simon's blog

Yesterday was spent at MIFA, we started on the terrace for a while and, thanks to an infernal confusion, were pestered off by a waiter so that we found it very difficult to eventually meet Hot Animation. Andi Copely the Managing Director and Liz Whitaker the Creative Director were on sterling form and we had a wide ranging conversation and very funny chat about all things HOT.

I met up with Clive Tonge who's film trailer we podcast earlier in the year. He's doing some business with it at the moment and talking to a few writers as well. He also told me that the film's title has now change to Miina and the Thief of Shadows.

We're big fans of this project and will be following it all the way... as I said yesterday it's well worth subscribing to the Imagine Podcast and hunting it down.

Just like any festival you go to you realise that with every decision to go to one screening you compromise a different screening but this year with multiple screenings across the week it is slightly easier. Yesterday I concentrated on seeing if there was anything that could potentially knock Azur et Asmar away from the winning slot and so far: there's nothing.

Mamoru Hosoda's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. while worth watching didn't really capture the imagination. Similarly Paprika by Satoshi Kon while a highly entertaining and surreal thriller ultimately wasn't up to the challenge set by Michel Ocelot. Both films from anime studio Mad House are high quality (they wouldn't be inthe selection otherwise) for me though, Paprika certainly a great film though and well worth seeking out.

As promised we were treated to a press conference with the director of this year's odds on favourite to win in the feature film category, Michel Ocelot.

Ocelot told of how his multi-lingual and anti-racist film Azur et Asmar is due out in the UK on the 19th of October. He is directing the dubbing and explained that he prefers creating independent dubbed versions of his films for each territory (which means he has one more visit left to the UK and then the English translation will be complete. It also means that he hasn't had a weekend or a holiday off in the last two years).

Due to moving his arrangement we had an impromptu chat with Hugh Welchman Managing Director of Breakthru Films and just five years out of film school. Hugh's an a very engaging chap and had a great deal to talk about with, it seems, Breakthru wanting to take on the world at the moment.

The Lost Town of Switez

This tale from the Polish answer to Goethe is being directed by Kamil Polak who was the Visual Effects Advisor on Peter and the Wolf and is due out on July 16th. Yet again the Se-ma-for the studio in Poland that created Peter and the Wolf are creating a film with startling visuals and a full orchestral score.

This week Imagine is at Annecy and from tomorrow, MIFA. Today promises a debate including Azur et Asmar's Michel Ocelot as well as a multitude of screenings. Azur et Asmar started showing just a few moments ago. I saw it as a special screening last year and also watched a 'making of' talk at FMX that went some way to explaining how this illustrated look was captured in CGI. This year the film is one of the nine titles in competition and should do very well.

I've already spoken about this in this week's email but I'm going to say it again... the Imagine community is beginning to use the site the way we meant it to be used.

Star member Emma Burch not only loaded a complete profile and then she went on to post one of Loose Moose’s virals on the Show and Tell pages.

We've just completed another interview for Imagine magazine, this time with Kyle Gabler who is, well, it's difficult to place him. He animates, he produces games and he calls himself an 'entertainment programmer' but mostly we were keen to get him in the magazine due to his work with The Experimental Gameplay Project though his work with a virtual reality version of Pong (in 3D) has to be seen to be believed or fully comprehended for that matter.

We’ve been massive fans of the game/tool Line Rider that appeared on the internet last September and it appears that someone has spent a great deal of their time recreating the first level of Super Mario Brothers on it.