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2014’s Boyhood took 12 years to make. Some of these films make Boyhood look like an episode of South Park.

14 ‘Kill It and Leave This Town’: 14 Years

Polish animator Mariusz Wilczyński set out to make a short animated film about a person whose entire family dies, so they run off to a land of memories where time doesn’t exist and everyone is alive. At some point, Wilczyński decided it should actually become a feature length psychological horror, which took just a smidge longer to animate.

13 ‘The Evil Within’: 15 Years

Writer/director Andrew Getty self-financed this horror film, which was based on his childhood nightmares, for about $6 million. He filmed his deepest fears inside his own mansion, toiled away for years on special effects, and died before he could finish. The producer had to do the final editing to get it across the finish line.

12 ‘Pakeezah’: 16 Years

The...

“The best is yet to come,” Richard Williams said as he accepted a Special Achievement Award for his work on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” during the 1988 Academy Awards. In retrospect, the Canadian animator was referring to “The Thief and the Cobbler,” a film he had been working on for close to 30 years and would continue to work on for many more to come.

“The Thief and the Cobbler” began as an adaptation of Afghan writer Idries Shah’s “The Exploits of the Incomparable Mullah Nasrudin.” When agreements between Williams and the Shah family fell through, the former reinvented the production by coming up with an original, Middle East-themed story. The folkloric hero was replaced by a nameless thief, as well as a cobbler named Tack. Both characters would be mute, relying on physical comedy in the spirit of Charlie Chaplin and other silent movie stars, while the film’s cartoony...

The British Film Institute has partnered with film animation studio Laika to start its event series Stop Motion: Celebrating Hand-Crafted Animation On The Big Screen, which will offer free screenings for children under 16 and include Laika’s five films to date: “Coraline” (2009), “Paranorman” (2012), “The Boxtrolls” (2014), “Kubo and the Two Strings” (2016) and “Missing Link” (2019), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for outstanding animated feature.

The season, curated by BFI Southbank Lead Programmer Justin Johnson, will take place from Aug. 1 through Oct. 9. Additional titles playing on the big screen throughout the season will include “King Kong” (1933), “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963), “Chicken Run” (2001), “Corpse Bride” (2005), “Coraline” (2009), “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009) and “Anomalisa” (2015).

A free exhibition at BFI Southbank, Laika: Frame x Frame, will also run and showcase the art, science and innovation of the studio’s films. The exhibition will allow visitors an exclusive look at puppets, sets and artifacts from...

In the vast plethora of literary works adapted into Japanese cinema, it is a wonder why Fuminori Nakamura’s Oe Prize Winner “The Thief” has not been transferred to the big screen yet, although, considering the “The Gun” has already done so, this one will not be delayed much longer. Let us take a closer look at this truly great book, though.

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The Thief, who remains nameless throughout the novel, is a seasoned pickpocket, whose thought and mentality about “the art” could provide material for a comprehensive manual. In his tailored suit, he moves through the crowds, preferring trains and subway stations, scans his victims, and proceeds on “lightening” them from their wallets with an ease that occasionally even leads him to forget his deeds. He is also a loner, with no visible social connections of any kind, which essentially, allows him to deal exclusively with his chosen “profession”. He does have a past,...

Paramount+ has unveiled the first five shows from its UK unscripted slate, including feature docs on paranormal hauntings in the UK and U.S., rise of big tech and the lost MH370 flight.

Leading the slate is Haunted (working title) from The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe producer Story Films in association with All3Media International, which will explore and unpack cases that have captured the public imagination for many years of hauntings, poltergeists and exorcisms.

Rise of the Tech Titans (working title) will see the extraordinary rise of big tech told through a handful of young upstarts who created the modern world, while Vice Studios’ MH370: The Lost Flight (working title), which is being co-produced for Australia’s Sbs, will uncover groundbreaking evidence surrounding the disappearance of the Malaysian plane in 2014.

The quintet is rounded off by Top Hat Productions’ The Box (working title), following a British detective...

BritBox North America has struck a deal for three Agatha Christie adaptations and is to double its creative and investment output.

Head Emily Powers unveiled the news at this morning’s TCAs, at which point she revealed BritBox is co-producer on ITV’s The Confessions of Frannie Langton and has acquired the same network’s The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe and BBC One’s Martin Freeman-starring The Responder, both of which will be badged BritBox Originals. The BBC Studios/ITV streamer has also ordered a second season of Father Brown spin-off Sister Boniface Mysteries.

The Agatha Christie deal has been struck with Agatha Christie Limited and ITV Studios-backed The Serpent producer Mammoth Screen, and will see the trio of as-yet-unannounced shows produced over the coming years. Endeavor Content will handle international sales outside of the UK, Ireland and the Americas for all three projects.

The adaptations...

Icon will next be seen in The Duke.

Helen Mirren has been named as the 57th recipient of the SAG Life Achievement Award and will collect the honour at the 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards in Santa Monica on February 27, 2022.

