy positions for very experienced individuals who may not need to be involved in the entire production timetable. The length of contract and salary will depend on the position and the applicants' experience. 

If you are interested in working on this ground-breaking project, please fill out the online application form at www.triggerfish.co.za/jobs. You must have an online portfolio, showreel or website.

Applicants should have a South African identity document and be prepared to relocate to Cape Town for the duration of their contract, as we prefer to keep our team onsite.We apologize that due to the volume of submissions we will be unable to personally respond to each applicant or inquiry. If your application is successful, we will contact you. 

Please don't: 

• send inappropriate or plagiarized material 

• show work you don't want to be asked to do 

• show work that shouldn't be reviewed yet. 

• submit original works (we are unable to return materials sent to us).

Production team:

Production manager

Human Resource Officer

Assistant to Director

Office Manager

Director of photography

Editor

Assistant Editor

Art Department team:

Storyboard artists

Art director

Concept artists

Modeling team:

Lead character modeler

Lead props modeler

Modelers

Rigging team:

Lead rigger

Riggers

Surfacing:

Lead texture artist

Texture artists

Layout and animation team:

Layout artists

Lead Animators

Mid-level Animators

Junior animators

Lighting team:

Lighting supervisor

Lighting artist

Assistant Lighting artists

Compositing and Effects team:

Lead Effects artist

Effects artists

Compositors

Assistant compositors

Technical team:

Software developer

Systems admin and Render manager

Feel free to visit www.zambeziamovie.com to view the pilot.

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Robust Cannes sales for CMG

Ed Noeltner’s Cinema Management Group has reported robust sales on his slate, led by a UK deal with G2 on the action title Blood And Bone.

Noeltner negotiated the deal for Blood And Bone, starring Michael Jai White, with G2’s Nick Hedman and Alan Partington after fielding at least four other offers from UK buyers.
The film also went to: Australia (Eagle Pictures); South Africa (Nu Metro); Eastern Europe (SPI); Brazil (California); Turkey (Horizon); India (PVR); and the Middle East (Front Row).
The 3D animated title Khumba sold to: Russia (Luxor); Portugal (VC Multimedia); the Middle East (Front Row); Turkey (Film Pop); Czech/Slovak Republics (Hollywood); and Poland (Vision).
Noeltner closed deals on the racial drama American Violet in: Australia (Eagle Pictures); Scandinavia (CCV); the Middle East (Front Row); Turkey (Horizon); and Poland (Vision).The film is in US release through Samuel Goldwyn Films.  Animated film Zambezia went to Nu Metro in South Africa and Hollywood for the Czech/Slovak Republics.
“We’ve had four new films for the market and each one has found key independent buyers,” Noeltner said. “We had price expectations that were met and everyone’s happy.”

20 May, 2009 | By Jeremy Kay

taken from: http://www.screendaily.com

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Khumba teaser launches at Cannes

Triggerfish has just completed production on a teaser promo for their second animated feature film Khumba. The promo will be launched at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival as part of the National Film and Video Foundation's 10th Anniversary campaign by Los Angeles-based Cinema Management Group (CMG), which also handles all sales on Triggerfish's first film, Zambezia.

Production of the 3-minute teaser was made possible through the generous assistance of the NFVF. It had to be completed in under 3 months in order to make the Cannes deadline, so the challenge was to create and design the various Karoo settings as well as rig and animate a herd of zebras (each with their own personality) in time. "We had an efficient and dedicated team and it is thanks to their combined efforts that Khumba will be on screen at Cannes at a time when Pixar's Up is opening the festival," says writer/director Anthony Silverston.
The 3- month production is fast compared to the 3-year scriptwriting process (the script was developed with the assistance of the UK Council and NFVF after winning a major script competition in the Zero to Hero category). "People have always responded positively to the concept," says co-writer, Raffaella Delle Donne "...but after the many years developing Khumba on paper, it has been extremely rewarding to see him come to life on screen."
A strong cast lends their voice talent to the teaser including ex-South African Hakeem Kae-Kazim (Hotel Rwanda, Wolverine) who happened to be shooting in Cape Town at the time of recording, Zolani Mahola, lead singer of internationally acclaimed Afro-fusion band Freshlyground and Nik Rabinowitz, SA Comedian of the year 2008. Voice performance is always key in animation, and although the feature will most probably be dubbed for North American audiences, it was important to the creators to maintain a level of authenticity even with this promo. "Audiences should have time to become accustomed to the various accents on the full-length feature," says Silverston. "It is a challenge that has been with this project from the start - how to maintain authenticity of the very local flavour that the story and setting require, while still retaining worldwide commercial appeal - and I believe we have achieved that with this piece."
Sales will be handled by international sales agent Edward Noeltner of CMG. Triggerfish producer, Stuart Forrest, says "we have built a healthy relationship with Edward over the last year while he very successfully represented Zambezia - making almost a million dollars in pre-sales - and we are extremely excited that he has agreed to represent Khumba as well."
To find out more information go to www.khumbamovie.com.

