Event organizers also revealed that Hugo’s award-winning vfx supervisor Rob Legato will the be main speaker at the conference, as well as Pixomondo’s Ben Grossman. Matthew Gratzner (New Deal Studios) will also be on hand to dissect the famous train sequence in a second presentation. While New Deal Studios created the train as a model both in the computer and on set before the crash was filmed, Pixomondo created further visual effects, which involved, amongst others, texturing the train and turning it into a digital model.

Hugo (left) and Game of Thrones

VFX supervisor Murray Barbar and head of production Nick Drew (The Mill) will also reveal some of the tricks of their trade at a special session devoted to HBO’s Game of Thrones. 
VFX  supes Juri Stannosek (Pixomondo) and Rainer Gombos will also share some of the cool surprises in store for fans in the second season of the show based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling fantasy series. In addition, Christian Cordona (Look Effects) will share some of her insights about working on the popular crime series Bones


FMX 2012 - The17th Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia

FMX is an event by Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg, organized by the Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction, which hosts the Animation Production Day 2012 (APD), a joint venture with the Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart (ITFS). It is an event in cooperation with Visual Effects Society (VES), ACM SIGGRAPH, 5D Institute and the Stuttgart Media University (HdM), supported by Autodesk. For more up-to-date info, visit www.fmx.de

Check out last year’s VES-Award-winning trailer here:

Broadwater determines the strategic technology direction for the company including infrastructure, business and digital systems and client services. Broadwater first joined the Workshop in 2003 as a consultant, and most recently served as the VP, Information Systems since 2005.

Prior to joining the Workshop, Broadwater worked as a consultant for the New York Times, J.P. Morgan Chase, Canon USA and Sony. He has been featured in numerous publications for his work and expertise about technology as a change agent, including the topics of Identity controls, Open Source, Virtualization, and the consumerization of Enterprise IT, and has co-authored books on Cloud Computing and Business Process Management.

Sesame Workshop

“With both Cookie Jar and Dish transforming from traditional media companies to digital powerhouses, we are very excited to be a launch partner for Dish’s Blockbuster TV entertainment package,” said Toper Taylor, president and COO of  Cookie Jar. “Blockbuster is one of the best brands in family entertainment, and shows from Cookie Jar’s episode library will be a powerful engine for creating consumer awareness and success.”

For more information, visit www.cjar.com.

Dish Network

Adam Goodman, president of the Paramount Motion Picture Group, said: “We are grateful for the time David spent at the studio and we wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Goodman will directly oversee the animation development team moving forward.

Last year, Paramount released Rango, the company’s first fully owned CGI animated property, which grossed more than $240 million worldwide and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. The studio also helped finance and distribute Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, an animated film from director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson, which has grossed $372 million worldwide. Initially, the plan for the new division was to release one animated movie a year beginning in 2014.

Paramount

Barker co-wrote Working Class Hero with American Dad animator Brent Woods and the show’s staff writer Jordan Blum, who co-wrote an episode of the animated comedy earlier this season. Woods and Blum are the show’s co-exec producers, while Oswalt is producer. Oswalt, repped by CAA and Generate, will produce. Fox’s latest Sunday night toons, Allen Gregory and Napoleon Dynamite haven’t fared too well in the ratings and reviews departments, but last year’s newbie Bob’s Burgers was renewed for a second season.

Patton Oswalt

The channel’s three initial animated series are the start of a multi-year programming plan:

• Bravest Warriors, created by Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time), stars four 16-year-old heroes-for-hire warping around galaxies, saving cute alien worlds with their emotions. Breehn Burns (Dr. Tran) will executive produce and write.

• Based on his comic book series, James Kochalka’s SuperF*ckers follows the non-heroic adventures of a group of superheroes who drink, smoke, and swear, yet do nothing super (except by accident). Kochalka, the Vermont Cartoonist Laureate responsible for the Ignatz Award-winning online comic diary American Elf, will write. Indie filmmaker Fran Krause (“Nosy Bear”) is on board as showrunner. SuperF*ckers will be produced in association with Top Shelf Productions.

• Under the Cartoon Hangover banner, Frederator will also produce a series of original cartoon shorts (The Cartoon Hangover Show) in the tradition of the company’s run of development projects for Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. Those programs are now responsible for launching more than a dozen hit series including The Fairly OddParents, Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, and Adventure Time.