The award is presented annually to an actor who embodies the “finest ideals of the acting profession”. Mirren is the most decorated SAG Life Achievement recipient with a total of 13 SAG Awards nominations and five SAG Awards Actor wins for The Queen, Elisabeth I, Phil Spector, and two for Gosford Park.

The acclaimed British actor won the Oscar for The Queen...

Grierson Awards: Netflix And BBC Neck-And-Neck

Netflix was nearly neck-and-neck with the BBC at last night’s Grierson Awards, winning five gongs including for David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet in Best Single Documentary – Domestic. The streamer was only one behind the BBC’s six wins as the pair dominated on a night where the BBC tends to be out in front. Netflix’s other victories came for Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell (Best Music Documentary), Athlete A (Best Sports Documentary), My Octopus Teacher (Best Natural History or Environmental Documentary) and A Love Song For Latasha (Best Short). BBC2 doc Once Upon a Time in Iraq won two awards (Best History Documentary and Best Documentary Series) while all other BBC awards went to BBC4 shows. Channel 4 won for The School That Tried To End Racism (Best Constructed Documentary Series) and Yinka Bokinni (Best Documentary Presenter), while...

“I really believe in experimentation,” says “Master of None” editor Jennifer Lilly. For our recent webchat, she continues, “When we first got the material, we weren’t sure if it was going to work. When we got the footage we thought, ‘let’s do the brave edit. Let’s be in that laundromat for 10 minutes.’ To see what happens and how it feels? It was about just trying it and making discoveries that you wouldn’t necessarily approach the material knowing.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.

The third “Master of None” season carries the title “Moments in Love” and is a departure from its previous iterations. Rather than focusing on the character of Dev (Aziz Ansari), the season focuses on Denise (Lena Waithe) and her relationship with partner Alicia (Naomi Ackie).

SEELena Waithe interview: ‘Master of None’

Ansari also directed the season which uses wide lingering shots. Lilly, won...

Legendary screenwriter collaborated with scores of filmmakers including Jacques Tati, Luis Buñuel, Milos Foreman and Louis Malle.

French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, whose 60-year career spanned more than 150 writer credits and collaborations with Jacques Tati, Luis Buñuel, Milos Foreman and Louis Malle, has died in Paris aged 89.

Born into a family of winegrowers in south-western France, Carrière moved to the outskirts of Paris at the age of 14 when his parents took over the running of a bar.

After obtaining a degree in history and literature, he embarked on a writing career, publishing debut novel Lezard in 1957. Set against the backdrop of a restaurant in the suburbs,...

BAFTA has published the longlists for its 2021 Film Awards, which members will now whittle down to the final nominations. You can see the lists in full below, there are 15 per category for most awards, with exceptions.

These aren’t nominations, so drawing too many conclusions from them is premature at this stage. However, if a title didn’t make the cut here, it won’t be getting a nom.

A few takeaways: as per the Globes, Minari is in for foreign-language movie but not for Best Film (Another Round made both); Tenet missed both Best Film and British Film but did make Director and below-the-line categories; Spike Lee isn’t on the Director list, but Da 5 Bloods is on nine including Best Film and Screenplay; Malcolm & Marie missed everything aside from the two lead performances; zilch for On The Rocks, and fairly slim pickings for Apple in total,...

Sam Lara and Cathy Henkel’s assisted dying documentary Laura‘s Choice and Nickolas Bird and Eleanor Sharpe’s sports biopic Phil Liggett: The Voice of Cycling will form part of the Australian International Documentary Conference’s (Aidc) public access program.

The Australian films will be shown alongside international titles such as 76 Days, Kirsten Johnson’s Dick Johnson is Dead, David France’s Welcome to Chechnya, and Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott’s The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel in this year’s new non-fiction section. Johnson and France, keynote speakers at this year’s conference, will participate in conversation following the screening of their films.

Running from February 28 until March 11 at Melbourne’s Acmi the schedule also includes screenings of Days Of Cannibalism, Collective, The Painter And The Thief, MLK/FBI, Cunningham 3D, The Mystery of D.B. Cooper, Jia Zhangke’s Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns...

The Neon documentary The Painter and the Thief begins with a surprising “meet cute.” After two paintings are stolen from artist Barbora Kysilkova in Oslo, Norway, she encounters one of the suspected thieves in court. Instead of feeling angry at the accused, Karl-Bertil Nordland, he excites her compassion, and an unlikely friendship develops between them.

Director Benjamin Ree thought that unusual scenario might make for a short film. But his idea expanded once Kysilkova unveiled a portrait she had painted of Nordland.

“Everything changed from the reaction Karl-Bertil had to that painting being shown to him and I thought we just have to continue filming these two people,” Ree recalls during his film’s panel at Deadline’s Contenders Documentary award-season event. “They’re so open, they have kind of the heart on their outside.”

The documentary became a stunning portrait itself of a complex relationship where a broken man...

Disney is planning on adapting Megan Whalen Turner‘s YA fantasy novel The Thief for Disney+. It’s not entirely clear if this is going to be a film or a TV show, but in either case, Disney’s live-action team is working on the adaptation, with a script from screenwriter Brian Duffield. […]

The post YA Fantasy Novel ‘The Thief’ Being Adapted For Disney+ appeared first on /Film.

