IN A coup for SA’s growing animation industry a Cape Town studio won the top prize for TV production at this year’s Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Market.
The Annecy festival is a premiere event on the international animation calendar, and South African productions won three prizes.
Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa said on Twitter that, "This is an achievement we can all be proud of as South Africans, because Annecy’s Cristal Awards are considered the Oscars of animation".
"This was Africa’s strongest showing at Annecy yet," said Stuart Forrest on Wednesday. Forrest is CEO of animation studio Triggerfish, which won the top TV production prize for Stick Man, an adaptation of the book by British children’s author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler.
"In addition to Stick Man winning the TV category, our collaborator Clea Mallinson won the Animation du Monde pitching forum for her short Fairy Wheels," said Forrest. "South African Naomi van Niekerk’s powder animation, ‘n Gewone Blou Maandagoggend (An Ordinary Blue Monday), won the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film in the short film category; and Adama, a film set in West Africa, won the André-Martin Award for a French feature film. We also had a great response to the four TV series we’re developing from last year’s pan-African Triggerfish Story Lab, so it’s exciting times for African animation."
"It was a big surprise. We are all over the moon here, said Triggerfish’s Daniel Snaddon, who directed Stick Man. It tells the story of a happy-go-lucky father’s struggle to make it home in time for Christmas, and was BBC One’s most-watched show on Christmas Day last year.
Stick Man was produced by Magic Light Pictures, an Oscar-nominated and Bafta and International Emmy-winning production company in the UK. The 26-minute film was directed by Snaddon and London-based Jeroen Jaspaer.
Mallinson won a one-month residency in France for her work on Fairy Wheels, which tells the story of a boy in a rural Eastern Cape village who learns that his crush is about to leave the village and must overcome obstacles, including his asthma and his inability to ride a bicycle, to get to her before she does so and let her know how he feels.
"I am very excited," said Mallinson, "I have never won a residency before." The residency is through French studio Ciclic Animation. Ciclic provides guidance and the facilities needed for making animated films regardless of the technique used, except for 3D computer animation.
Mallinson had National Film and Video Foundation funding for the development phase of the 10-minute film. She has produced a script and concept art. Her collaboration with Triggerfish was on a project separate to Fairy Wheels and Stick Man.
Van Niekerk, told Animation SA she was "overwhelmed with joy" at winning at Annercy. An Ordinary Blue Monday is an animation of a poem by Ronelda Kamfer that was shortlisted for the 2016 Weimar Poetry Film Awards. Both films were produced as part of a series of animated poetry shorts in Afrikaans called Filmverse, headed up by Diek Grobler under the aegis of the Afrikaans Language and Culture Association.
In addition to the Annecy prize Stick Man has won two British animation awards, and best animation prizes at international animation competitions in Singapore and Shanghai. In Singapore it also won an audience choice award.
Triggerfish is working on another collaboration with Magic Light Pictures, this time an animation of British author Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes — all twists in the tale of fairy and nursery stories — and the much-loved illustrations by Quentin Blake, who from 1999 to 2001 was the inaugural British Children’s Laureate.
The two 25-minute Revolting Rhymes films, one meant to follow on from the other, are being prepared for Christmas. Dahl was born in 1916, making this the centenary of his birth. There are numerous events commemorating his work, which was often illustrated by Blake. They are being produced by Magic Light Pictures’ Martin Pope and Michael Rose and directed by Jan Lachauer and Jakob Schuh.
Triggerfish has set a 50-strong animation team to work on this project. "When I was at school we put on a play about the Revolting Rhymes," says Snaddon. "I got to play a guy who cut off the ugly sisters’ heads. We have just finished animating that scene. It’s like I have been preparing for this all my life."
The animation studio is in discussions with Magic Light Pictures on another possible Julia Donaldson adaptation, and on its own feature-length animated film, Seal Team, starring a set of Cape fur seals. The studio was established 20 years ago, with the most notable others being the animated feature films Adventures in Zambezia (2010) and Khumba (2013). Both films have been translated into more than 25 languages and have together generated $75m in gross revenues.
