SONG'S US Theatrical Premiere (NY)

SONG’S US Theatrical Premiere (NY)

(December, 2014)  Feb, 2015

December took us to New York for the theatrical release of SONG.

What a magnificent city and the weather was mild.

[Radio City Music Hall]

[Rockefeller Center]

[Times Square]

We walked around the city, visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (- and found our respective relatives).
We visited, GKIDS offices (our distributors) where the lovely Sarah and I prepped some work and Tomm had some interviews.

[GKIDS]

[Tomm with Dave, GKIDS Head of Distribution]

[GKIDS President, Eric Beckman]

We then headed over to NPR where Tomm had an interview.

[Tomm & his lovely wife at NPR]

On Thursday, we headed to Blue Sky for a screening of SONG (& CODA) and went to the Neue Gallery (amazing exhibit of Schiele and Klimt).

[Double Irish Bill]

[Blue Sky]

Friday we were invited by American Indie (Oscar®-nominated) Filmmaker, Bill Plympton to his annual Christmas party.

There was an impressive group of people in attendance…

[Peter DeSeve, Tomm’s lovely wife (ceramicist & documentarian) Li, & Bill Plympton.]

[Amid Amidi & John Canemaker.]

[Peter DeSeve, Elliot Cowan, Tomm Moore, Bill Plympton, John Canemaker & Signe Baumane.]

The premiere of the film was that evening at the IFC Center where we had a lovely turn-out and a great Q&A.

[Tomm at the IFC Center, NY.]

[NY Q&A]

Thanks, NY!

[Statue of Liberty]

(Coming up, January’s belated post…)

jkb | Cartoon Saloon-US

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

(November, 2014)  Feb, 2015

Happy New Year!

[Holiday Card Courtesy of Cartoon Saloon]

Forgive the few months of silence but Cartoon Saloon has had a few very busy months, which took us right through the holiday season.

Director Tomm Moore & Producer Paul Young (THE SECRET OF KELLS, SONG OF THE SEA) came to LA for a variety of events including LA’s premiere of SONG.

November began with Animation Magazine’s Animation Summit where Paul joined this year’s prestigious Oscar panel.

[From L to R: (Moderator) Ramin Zahed, (HTTYD2) Dean DeBlois, (BOXTROLLS) Graham Annabel & Tony Stacchi, (THE BOOK OF LIFE) Jorge Gutierrez, (SONG OF THE SEA) Paul Young.]

GKIDS’ Head of Distribution, Dave Jesteadt, came in from NY to join a formidable panel on independent film distribution.

[From L to R: (Moderator) yours truly, (GKIDS) Dave Jesteadt, (Shout! Factory) Melissa Boag, (SC Films International) Simon Crowe.]

Tomm flew in the following day to attend The Hollywood Reporter Animation Roundtable.
Other panelists included, Bonnie Arnold (HTTYD2), Travis Knight (BOXTROLLS), Don Hall (Big Hero 6), Dan Lin (THE LEGO MOVIE) and Jorge Gutierrez (THE BOOK OF LIFE).

[The Hollywood Reporter Roundtable]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/inside-thrs-animation-roundtable-big-752078

Tomm and Paul then attended AMPAS’ Governors Awards which presented Maureen O’Hara, Jean-Claude Carriere and the legendary Hayao Miyazaki with an honorary Oscar® “to honor extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the Academy.”

[Paul, Tomm, John Lasseter and Hayao Miyazaki]

On Feb 9th, SONG OF THE SEA premiered at the iconic Egyptian Theatre (& Feb 12th at Mann’s Chinese 3) to an absolutely packed audience where, afterwards, Tomm & Paul entertained the crowd with a Q&A.

[AFI SONG premiere + Q&A at the historic Egyptian with Tomm & Paul]

Red Carpet photo courtesy of the AFI: L to R – Michael Sinterniklaas, Chris O Dowd, Dave Jesteadt, Paul Young, Tomm Moore and yours truly.