Disney has optioned The Thief, the acclaimed YA fantasy novel by Megan Whalen Turner.

Brian Duffield, who last wrote the Dylan O’Brien-starring creature feature Love and Monsters, is on board to write the adaptation while Jim Whitaker, a Disney-based producer whose credits include Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made and Pete’s Dragon, is producing.

The studio’s live-action team is spearheading the project, which is in early development for Disney+.

Thief is Turner’s first book in a series known as The Queen’s Thief, with the initial book hitting shelves in 1996. The tome earned a Newbery Honor award and had critics comparing Turner to fantasy luminaries such as ...

Disney has optioned The Thief, the acclaimed YA fantasy novel by Megan Whalen Turner.

Brian Duffield, who last wrote the Dylan O’Brien-starring creature feature Love and Monsters, is on board to write the adaptation while Jim Whitaker, a Disney-based producer whose credits include Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made and Pete’s Dragon, is producing.

The studio’s live-action team is spearheading the project, which is in early development for Disney+.

Thief is Turner’s first book in a series known as The Queen’s Thief, with the initial book hitting shelves in 1996. The tome earned a Newbery Honor award and had critics comparing Turner to fantasy luminaries such as ...

The Painter and The Thief is the kind of batshit real-life story that practically demands the documentary treatment. The unlikely friendship between artist Barbora Kysilkova and Karl Bertil-Nordland, the drug addict and thief who stole one of her paintings from its gallery in 2015. As their dynamic evolves the story becomes riddled with the kinds of twists and turns that rival most mystery fiction. Yet Benjamin Ree’s documentary tempers its unbelievable story with a humanity and warmth which reveals the best of reality.

To its credit the documentary resists the temptation to frame itself as a kind of mystery around the missing paintings. Establishing quickly that Karl Bertil, high at the time of the theft, has no memory of what happened. Instead The Painter and The Thief is about exactly that, Barbora and Karl Bertil’s relationship as he serves as the subject for a series of her paintings. A...

With “Scoob!,” Warner Bros. Animation launches a new Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe built around the crime-fighting Mystery Inc. teenage gang and its lovable Great Dane. The plan was to release the franchise’s first CG-animated feature theatrically on May 15, but, of course, the pandemic intervened, so it’s going straight to VOD instead.

Whether or not “Scoob!” taps as large an audience as DreamWorks’ “Trolls World Tour” remains to be seen, but, according to director Tony Cervone, a veteran of the Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes home video franchises, it offers nostalgic comfort food for quarantined families. “Sure, I would’ve loved a theater experience, but we’re in a weird time,” he said. “It’s a bummer. But because of that, there’s families at home looking for stuff to watch, and there’s something reaffirming and warm and fuzzy and bright and colorful [about ‘Scoob!’].”

It begins with Scooby and Shaggy...

With his second stop-motion feature, Missing Link, writer/director Chris Butler took on a story with colorful characters, massive environments and a variety of complex action sequences, striving to bring a live-action quality to an animated world, which would be put together through a painstaking physical process, one frame at a time.

Centered on Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman), an investigator of myths and monsters who journeys with a sasquatch (Zach Galifianakis) into the Himalayas, to reunite the creature with his long-lost relatives, the latest feature from Laika Studios and United Artists Releasing was a massive challenge—“a bit too much of a challenge, at times,” Butler says—but one he felt compelled to take on.

As far as action sequences were concerned, Butler’s biggest inspiration with Steven Spielberg—particularly, the work he’d done with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and other films in the Indiana Jones franchise.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe MatrixFollowing months of rumors comes the official announcement that Lana Wachowski will be writing and directing the fourth Matrix film, with the confirmed return of both Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss. The ever-prolific Steven Soderbergh has confirmed production of a new film, entitled Let Them All Talk, starring Meryl Streep and Gemma Chan. Meanwhile, Soderbergh's latest, The Laundromat, is set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Theater screenings of classic and cult films find themselves struggling against Disney's ownership of Fox titles, and its tightening policies regarding screening rights for the studio's older titles. Animator Richard Williams, best, known for Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Thief and the Cobbler, has died over the weekend. Dan Schindel of Hyperallergic writes that Williams was "an artist whose refusal to settle meant he was forever blazing toward perfection.

Word spread quickly this past Saturday through the world’s animation news outlets, word of the loss of one of the true innovators and greatest masters of the art form. Here’s how Variety reported his passing:

“Renowned animator Richard Williams, best known for his work on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” died Friday at his home in Bristol, England, Variety has confirmed. He was 86.

Williams was a distinguished animator, director, producer, author and teacher whose work has garnered three Oscars and three BAFTA Awards. In addition to his groundbreaking work as the animation director of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” Williams also animated the title sequences for the “Pink Panther” franchise and received critical acclaim for his first film “The Little Island” in 1958 and his animated adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” in 1971, for which he won his first Oscar.”

While many sources called him the creator of Roger Rabbit, a character...

