Cartoon Forum Report #2

Having a look first thing in the morning, it seemed that wrestling with Windows while setting up for presentations was the first order of business. Everyone was in quite a fluster with their Media Players and their Powerpoints.

Later in the day, it was more about people avoiding AWN's Ron Diamond, who is a staple at the forum. Ron's a nice guy and all but, well, he's not as pretty as Kidscreen Magazine's Jocelyn Christie, who now sports a short do that rather suits her. And Ron does have a tendency to just stick to you.

Bloody hell, the opening speeches dragged. They brought in the Burgermeister (very cool name) but he lost me when he started waffling on about Web 2.0. Just show the goddam trailers. Lunch was worse. Three hours for lunch?! Mostly just so they could waffle on and on and then on some more. That's nothing new in the Cartoon Forum but it's not something you can ever get used to.

So, on to today's projects. Well, I'm not at some of them (I'm here typing this) but I was at a few and saw trailers for all of them so here's what stood out -

Bamse and the Time Travel Machine - Ugh. No. You need know no more.

Paper Bag Lady - I liked the look of this. It's quirky. The trailer gave me no idea what it was about and, as I didn't go to the presentation, I still don't know but what the hell - I liked it.

Plankton Invasion - Everyone went to this. Like, everyone. Because it looked expensive. Every year there are a couple of projects that, regardless of content, look expensive. This was one of them. A CG thing that basically puts the blame for global warming, ecological disasters and all of the world's ills at the feet of... plankton. Yep, those bastards the plankton have ruined the planet for the rest of us. They claim to have quite a web presence already. The producers I mean, not the plankton themselves.

Adventures of Akiba and some other guy (can't quite remember the name) - Okay, what were you thinking? Have you been to the forum before? Or heard of it? The idea is that you show a trailer - not a storyboard. If you can't crank out 45 seconds for the forum, who is going to believe you can produce a 52 x 13' show?!

Operation Lynx - Oh dear lord, shoot me now. Horrific. Save the Endangered Specie. Yes, specie. You heard me. An awful 3D thing.

Captain Romance - Looks lovely in stills. Like a storybook in colouring pencils. Doesn't quite work as well in motion. Still, not bad.

Rah Rah - This is from the Frankenstein's Cat guys (I think) and this one is a really sweet preschool thing about a lion done in 3D. The voice of the lion is painful but, aside from that, I like this. It might be a little Pocoyo and follows a similar narrator/character thing but, what the hell, who said there was originality in animation? This is different - it's a lion. Yeah, I quite like this one.

There were a bunch more that I can't remember or were rubbish. The obligitory adult ones too that think they are shocking but aren't from people who don't realise all the buyers at the forum are from children's channels.

This evening, there is a trip to some monastery, which I may or may not go to, and then some big party thing where they'll make me drink lots of beer and miss tomorrow morning's presentations as a result. Why is it so many animation people are such beer drinkers? I don't know but the forecast is for hangovers and lots of them.

And that is the first day of projects at the forum. Hopefully, I'll have another update tomorrow at some point but can't quite say when.