Alex Rockwell, Jim Henson's long-time right-hand woman, talks kids' content in today's animation landscape. From her experience wrangling muppets to her work on beloved kids' shows like Slumberkins and Word Party, Alex has gotten to grips with kids' content in just about every format. Tune in to find out how to identify your audience, what piece of the pitch package creates the most confidence in the room, and how content trends are changing to accommodate the new issues facing kids today. 

 

DAVID had a resounding opening weekend at the box office, beating out the animated competition to come in at second place behind AVATAR PART 3!

Find out why Pixar story artist Nathan Stanton, veteran of beloved titles including RATATOUILLE, WALL-E and FINDING NEMO, moved his family to Cape Town to help Sunrise Animation realise their longstanding dream of bringing the life of the Biblical David to the screen as an animated feature.

Hear about his beginnings on Tim Burton's THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, his learnings at Pixar, working with renowned directors including Pete Docter and his brother, Andrew Stanton, and the chain of events that led him to take a bet on a small African studio with a big dream. #animation #southafrica #davidmovie #pixar #storyboarding #faithbased

This December 19th, DAVID, the Biblical epic from Sunrise Animation Studios, will be hitting theatres!

In this first episode of the new season, host Julia Smuts Louw speaks with Brent Dawes about the equally epic journey it took to bring this labour of love to life.

Join us to hear how the team wrestled with bringing scripture to a modern audience in a fraught political times, the challenge of balancing mission-driven thinking with the capitalist realities of the film business, as well as numerous fascinating details on how the film's stunning visual style and arresting soundtrack were created.

For those considering crowdfunding, you'll also gather insight into the innovative - but complicated - business model with distributor Angel Studios, and the crowdfunding campaign that continues right to the present: preorder tickets are now available and currently have generated over $3 million in sales. 

 

 

Live from locked-down New York, Blue Sky's Jasmine Katatikarn tells us about her work as Senior Lighting TD, and the school she runs with colleague Mike Tanzillo, teaching the subtle art of lighting to students around the world.

Voice director Ned Lott talks about his career at the Disney dubbing group, including his opus: the seven Ghibli dubs that brought Hayao Miyazaki's films to an English-speaking audience. He is now working with Triggerfish on their new feature, Seal Team.

David Prescott, the VFX ninja grandmaster behind milestone box office hits like Titanic, Avatar, X-Men and Transformers, talks to Julia Smuts Louw about imposter syndrome, the importance of showers, and why there is nothing left for the VFX industry to do. Fighting talk...

We interview Aron Warner, producer of SHREK (and voice of the Wolf) about his new slate of international projects to be produced by Sony - as just announced at Annecy.

Peter Ramsey, director of the Oscar-winning animated feature Spiderman: into the Spiderverse, was a star speaker at this year's Cape Town International Animation Festival. Animation SA chatted to him about the film's innovative technical and artistic approach, and what the film means for Africans all over the world. Warning: spoilers abound!

Robert Valley, creator of the Oscar-nominated short film PEAR CIDER & CIGARETTES, offers his tips for Kickstarting a film project and shmoozing iconic bands.

Isaac Mogajane of Diprente Films and freelance rigging guru Judd Simantov discuss their collaboration on the kids' fantasy series, ANANSI, recently picked up for international distribution by InkGroup.

Animation SA chats to Michael Rose of Magic Light Pictures about the Academy Award-nominated animated short, Revolting Rhymes, and how they turned their adaptation of Julia Donaldson's runaway bestseller, The Gruffalo, into an international cottage industry.