“More than anything, we’re eager to help and support cartoon filmmakers, tomorrow’s hitmakers, realize their animated visions of remarkable stories and terrific characters,” says Frederator VP of Development Eric Homan. “Holy hell, are these cartoons funny,” adds Frederator founder and president Fred Seibert. “We’re confident our cartoons will put all other so-called Internet cartoons to shame. Eat it, broadcast TV!”

Frederator's Cartoon Hangover

Frederator Studios was founded by Hanna-Barbera president Fred Seibert in 1998 as a unique incubator for big animation ideas by producing original cartoons. More than 200 short films have resulted in 16 hit series for television and the Internet, including Butch Hartman’s The Fairly OddParents, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Dexter’s Laboratory, Craig McCracken’s The Powerpuff Girls, Eric Robles’s Fanboy & Chum Chum, and Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time. Frederator is also in partnership with Sony Pictures Animation to develop and produce feature animated films, and YouTube to create new cartoon content and channels.

“This will be the fifth short anthology show we’ve produced over the years,” adds Seibert. “We will be looking for outrageous, funny shots targeting over-14 age group. We’re always searching for the next great animation star, just as we did in the past, working with amazing talent such Genndy Tartakovsy, Craig McCracken. Butch Hartman and Penn Ward. We’re fortunate to be witnessing an unbelievable phase of our business, where shows such as Gumball , Adventure Time and Regular Show have allowed new voices to create dynamic content for a new world.”

Frederator is currently looking for Cartoon Hangover pitches. For more information, contact Eric Homan at eric@frederator.com.

Described a a Romeo and Juliet story set against the colorful Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, the movie was penned by Gutierrez and Doug Langdale, whose long list of credits includes The Return of Jafar, Darkwing Duck, The X’s and Kung Fu Panda. It represents the first time in almost twenty years — since 1993’s Cronos — that del Toro has collaborated on a feature project set in Mexico.

“I have admired Jorge’s work for a long time,” say del Toro. “He has a unique aesthetic and sense of humor. Day of the Dead offers a perfect opportunity for his sensibilities to shine. This is a colorful, vibrant, vital fable that utilizes the animation medium in an incredible way. The object of the tale is not only to talk about life but to dazzle us – jolt us- into living to the fullest. To join Reel FX, Cary Granat and Jorge in this adventure is a privilege and a joy.”

Guillermo del Toro

In addition to Day of the Dead, Reel FX has secured and is actively developing multiple CG-animated and effects-driven, live-action projects. Projects underway include an animated feature adaptation of the Dark Horse graphic novel, Beasts of Burden, produced by Andrew Adamson (Shrek) and Aron Warner; and Turkeys, the studio’s CG-animated comedy directed by Jimmy Hayward (Horton Hears a Who!) Reel FX also produced I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, and the other recent 3-D CG-animated Looney Tunes shorts, in conjunction with Warner Bros. Animation.

About seven years ago, Aardman veteran Michael Rose set up Magic Light Pictures, a London-based indie production company with Martin Pope. Rose, who produced the Oscar-nominated The Gruffalo (2009) and this year’s BAFTA-nominated The Gruffalo’s Child, is also one of the producers of the acclaimed feature Chico & Rita, which is one of the five titles nominated for an Oscar this year for Best Animated Feature. We recently caught up with him to find out about his latest animated adventures:

Animag: We have written about The Gruffalo at length in the magazine, but haven’t had a chance to cover the sequel, The Gruffalo’s Child. Can you tell us a bit about the production?

Michael Rose: The special was based on the sequel by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, which is about the Gruffalo’s daughter, who sets off in the woods to discover the big mad mouse. We produced the film, with the same team as the first one, animated at Studio Soi in Germany, who did an amazing job. It aired on The BBC in the U.K. over the Christmas holidays and got over one million viewers.

It was directed by Johannes Weiland and Uwe Heidschotter, two very talented young directors, and features the voices of Helena Bonham Carter, James Corden, Robbie Coltrane, Shirley Henderson, Tom Wilkinson and John Hurt. We’re in early discussions with a U.S. broadcaster to air it as well.

Chico & Rita

Animag: Congrats on all the global acclaim that your feature Chico & Rita has received this year. How did you get involved with that project?