Richard Williams, an Oscar-winning animator best known for creating Roger Rabbit, died on Friday. He was 86.

His family announced that he passed away in his Bristol, U.K. home, according to The Guardian.

Williams, who was born in Toronto and moved to the U.K. in the 1950s, won three Oscars and three BAFTAs. He is most notable for his work as the animation director on Robert Zemeckis’ 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” which starred Bob Hoskins and Christopher Lloyd. Roger and Jessica Rabbit are two of his many creations.

Also Read: Peter Fonda, Two-Time Oscar Nominee and Star of 'Easy Rider,' Dies at 79

The film is considered a landmark achievement for blending live-action with animation, earning $330 million at the box office. Williams won two Oscars for that film for Best Visual Effects and a Special Achievement Oscar. He also won a visual affects BAFTA.

Williams is also...

Richard Williams, the Oscar-winning animator who served as animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, has died at the age of 86.

Williams’ family announced Saturday that the Canadian-born animator died Friday at his home in Bristol, England, the Guardian reports.

Williams won three Oscars over the course of his career, first a Best Short Subject, Animated Films Academy Award for 1973’s A Christmas Carol, then a pair of Oscars – for Best Visual Effects and Special Achievement Award – for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a 1989 comedy that seamlessly blended Robert Zemeckis’ live-action...

Clare Kitson, the former National Film Theater programmer and TV executive who leveraged her position at Channel 4 to consolidate its position as a world champion of animation – as art, experimentation and entertainment – will become the second recipient of the Lotte Reiniger Achievement Award at this December’s 2nd European Animation Awards.

Kitson follows on animator Richard Williams, director of the legendary “The Thief and the Cobbler.”

Her choice says much about the EAAs’ ambitions. A showcase for the best artistic achievement in European animation, the first Emile Awards . as the EAAs are known – laid large emphasis on craft awards in its choice of categories. Kitson’s award reflects on how great animation gets made.

Joining Channel 4 in 1989 as commissioning editor of animation, Kitson’s early tenure – it ran in full from 1989 to 1999 – coincided with Channel 4 chief executive Michael Grade’s attempts to balance programming which sold TV advertising with an image of quality.

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Philip Seymour Hoffman retro has a banner weekend, including Doubt and Synecdoche, New York introduced by John Patrick Shanley and followed by a Charlie Kaufman Q & A, respectively.

The logical pairing of Agnès Varda‘s Le Bonheur and Hype Williams‘ Belly happens on Sunday.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

If you like good things,...

Handcrafted animated magic. That’s the best way to describe Tomm Moore’s latest film “Song of the Sea,” which premiered at Tiff earlier this year and went on to screen AFI Fest this past November. In this astonishingly beautiful new film Tomm Moore revisits Irish folklore through the eyes of two young siblings, Ben and Saoirse. At the center of the story are the Selkies, mythical creatures that are human above ground and seals under water.

Reimagining these ancient stories for a new audience was a challenge that Moore was more than happy to face. Like with his Academy Award-nominated feature “The Secret of Kells,” this film is also filled with personal touches and with a heartwarming atmosphere that translates into the gorgeous visuals. It’s a rare treat to see a film that has been so delicately crafted in every aspect.

Above all, Tomm Moore is a fan of animation that loves the medium and his fellow creators dearly. Proof of this is his sincere excitement over a “selfie” he was able to take with animation legends John Lasseter and Hayao Miyazaki last month at the Governors Awards. Miyazaki in particular has made a great impact in the way Tomm Moore approaches his work. Inspired by his family and his cultural background, Moore has managed to create two films that are indelibly his own, and which set him apart from the financially driven crowd.

Distributed by Gkids, “Song of the Sea” recently received 7 Annie Awards nominations including Best Feature Film, Best Director, and Best Musical Score. The film also ranks high in several of the major film publications among the 20 animated features in the race for a Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination

I had the pleasure to sit down with Tomm Moore recently in Los Angeles to talk about his latest animated masterpiece, life after the Oscar nomination, and Cartoon Saloon’s next project. This was undoubtedly one of the most delightful chats this writer has had in recent memory.

Read More: "Song of the Sea" Tiff Review

Carlos Aguilar: When you were looking at Irish folklore for this film, how did you decide what stories or elements would work with the film you wanted to make, especially since you wanted to tale a story aimed at children?

Tomm Moore: When we first started looking at doing something with the Selkies, we noticed that in a lot of the stories the kids would often be a big part of them. The mother would disappear back into the sea, and sometimes they’d be a passage at the end of the story where the kids would go down to the sea and see a seal. They’d always wondered if that was their mother as a seal. That’s why I started thinking about the Selkies stories from the kids’ point of view.

We had lots of different folktales we were looking at. I was really passionate about using several different ones, but the script was getting too bloated and it was too much content. We decided to cut down to just the folklore that we could use to strengthen the family story. We had a lot of folklore, there was almost too much to pick from and as there always is with Irish folklore. There are so many versions of every story because every storyteller tells the story differently. We took a license and we said, “What folklore do we have in this draft that really strengthens what’s happening with the family?”