Still from Stick Man, an award-winning television adaptation of the popular children's book by Julia Donaldson. The animation was done by Cape Town-based Triggerfish Studios in collaboration with UK studio Magic Light Pictures for the BBC. Picture: SUPPLIED
IN A coup for SA’s growing animation industry a Cape Town studio won the top prize for TV production at this year’s Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Market.
The Annecy festival is a premiere event on the international animation calendar, and South African productions won three prizes.
Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa said on Twitter that, "This is an achievement we can all be proud of as South Africans, because Annecy’s Cristal Awards are considered the Oscars of animation".
"This was Africa’s strongest showing at Annecy yet," said Stuart Forrest on Wednesday. Forrest is CEO of animation studio Triggerfish, which won the top TV production prize for Stick Man, an adaptation of the book by British children’s author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler.
"In addition to Stick Man winning the TV category, our collaborator Clea Mallinson won the Animation du Monde pitching forum for her short Fairy Wheels," said Forrest. "South African Naomi van Niekerk’s powder animation, ‘n Gewone Blou Maandagoggend (An Ordinary Blue Monday), won the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film in the short film category; and Adama, a film set in West Africa, won the André-Martin Award for a French feature film. We also had a great response to the four TV series we’re developing from last year’s pan-African Triggerfish Story Lab, so it’s exciting times for African animation."
"It was a big surprise. We are all over the moon here, said Triggerfish’s Daniel Snaddon, who directed Stick Man. It tells the story of a happy-go-lucky father’s struggle to make it home in time for Christmas, and was BBC One’s most-watched show on Christmas Day last year.
Stick Man was produced by Magic Light Pictures, an Oscar-nominated and Bafta and International Emmy-winning production company in the UK. The 26-minute film was directed by Snaddon and London-based Jeroen Jaspaer.
Mallinson won a one-month residency in France for her work on Fairy Wheels, which tells the story of a boy in a rural Eastern Cape village who learns that his crush is about to leave the village and must overcome obstacles, including his asthma and his inability to ride a bicycle, to get to her before she does so and let her know how he feels.
"I am very excited," said Mallinson, "I have never won a residency before." The residency is through French studio Ciclic Animation. Ciclic provides guidance and the facilities needed for making animated films regardless of the technique used, except for 3D computer animation.
Mallinson had National Film and Video Foundation funding for the development phase of the 10-minute film. She has produced a script and concept art. Her collaboration with Triggerfish was on a project separate to Fairy Wheels and Stick Man.
Van Niekerk, told Animation SA she was "overwhelmed with joy" at winning at Annercy. An Ordinary Blue Monday is an animation of a poem by Ronelda Kamfer that was shortlisted for the 2016 Weimar Poetry Film Awards. Both films were produced as part of a series of animated poetry shorts in Afrikaans called Filmverse, headed up by Diek Grobler under the aegis of the Afrikaans Language and Culture Association.
In addition to the Annecy prize Stick Man has won two British animation awards, and best animation prizes at international animation competitions in Singapore and Shanghai. In Singapore it also won an audience choice award.
Triggerfish is working on another collaboration with Magic Light Pictures, this time an animation of British author Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes — all twists in the tale of fairy and nursery stories — and the much-loved illustrations by Quentin Blake, who from 1999 to 2001 was the inaugural British Children’s Laureate.
The two 25-minute Revolting Rhymes films, one meant to follow on from the other, are being prepared for Christmas. Dahl was born in 1916, making this the centenary of his birth. There are numerous events commemorating his work, which was often illustrated by Blake. They are being produced by Magic Light Pictures’ Martin Pope and Michael Rose and directed by Jan Lachauer and Jakob Schuh.
Triggerfish has set a 50-strong animation team to work on this project. "When I was at school we put on a play about the Revolting Rhymes," says Snaddon. "I got to play a guy who cut off the ugly sisters’ heads. We have just finished animating that scene. It’s like I have been preparing for this all my life."
The animation studio is in discussions with Magic Light Pictures on another possible Julia Donaldson adaptation, and on its own feature-length animated film, Seal Team, starring a set of Cape fur seals. The studio was established 20 years ago, with the most notable others being the animated feature films Adventures in Zambezia (2010) and Khumba (2013). Both films have been translated into more than 25 languages and have together generated $75m in gross revenues.