My partner Martin Pope and I got involved as producers back in 2003. That’s when I was introduced to the work of Javier Mariscal, who is one of Spain’s greatest designers. He had an idea to work on an animated feature film with Fernando Trueba, the director of the Oscar-winning movie Belle Epoque. They were looking for an international partner and Javier had never worked on an animated project before, so that’s how Martin and I got involved. We started working together, and we were able to bring half of the money from outside of Spain.

We describe the movie as an animated love story for grown us. I used to work at Aardman and helped produce features such as Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit. When I set up my own company in London, my goal was to produce indie animated movies for adult audiences. Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville was  released and opened up opportunities for similar adult fare. When we went around shopping Chico & Rita, everyone loved the pitch, but they thought it would be risky. It was easy to find people who loved what we were doing, but hard to get funding. However, we were fortunate to get funding by Isle of Man Film and CinemaNX.

The film took Mariscel’s natural graphic style as an artist, retaining those thick black lines and distinctive style and Mediterranean color palettes and turning that to animated characters that you could really believe and follow in 90 minutes through an emotional narrative. That’s why it took a number of years to find the right style and deliver the right kind of animation. The core of the creative work was done at Estudio Mariscal in Barcelona, closely supervised by Javier himself [using Toon Boom Harmony]. Overall, we had eight or nine 2D studios complete the animation work.

Were you surprised by the positive buzz the movie has generated all around the world?

Yes, I have to say we are both surprised and delighted. It took us close to eight year to make the film, and it was a labor of love for everyone. To have it recognized by the Academy and the European Movie Awards as been truly wonderful and beyond our dreams. We are walking on air. Chico & Rita was our second success after The Gruffalo, and it validates our belief in quality.

The Gruffalo’s Child

Can you tell us a bit about how you go about choosing your projects?

Martin and I have this small company. I’ve worked a lot of animation, but in features and shorts at Aardman, and Martin comes from live-action feature film production. What’s really important for us is the marriage between the right technique and story—finding the right approach that would serve the story best. Our next project is another half-hour animate film based on the book Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. It will be airing on the BBC in the U.K. this Christmas. We’re very happy to be working with Max Lang, who directed the original Gruffalo special. It’s a comedy about a witch and her cat who give rides to the animals they meet along the way. The animation is handled by Studio Soi in Germany, using the same techniques they used on The Gruffalo. They create the CG animation based on model sets, which provides the film with a similar texture as model animation. I love the way it looks.

Do you have any helpful tips for creative people setting out to do top-quality animated projects the way you and Martin do?

I think producing films or TV is always difficult any time. My belief is that if you focus on quality, you’ll find a way to make it. I’ve always been optimistic about the business. I believe that if the material is good, you’ll find the right way to do it. You’ve got to have a fundamental belief in quality. Just like at the variety of animated films that we saw in 2011. There were so many good projects that weren’t even nominated. It’s exciting to see all these wonderful movies that used so many different styles and techniques to tell good stories.

For more info, visit www.magiclightpictures.com

Michael Rose (left) and Martin Pope

The kids comedy/action franchise, based on the manga by Fujiko Fujio, is popular throughout Asia and has aired on Nick India since 2006, with the new episodes set to debut in May. Writers and directors from Shin-ei will collaborate with a 100-animator team at Reliance to create new high def 2D-animated episodes.

“This is our first collaboration with any Indian company, and this was also a challenge for us to transform the classic show into an all new digitally mastered show without losing the look and feel of the original episodes. Our hope is to get Ninja Hattori out to more children all over the world,” said Shin-ei Animation producer Satoshi Kaisho. Reliance COO Naresh Malik added: “Being associated with some of the top Japanese talent through Shin-Ei and TV Asahi for such a legendary show and bringing it back through digital technology will be an immensely challenging and great working experience for our animation team.”

Ninja Hattori

The sole Canadian engagement for “An Evening with Don Hertzfeldt” will include the screening of the entire Everything Will Be OK trilogy, of which Beautiful Day is the final installment. The films will be followed by a live on-stage interview and audience chat with the animator. Hertzfeldt’s latest effort is at 23 minutes his longest and most ambitious project to date, blending multiple animations and photography techniques. The film recently screened as part of the Sundance Film Festival’s shorts program in January.

Tickets to the screening and exclusive after party are available now at www.taafi.com/donhertzfeldt; proceeds will go to support the inaugural TAAFI event taking place July 6-8 this year.

Toronto Animation Arts Festival International

"An Evening with Don Hertzfeldt"