We came to the idea that the witch could be just an exaggerated version of the Granny, and then the shanachie was going to be a version of the kids’ grandfather but it became too complicated, so we decided against it. It was all about simplifying and boiling it down to make kind of a espresso of folklore so that we could have something really strong that would work internationally as well [Laughs].

Aguilar: Where did you find the folk story or stories that served as framework for “Song of the Sea”?

Tomm Moore: Everywhere. A lot of these stories I heard while growing up and others I read in a book called The People of Sea, lent to me by my friend Ross Stewart. He was the Art Director in “The Secret of Kells.” I went on a trip to the coast of Ireland when I had started working on the “The Secret of Kells,” and I’ saw these seals that had been killed by the sea. Then, when I was talking to the woman that we had rented the cottage from, she said that the fishermen had been killing the seals and blaming them for the drop in fish stocks. She said, “That wouldn’t have happened years ago because people had these beliefs that seals could be Selkies and that they contained the souls of people lost at sea.”

When I came back I talked to Ross Stewart and he loaned me the book I mentioned, which was a collection of stories from the 1920s. The author had gone around Ireland and England collecting all the different beliefs about seals. I was reading those and I was also reading some of Lady Gregory’s works. From the time of Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats there was a big movement to try and capture the stories that had been just passed down in the oral tradition. But honestly, most folklore is only alive if you hear it, if it’s told, because if it’s written down it becomes kind of a gospel. If it’s written people think, “That’s it! That’s the right version! Don’t’ change it.” Folklore is always changing and evolving for new audiences. That’s how you keep it alive.

Aguilar: While “The Secret of Kells” is a gorgeous film in its own right, it seems like “Song of the Sea” had an even more ethereal and fluid look to it, almost like watercolors.

Tomm Moore: A big part of that is Adrien Merigeau, who was the main background artist in “The Secret of Kells.” When I was developing “ Song of the Sea” and working on conceptual stuff, we really tried to blend our styles. His natural style seemed very full of little idiosyncratic design motifs. We started looking at the rocks and carvings that I wanted to include, and we could see similarities between his work and those Pictish carving, so he started to incorporate that into it.

We started working really early, before we even had a script. We were working on evolving this style, and we were hoping it would be a bit more atmospheric than in “The Secret of Kells,” we wanted some of that damped atmosphere that you get in Ireland. Adrien is great with watercolors, and I had been playing a lot with watercolor as well. We felt it was the right approach. “The Secret of Kells” had a stained glass look, and we wanted “Song of the Sea” to feel more like watercolors, more like a mystical fairytale.

Aguilar: What sort of visual reference did you and your team have to create the beautiful patterns and details in the film?

Tomm Moore: It came from a lot of carving and rocks, and the mad sacred geometry in the way they are arranged. It’s amazing stuff. It’s all Celtic and Pre-Celtic from the Picts. The word “picture” comes from the Picts, they were an Irish tribe that used tattoo themselves with the images in all this carvings. When the Romans first found them, they realized they were called the Picts. The word comes from the name the Romans used to refer to the drawings the Picts had all over themselves.

Aguilar: Tell me about your approach in terms of character development. In this films character seem more delicate, perhaps more personal.

Tomm Moore: I based most of the characters on my family. Ben is based on my son. He was 10 when I started working to work on it, now he is 19 now. Time just flies when you are making animation [Laughs]. Cu was based on a dog we had. When Ben was younger we had a dog named Cu. My mother’s name is Bronagh, and she looked a lot like the character in the film. My characters are certainly very personal.

These films are so hard to get made or even get off the ground, then put the finance together, get the story right, that if you pack the film full of people that you love you can live with it longer. There is always a bit of nostalgia. My nephew does Ben’s voice, as you can see it’s a real family story. I knew the characters needed to be softer so I looked at films like “My Neighbor Totoro” and other Japanese animation. The characters in “ The Secret of Kells” are quite geometric, and for this one I wanted to get something a bit softer and fuller.

Aguilar: Was the relationship between Saoirse and Ben also inspired by your personal experience?

Tomm Moore: Yes, the same with Brendan and Ashley in “The Secret of Kells,” both relationships are based on my relationship with my sister. I have three sisters, but there was a certain sibling rivalry between me and my next older sister. For sure that was influential in both films.

Aguilar: I love all the details that you have hidden throughout the film: the animals in the background, the cameo on the bus, or even inanimate objects with a particular shape. Every frame is full of beautiful small touches

Tomm Moore: We spent a long time on that. We wanted to pack everything in there. Adrien’s point of view made the backgrounds look almost like illustrations. We set up each shot like an illustration that would work in a book as well, but ultimately we needed to have continuity. We did a lot of color scripting. All the details are little encouragements for people to watch the movie more than once. [Laughs]

Aguilar: Where you concern about translating Irish folklore into a story that could work for a global audience?

Tomm Moore: I think there is universality to the films. With “Song of the Sea” this was very deliberate because I knew that we had gone the independent route, we didn’t go with a big studio. We made it for 5.5 million Eur, that’s very small compared to other films. “ The Book of Life”, which was the next “low-budget” animated film at The Hollywood Reporter roundtable that I was in, was $50 million.

