The long road from Kells to LA

The worldwide recognition that comes with an Oscar nomination is something that is lusted after by filmmakers everywhere. For some larger studios, a film’s potential to win an Academy Award is sometimes the sole criteria for giving it the green light. Of course, this applies mainly to box-office busting, tear-jerking, high budget films.

For most investors, studios and filmmakers, the possibility of winning an Oscar will never actually become a reality. Unless, like the three founders of Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, you get lucky. Last month, it was announced that Cartoon Saloon’s 75-minute film, The Secret of Kells, had been nominated for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards.

Cartoon Saloon was founded in 1999 by Tomm Moore and Paul Young, and the pair were joined soon after by Nora Twomey. Since then, the company has remained fairly hidden from the spotlight. Until now. “We’ve been doing huge amounts of promotion and press work since the nomination was announced,” says Twomey. “I’m far too pregnant to travel [Twomey is due to give birth this May] but Paul and Tomm are over in LA and they said it’s just crazy. They were at the nominee luncheon yesterday, and Sandra Bullock asked Tomm if the seat next to him was taken. I think he was too shocked to tell her that he was holding it for Paul, who was in the toilet.”

The bulk of the Oscar nomination list is usually fairly predicatable, but Best Animated Feature remains one category that always has a few wildcards thrown in. Twomey said the nomination was completely unexpected. “We only got our US distributor about three days before the deadline for Oscar qualification. Our distributor applied for us, and we didn’t expect anything to come of it.” The Secret of Kells also received a nomination at this year’s Annie Awards (which are akin to the Oscars if you’re an animator) and Twomey says that alone was enough to keep her happy. “We were nominated for the Annie first, which was a complete shock. We thought we’d be bumped out by the likes of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.”

The film, and the animators behind it, already had a fanbase in the US long before any word of an Oscar or an Annie.

Company director Tomm Moore has been keeping a production blog of the film’s progress since 2004. “The blog really helped us to build up a fanbase overseas. We have a very strong following in the US now,” says Twomey.

Even with such a following however, the film’s release in the US was very limited. That is, of course, until its popularity was boosted hugely by the surprise Oscar nomination. It was announced this week that the film will now be released in LA, San Franscisco, Boston and Chicago from April 2.

Along with the other two founders of Cartoon Saloon, Twomey is a graduate of Ballyfermot College’s animation course, and wholeheartedly supports her alma mater. But the team behind The Secret of Kells are not the only graduates of Ballyfermot to grace the list of Oscar nominees this year. Daragh O’Connell and Nicky Phelan, both Ballyfermot College alumni, were also nominated for their animated feature, Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty. And, to round things off nicely, Richard Baneham was nominated for his visual effects work on Avatar.

Although Ballyfermot is not the only Irish college offering animation courses, Twomey says it is no coincidence that its graduates do so well. “The college really does offer fantastic training,” says Twomey. I think it’s less arty than other colleges. A lot of the work we did at Ballyfermot was centered on life drawing and anatomy, which really stood to us all.”

When asked why she chose to co-found an independent company rather than working for one of the big industry names, she answers simply, “freedom.” As a student, Twomey was chosen for an internship in Disney’s animation studio in Paris, but she would clearly rather remain as master of her own fate. “Cartoon Saloon has always been about design. Animation is a great business, but it is primarily a business. Hands always stay firmly on the purse-strings. By doing small-budget work, you have less people to answer to.”

Twomey says that although budget considerations are a big issue for the company, it would never have stopped The Secret of Kells from eventually being completed. “Tomm and Paul set up Cartoon Saloon so that they could make this film. It’s always been on the cards. It was always going to be made.” The distinctive style of the animation in The Secret of Kells, which has been widely praised, was actually quite budget-friendly, says Twomey. “We definitely don’t have the resources for Disney-style animation. The art direction of the film was influenced by the Book of Kells itself, so the animation was less layered, which meant the film was cheaper to make.”

In order to stay within budget, a lot of the animation on the Secret of Kells was outsourced to Hungary, with clean-up and final cuts completed in Ireland. Twomey says she doesn’t think this had a negative effect on the quality of the finished product. “The hub of the operation was always Ireland. We did about 20 minutes worth of the animation over here, to set the look and to set the standard.” The Irish team always had the final say, says Twomey.

“Tomm was the Art Director for the project, and I would have done a lot of fixing. We were sent the animation from Hungary, and I would draw over it if any changes were needed.”

Most of the film’s animation was done solely by hand, with just a few 3D sequences. Twomey says she’s always preferred the 2D style. “Animation is in a completely different place now to where it was when I graduated in 1997. But the company has always focused more on traditional animation- it’s what we were trained in.”

The Secret of Kells was originally meant to be a 15-minute short, but over the course of production, the team’s artistic vision has grown, and Twomey says she couldn’t be happier with the result. “We’ve always wanted to make this film, but it was always, ‘next year, it’ll get done next year’. I’m delighted it’s finished and that it’s done so well.”