[AFI post screening celebration with Irish Animation Rock-stars.]

Paul had to head back home and Tomm & I then began to expand the West coast tour where, in addition to screening SONG, we brought along Alan Holly’s beautiful short film, CODA.

 [CODA, one of the 10 shortlisted films of 2014-15, by And Maps And Plans – Alan Holly & Ciaran Deeney.)

CODA is not a Cartoon Saloon-affiliated film but it is an Irish Film Board Short, was one of the 10 shortlisted films, and Alan Holly is a friend of The Saloon (having worked as an animator on both THE SECRET OF KELLS and Cartoon Saloon’s poem ON LOVE for Roger Aller’s film, THE PROPHET).  We were happy to bring this beautiful short along with us to screen as a double [Irish] billing.

February 13th, first on our tour, was the incredibly talented and receptive crew of PDI.
As of this post, we are all heartbroken to hear of the news of the closing of PDI and the layoffs at DW.  We know how gifted the entire crew is and our best wishes (and hearts) go out to them.

[PDI.]

The following day, we headed to Pixar where we had an amazing screening and truly wonderful day, thrilled to be amongst old and new friends.

[Pixar]

On the 15th, we only had a half day before we had to leave for the airport…

We had to practically RUN through the Walt Disney Family Museum (where, among a plethora of interesting things, we discovered Walt Disney’s ancestry traces back to – of all places, Kilkenny!).  We also ran over to the Cartoon Art Museum.

Holy Moly, those two places are San Francisco GOLD!

[Walt Disney Family Museum]

[Cartoon Art Museum, Photo courtesy of McCalls]

We are thrilled to be exhibiting works from both KELLS and SONG late February at The Cartoon Art Museum (more info TBA) and it was wonderful having a chance to meet with the museum’s curator to work out the logistics of the exhibit.

If you’re in the vicinity of the Bay Area from the end of Feb thru June (or so), please come by.  We will update with finalized details coming soon, check out the Cartoon Saloon website and also Cartoon Art Museum’s.

On Monday the 17th, SONG screened for Paramount’s animation department — which started another packed week…

Tuesday, we headed to Nickelodeon for another screening and Q&A and that evening a screening (and Q&A) at the NoHo 7 for our friends at ASIFA-Hollywood.

[ASIFA-Hollywood NoHo Screening & Q+A]

Sony Pictures Imageworks hosted us on the Wednesday and Tomm got a chance to chat with his Samurai Jack hero, Genndy Tartakovsky.

[Tomm & Genndy]

We also had a lovely tour of Sony’s autograph walls (amazing!), where Tomm had signed for KELLS & years later, Benjamin Renner signed for ERNEST & CELESTINE…

 [Our friend, Uli’s…]

[And, Otomo’s!]

On Thursday, we screened at both Disney Toons and Disney Feature and in the audience were fellow contenders (and as of this posting, fellow nominees & friends of The Saloon – Directors of BH6), Chris & Don.

[BH6 Directors, Chris Williams & Don Hall]

We also got an amazing in-depth studio lot tour by friend, Disney Legend (& fellow 2D Animation Vet), Tony Anselmo.

[Tony]

Our  friends Stephanie and Michael of NYAV Post also recorded extra commentary for SONG while Tomm was in town.  Thanks for squeezing us in, guys!

[Tomm recording for the DVD extras…]

We then joined our friend Stuart Ng at CTN for a book signing of DESIGNING THE SECRET OF KELLS…

[Book Signing]

We then had a packed screening of SONG (which, rumor has it, may have been the most well-attended event of the expo!).

[Panoramic, CTN SONG screening]

We also attended a panel on THE PROPHET with (our friend & colleague) Writer & Director, Roger Allers.  Cartoon Saloon’s poem, ON LOVE was shown and Tomm, along with other colleagues who participated in the film, joined Roger on stage to discuss next year’s film (to be distributed by GKIDS).