For me that freedom meant that I could be more personal and more true to our culture. At the same time you want people to be able to enjoy it. There are certain jokes in there that only Irish people will get, but for the most part I wanted to take the approach in which somebody from anywhere in the world could watch it and enjoy it. I like that about “Totoro.” You get a glimpse of Japanese culture but at the same time anybody, anywhere, could watch “Totoro” and enjoy it even if they don’t know anything about Japanese culture.

Aguilar: The film seems to take place in a not-so-distant past where 3D glasses and Walkmans where an awesome novelty.

Tomm Moore: I was thinking it was like 1987, that’s when I was 10 years old. I was nostalgic for that time and I decided to add those little touches. [Laughs]

Aguilar: Music is such an important element in “Song of the Sea.” Tell me about developing the score with the musicians and other talent.

Tomm Moore: With “The Secret of Kells” Bruno Coulais and Kila did a great job but they work for a quite short neat the end of the film. This time, because the music was so important for the whole film, we asked them to get involved really early on. Bruno and Kila started working on the music for the film while we were still writing the story. It was really great, we would have little sessions in Ireland where they’ll get together and work. The first thing we had to work on was the song. We needed to get that right and find a singer. We were lucky to find Lisa Hannigan, who could act and sing. That was the first challenge for this movie, working on the music at the same time as the visuals.

Aguilar: With the advent of 3D animation, is it difficult to find the right people to work on more detailed-oriented 2D films?

Tomm Moore: There is a little team, like in stop-motion. It’s a little team of people that we’ve put together who had worked on “The Secret of Kells,” and some new people. I think it’s about finding people who are really passionate about 2-D animation and want to work at a different level on it. We are lucky in Europe, there seems to be a lot of 2D animation happening. There is still expertise and different studios are still making it.

Aguilar: Where things easier this second time around?

Tomm Moore: “The Secret of Kells ” was tough because it was the first one and we were trying to figure stuff out. This time there were stressful moments but we were a little bit more battle-hardened, like the old team getting back together for one more war [Laughs]

Aguilar: What do you love about 2D animation that 3D can’t provide? What would you say makes the medium particularly special?

Tomm Moore: I think there is a language to drawing that’s special, just like with Ghibli’s latest, “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.” Even if you try to fake the look of a drawing by doing something like “Paperman”, is not quiet the same as feeling that somebody really drew it. Also, I think that if you watch a movie like “My Neighbor Totoro” and then you watch “Ponyo,” you wouldn’t know that they’ve been made 20 years apart. But if you watch the original “Toy Story” and then “Toy Story 3,” you can really see a big difference, you can see a big change in technology. 2-D has a certain timelessness.

Aguilar: You’ve mentioned Miyazaki’s work has been an inspiration to you, what other animators or artists have influenced your work?

Tomm Moore: Richard Williams, who was for years trying to make “The Thief and the Cobbler.” He was never able to finish it properly and then it got taken off of him. It’s a sad story, but he was always such an inspiration to me. When I was in college I saw a documentary about him and you could see he really had this great passion. He fully believed that animation could be art and it didn’t have to been as just something commercial. He spent over 25 year working on that film, that’s more of an art piece than anything else.

Also Genndy Tartakovsky, who is now doing CG stuff like “Hotel Transylvania,” but also worked on shows like “Samurai Jack ” and other greats tuff on TV. Then of course all the Eastern European animated film, specially the Hungarian folktales. There is also the Russian animator Yuri Norshteyn, he is really amazing. He ‘s made some beautiful short films, but he has also been working on this feature film for like 20 years. It’s going to be beautiful if he ever finishes it. I suppose I get inspiration from all over the place.

Aguilar: For you what’s the main difference between animated and live actions films in terms of the creative process and the effect they have on audiences?

Tomm Moore: Animation and live action are blending. I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is an editor, he used to work in live-action and now he works in animation. He used the analogy that editing in live action is like carving away a piece of marble but the shape is basically already there. With animation is more like clay because you keep building, changing, and adding things.

I think animation is freer and I think that’s why live action filmmakers like Spielberg or Cameron are using animation more in their films. “ Avatar” or “Gravity” are basically animate films because they have so much CG animation in them. But I think hand-drawn animation can be something really special. If the character design is quite simple it has the ability to allow people to easily relate to the characters in a special manner. A cartoon character isn’t a specific person. It isn’t Tom Cruise or George Clooney playing the part, it’s a character that could be you. It’s easier for you to get drawn into it in a special way.

Aguilar: Would you ever work on a 3D animated film?

Tomm Moore: I wouldn’t say no, but I’d have to find a way to adapt to it and I don’t think I’d be interested in doing something like Pixar’s shiny, perfect surfaces in 3D. To be honest with you, they do it so well and they spend so much money on it, that unless you are doing it in Pixar there is no point trying to match it. It’ll just come out looking cheap, so you would have to find a clever way to dot it. I like drawing. I like to spend the day drawing, the process is important for me. Drawing is a just a pleasure and it’s nice to keep it going. I think we stand out a little bit from the crowd by being 2D. There is less and less of it that now we have like a badge or a brand that stands out by being 2D.