Khumba Teaser Promo from Triggerfish Animation on Vimeo.

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A Solid Foundation

When South Africa's National Film and Video Foundation emerged 10 years ago, the need for such an organization might have been strong, but there was no lack of skepticism within the local film sector. After all, it had been only five years since the country had finally escaped Apartheid. Given that, many in the industry were wary of a government body becoming so directly involved in the film business.

"There was a lot of skepticism initially because of South Africa's past," says Eddie Mbalo, CEO of the organization, which serves as a mediator between the interests of the state, the industry and South African society, assisting in everything from financing to script development, production and distribution. "Filmmakers did not believe that government wouldn't interfere with their creativity in terms of censorship. It took about two years before the CEO was appointed and it took another year or two before tangible results were seen."

A decade later, the NFVF has played a pivotal role in the evolution of South Africa's burgeoning film sector, and without it the country's indigenous film movement might not even exist.

"The NFVF helps South African filmmakers see the value of investing time and resources in developing their scripts," says Edward Noeltner, president of Santa Monica-based Cinema Management Group, whose full-length animated feature, "Khumba," will be launching in Cannes this year. "They bring on script editors who then work with the writers to create a marketable product. Many young and upcoming filmmakers lack the resources to spend a long time at scriptwriting stage. The NFVF provides funding to see that this stage is not neglected."

In addition to development funding for the screenplay, the NFVF partnered with the U.K. Film Council and provided script workshop sessions with British writers and script editors.

"Many young and upcoming filmmakers lack the resources to spend a long time at the scriptwriting stage," Noeltner says. "Our South African partner, Triggerfish Animation, has benefited tremendously from the NFVF involvement in their projects. Through their script development program, they've given Triggerfish a structured approach to developing their scripts which has meant that we've ended up with tighter, more polished scripts with clear character arcs and story progression."

"The NFVF has supported writers through programs like SEDIBA, which was aimed at developing aspiring feature film writers and developing script editing talent," adds writer-director-producer Zaheer Goodman-Bhyat, whose latest effort as producer, "Master Harold ... and the Boys" recently shot in South Africa. "I was a participant in the first workshop and my knowledge of writing and story made quantum leaps after the program."

In addition to assisting with script development, the NFVF also provided funding for Goodman-Bhyat's 2007 release "Confessions of a Gambler" and selected him to be their representative at the Rotterdam festival producers lab in 2006.

Raising the profile of South African filmmakers on an international level has been a key focus of the NFVF, and for Goodman-Bhyat this has played a pivotal role in the long-term development of local talent.

"The NFVF has made part of its focus exposing S.A. talent to international film festivals, sales agents and distributors," he says, "so their greatest contribution has been to the development of indigenous voices in the S.A. film industry and creating opportunities for the talent to network internationally."

According to Goodman-Bhyat, the NFVF is mindful of backing local projects that will properly represent contemporary South African values . "They seem to typically prefer funding projects that are indigenous stories of cultural or historical significance that do not glorify colonial rule," he says.

For Mbalo, the NFVF's success during the past decade might be a source of personal pride, but he still sees plenty of work to be done.

"The successes have been very rewarding and I am grateful that I have been part of this journey from Day 1," he says. "I think that there is greater awareness of the developing South African film sector, more and more people are being trained with more sustainable skills that will contribute to the film industry into the future. (But) we need the government to understand that the content industry is a growth area and job creator. The responsibility still lies with the industry to justify its existence to politicians."

By Kevin Cassidy
taken from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com
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Khumba teaser - recording session

A strong cast lent their voice talent to the teaser promo of Khumba.  

SA comedian of the year 2008 Nik Rabinowitz played a number of characters.

International actor Haekeem Kae-Kazeem playing our leopard, Phango.

Director Anthony Silverston with FreshlyGround singer Zolani Mahola and co-writer Raffaella Delle Donne

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Showreel 2009

A collection of our recent work.

Showreel 2009 from Triggerfish Animation on Vimeo.

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Jacquie Trowell teaches children for major international fund

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