[The Prophet panel]

[The Prophet Crew]

On Monday, we received a wonderful screening reception from our very dear friends at DreamWorks and were invited to a lovely luncheon afterwards…

Again, we were heartbroken by the news of the closures and layoffs and our heartfelt best wishes go out to our friends & colleagues at DW & PDI.

Their artists cross-over talent in both 2D & 3D is exemplary– and their appreciation and genuine support for independent filmmaking is heartfelt.

[DW]

As were then headed to Portland, our Danish producer, Claus, shared the film at Titmouse…

Before Tomm & I flew to Portland, we were treated to a very special evening at the Disney Musical Hall: A David Oreilly Retrospective at the REDCAT.

[REDCAT]

On Tuesday, Nov 25th we arrived in beautiful Portland and screened for LAIKA.
As always, we had a lovely visit and then in the evening we had an ASIFA-Portland screening at Cinema 21.

[ASIFA-Portland]

We then went out with some friends before we called it a night.
Thank you, Portland.

[L to R: Evgeni Tomov, Chris Butler, Joan Gratz, Tomm Moore & yours truly]

And that concludes November…
Stay tuned for my December post and our amazing NY Premier…
Thx!!

jkb | Cartoon Saloon-US

Luxembourg premiere and Paris presentation

Yesterday I did a cross European international multi site super trip ;-) it was actually pretty fun - I went to Luxembourg early in the morning where I met Stefan Roelants , Raul Garcia and many old friends from the crew there for the lux premiere , then as soon as the movie started I jumped back on a train to Paris where I was met at the station by Laure from haut et court - very James Bond style we ran straight into a metro and jumped out at Les Halles to rush to Le Forum Du Images , where the making of presentation had already begun thanks to the kind help of Marion Roussel and Ornelie Prioule and of course Jeremie and Clement of Superprod , as it worked out the lights were down when I arrived and the trailer was playing, I snuck up to the table where the guys were presenting and Tadah! I was there for the second part of the presentation. It was a lot of fun and I met some lovely people afterwards as well. The evening was rounded off by a very nice quiet meal with some animation friends at Michel Ocelots lovely studio and appartment . this morning I did my last interview for French TV Tf1 here in the Irish Cultural centre. As I walk around Paris it seems "le chant de la mer" is everywhere , on posters and so on even in the metro , the books and soundtrack CDs are in shops , there's his been plenty of really lovely reviews and press - of course Nolwenn has been on TV and a great ambassador for the film - I feel all the ground work has been really well done for opening day on Wednesday. Now we can only hope that the audience shows up and enjoys the film we all worked so hard on the past few years .

Meanwhile we had a lovely series of reports from writer Will Collins who represented the film at the Doha film festival in Qatar and from ace animators alessandra Sorrentino and Alfredo Cassano who represented the film in Italy ! It's been great to have the team willing to promote and present the film these past few weeks .

Cd in shops in Paris now!

Luxembourg Background supervisor Pascal made a lovely exhibition for the Lux premiere. I would have loved to have stayed to catch the crews responses afterwards - I hope they enjoyed it.

Stefan and I hijack some obscure American studios marketing material to advertise Song of the Sea. It's from a little movie about a lost fish and vegetarian sharks or something- you probably never heard of it.

Me and victor ens  one of the great animators in Luxembourg who worked on the 2d animation there.

Some of the Luxembourg teams scenes from Rough to clean to final colour.

The impressively moustachioed Raul Garcia was in town as he and Stefan just finished their feature based on Edgar Allen Poe after 8 years ! 

studio 352 had a great trailer playing before the movie showing their work process on the film and some photos from our research trips in Sligo .

Then every thing looked like this for a bit while I rushed back to Paris to join the presentation at Forum du Images. 

Hooray! Always so surreal to see our work suddenly public and part of the visual environment ...

Lovely Liselott 

-the posters by night are all lit up ;-) 

In the metro!