Aguilar: “Song of the Sea” has received overwhelmingly positive reviews and a great reception by audiences. I’m sure this must be very rewarding and encouraging.

Tomm Moore: The more god reviews we get the more confidence we get, and the more proud we are when we stand beside the film. The only problem is the pressure, this was like making a difficult second album and now we have to make sure that the third film, and the next are good. But that’s a good problem to have [Laughs]

Aguilar: What are you and Cartoon Saloon working on next?

Tomm Moore: The next project that Cartoon Saloon is doing is going to be directed by Nora Twomey, who was the co-director in “The Secret of Kells,” and it’s based on a book called The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis. It’s about a little girl in Afghanistan who has to pretend to be a boy so she can provide for her family. Her father is a storyteller. There is going to be two different visual styles in it. The storytelling world will use a decorative style based on Afghan art and then there will be a different style for the real world. It’s definitely challenging. I’m also writing another movie at the moment, it’ll be my third Irish-themed movie.

Aguilar: Seems like you are making a real brand or niche for yourself with Irish animated stories

Tomm Moore: Yes, at least for myself, but I think Nora is going to make something very special and different.

Aguilar: How did the Oscar nomination for “The Secret of Kells” change things? Did it change things at all?

Tomm Moore: It did, maybe not in the way that we had immediately expected. It wasn’t like we suddenly had access to millions and millions or anything like that, because we weren’t willing to become part of the studio system and make a movie that would work in that system. They spend so much money on those films that if you get involved in that system you don’t know if your film will ever get made because it’s such a risk to make them. You could develop something for years and it might never get made. And if they do make it has to be very accessible and it has to be a certain type of product. When they make them well they are beautiful, I was blown away by “How to Train Your Dragon 2.”

But for me, the freedom that you have to give up by trying to get into that system wasn’t worth it. The Oscar nomination might have opened doors to do something like that, but instead we decided to go back to Ireland and stay pretty small. What the nomination did instead was giving us a professional armor. It gave us a certain credibility and people took us more seriously after that. It also opened doors in terms of actors. We could now get voices that we really wanted. It helped with raising the finance, even though we ended up with a very small budget, less even that in “ The Secret of Kells.”

After the economic crash there was less money to put together, but the money that was out there we were able to attract because of the Oscar nomination. Besides, I got to join the Academy, I got to meet Miyazaki the other night, and there are so many benefits that just go on and on [Laughs].

Aguilar: I think “Song of the Sea” is absolutely marvelous, but for those who haven’t had the chance to see, why should they flock to see it?

Tomm Moore: I think it’s offering something different. I think what we tried to do - and I hope we’ve been successful at - is make a movie that is something like “ Totoro,” something like “E.T.” or “Goonies.” We wanted to make something like those movies from the 80s that weren’t a sequel or a prequel. They were just a complete new adventure in themselves. “Song of the Sea” has a kind of melancholy that most animated films seem not having much of anymore. I hope it offers something special.

Song of the Sea

Written by Will Collins

Directed by Tomm Moore

Ireland/Denmark/Belgium/Luxembourg/France, 2014

Song of the Sea is a beautiful film. Its vivid art style easily separates it from the prosaic sameness that currently grips much of mainstream animation. That’s the big advantage that animated films made by smaller outfits, such as Cartoon Saloon, have over the Disneys and Dreamworks of the world. But there’s a weakness to them as well, one that Song of the Sea stumbles on: a frustratingly muddled story approach.

One thing that major studios have going for them is that their executive-scrutinized teams of artists will usually ensure that their movies contain a narrative propulsion. Independents favor a slower approach, because, let’s face it, most of them are trying to be Studio Ghibli. And this is an admirable aim, to be sure. But the Ghibli writers and animators...

The King and the Mockingbird is one of those legendary animated features with a tortured production history, along the lines of Richard Williams’s The Thief and the Cobbler and Yuri Norshtein’s still-unfinished The Overcoat. French artist Paul Grimault began the project in the late 1940s under the title The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep, taken from a Hans Christian Andersen story. The script was by Jacques Prévert, by that point one of the most important poets and screenwriters working in France. In spite of all these talents, however, production stalled and a great deal of money was lost. Grimault’s studio, Les Gemeaux, was forced to close and his former partner released an unfinished version without his permission in 1952. Eventually Grimault regained the rights to the project, secured funding and was able to finally complete his own version of the project in the late 1970s. It was renamed Le Roi et l’oiseau, literally...

Ursa Major – Merida & Elinor

I am always amazed at what some artists can think of. This is one of my new favorite art series. It is called Disney Jaegers, and it's by Tumblr artist Lou-Jiinsy.

It is not just the art, which is amazing, but the stories behind every picture are outstanding. I love the fact that she meticulously chooses the characters and who they would drift with the best. The most disturbing are the pilots of the Frozen Heart, Hans and Ana. However, when I read her explanation, I totally understand.

What other Disney pairs do you think would be great pilots together? I've included the story for the above picture, but to see the rest, you'll have to check out her Tumblr.

The last person Merida ever expected to be drift compatible with was her mother. Growing up they had a lot of disputes about… well about pretty much everything.

Akon does not have Pitbull on a short leash, and never promised the rapper would perform for an Egyptian singer's music video ... this according to new legal docs filed by Akon. TMZ broke the story ... Tamer Hosny sued Akon, claiming he paid the music mogul $300,000 for Akon and Pitbull to guest on his song "Arabian Knight" -- and Also star in the music video.Tamer claims Akon failed to produce Pitbull for the video --...

Rapper Pitbull torpedoed a famous Egyptian singer's music video -- after the singer spent hundreds of thousands to produce it -- and it's all Akon's fault ... this according to a new lawsuit.Singer Tamer Hosny filed the suit against Akon ... claiming he paid the singer $300K for both him and Pitbull to sing on Tamer's new song "Arabian Knight."Akon delivered the track -- but according to the lawsuit, in return for the $300K ... Akon...

‘The Thief and the Cobbler’: Original version of Richard Williams’ animated film has first public screening at the Academy The first public screening of the original version of Richard Williams’ The Thief and the Cobbler will be held at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, December 10, 2013. Williams will be in attendance to introduce the recently reconstructed original workprint from 1992. The Thief and the Cobbler will be accompanied by Richard Williams’s 1972 Oscar-winning animated short A Christmas Carol, adapted from Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella. Featuring animation by Ken Harris and Abe Levitow, among others, A Christmas Carol has, according to the Academy’s website, "a distinctive and dark tone" inspired by John Leech’s engraved illustrations of the Dickens’ tale. In conjunction with the screenings, the Academy’s public exhibition “Richard Williams: Master of Animation,” featuring film clips,...

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences celebrates animator Richard Williams with the first public screening of the original version of his film “The Thief and the Cobbler” on Tuesday, December 10, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Williams, who has worked on the now legendary feature throughout the past 25 years, will be on hand to introduce the newly reconstructed original work print from 1992.

Loosely influenced by Persian miniatures, the film has become a legend in the animation industry. Williams began this ambitious film in 1968, and over the next 25 years, collaborated on it with such animators as Ken Harris and Emery Hawkins from Warner Bros., as well as Art Babbitt from Disney and Grim Natwick, the creator of Betty Boop.

The film was originally self-financed by Williams, but after he received two Academy Awards® in 1988 for “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” Williams was...

Geek Girl Navigating the World – A Thief Worth Saving

It’s never been any secret that I am a total animation geek. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I realized how much I enjoyed animation, or even that point at which I started to understand that someone had to draw all of the stuff that I was seeing on the screen. When I was little, on Saturday mornings my dad and I would sit on the couch with big bowls of cereal and watch Looney Tunes before he went in to work.

At some point, I started to realize that there were differences in animation, not just in quality but in writing, just as I was recognizing those same differences in the books that I was reading. The Looney Tunes cartoons had a frenetic, rapid-cut style with precision editing to the accompanying music that made the shorts so...

Ladies, we have liftoff. And, more importantly, a plot. The second trailer for Sex and the City 2 has finally been loosed upon the Internet—and not only is it chock-full of the fabulous fashion, cheeky sex talk and celebrity cameos (Miley Cyrus, Liza Minelli and Penélope Cruz, we see you) we've come to expect, but it's finally given us our first real taste of what to expect, storywise, when the sequel's released next month. Two years on, the kids are grown, relationships have become routine, and the girls find themselves on an all-expenses-paid trip to Abu Dhabi—and what's a trip to the desert without an Arabian knight? This time around, Carrie's white-clad temptation comes...

In "Sex and The City," Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw is known for her footwear collection - but on the Oscars red carpet, Sjp and Matthew Broderick revealed a surprising shoe secret to Access Hollywood's Billy Bush.

"He's a cobbler!" Sarah Jessica said of her husband. "So he makes shoes too."

"Even I didn't know that!" Matthew, who voiced Tack the Cobbler in 1993's animated "The Thief and the Cobbler," joked. "I have a lot of shoes. I get a lot... she buys me shoes."

But when it comes to Sjp's collection, the "Satc" star takes the ...

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Have you ever seen an animated film called Arabian Knight? Or The Princess and the Cobbler? If so then you witnessed the final resting place of one man's life work. His name is Richard Williams, he's a brilliant animator, and the story of how it took over twenty years for his labor of love to be completed, released, and mangled is pretty fascinating. Not to mention heart-wrenching. You can read the full history of the ill-fated project right here, but the short version is this: After more than two decades of development, sweat, and stress, Williams lost the rights to his baby and they eventually ended up in the hands of the Weinsteins. The result was Arabian Knight, which came and went with little fanfare.

But! Through the magic of Google Video and the passionate efforts of one fan, you can now see a fairly close approximation to the film that Mr.