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An Idiot’s Guide to becoming a Multi-Oscar nominated Irish Animator - Interview with Cartoon Saloon's Paul Young
29 Jun 2015 : Paul Byrne
Cartoon Saloon’s Paul Young
With not one but two Oscar nominations under their belt, Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon are clearly doing something right. But, how do the numbers add up? Paul Byrne gets the lowdown from Paul Young, the producer behind ‘The Secret Of Kells’, ‘Song Of The Sea’ and TV’s ‘Puffin Rock’...

It’s the stuff of fairytales. Cartoon fairytales, to be precise.

Three friends, Tomm, Nora and Paul, meet up at college, each of them pretty much obsessed with animation, and decide, hey, even though we’re Irish, and we’re broke, and have no connections, let’s start up our own cartoon studio! And make great big animation films that are original, daring and Oscar-worthy!

And so it came to pass.

Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey and Paul Young created Cartoon Saloon fresh from studying classical animation together at Ballyfermot College in Dublin, their tiny little studio producing not one but two Oscar-nominated features so far - 2010’s The Secret Of Kells and this year’s ‘Song Of The Sea’ - alongside a growing roster of TV hits, such as this year’s ‘Puffin Rock’.

With ‘Song Of The Sea’ - due to hit Irish screens on July 10th - picking up Best Irish Film at this year’s IFTAs, Cartoon Saloon are already going into production on ‘The Breadwinner’, an Afghanistan-set children’s tale based on the 2000 book by Deborah Ellis. The film will mark Nora Twomey’s solo debut as a director, having worked alongside Moore on ‘The Secret Of Kells’.

Add to that the success of ‘Puffin Rock’ on TV, this small Irish animation outfit are certainly on the rise. We managed to grab producer Paul Young to find out the secret of Cartoon Saloon’s success.

Paul Byrne: So, how the hell did three Irish film students end up in the ring with the likes of Hayao Miyazaki and the Pixar posse?

Paul Young: ‘Do you know what, we’re still trying to figure that one out. I think it must be something to do with just caring about the work, first and foremost. I don’t think anyone with an eye to a career in animation would have been impressed with our business plan - mainly because we didn’t really have one. Other than getting the money together to actually make our films, we didn’t really think about the profit margin, and the merchandising, and the franchise spin-offs.’

‘We’re just not wired that way. Or that smart, to be more precise.’

So, given that you’re high up the food chain in regard to animation internationally, is it all plain sailing when it comes to getting those humungous budgets sorted, or is it always a struggle?

‘Well, we’ve really got two sides to it, in a sense. We have the TV series side to the business, and that’s much quicker commercially - for example, the latest, ‘Puffin Rock’, has sold to Netflix, which is great; means we don’t have to keep chasing loads of sales. With features, the process is much longer, and I don’t think we’ve hit upon the perfect business model yet. There are returns coming back now from ‘The Secret Of Kells’, so, more and more, we’re hoping to cut out the middle men, and, for example, do deals directly with theatrical agents in North America and then VOD. Rather than having lots and lots of small distribution deals all over the planet.’

‘I’m actually over in Germany at the moment, as part of the Ernst & Young’s annual Young Entrepreneur Of The Year - we’re finalists this year - and, gosh, I’m learning a lot about that part of the business at the moment. Getting directly to your fanbase, basically.’

The internet is changing the film industry day-by-day, it seems...

‘Absolutely. Had some really interesting conversations recently with Indiegogo [the largest global site for fundraisers], there’s a chance that, now that Cartoon Saloon is quite well known, there’s potential there to do a special, or a spin-off of something we’ve already done, and try to do that completely through Indiegogo. You can have it that 40% of your budget raised will go back to the those who contributed in rewards. You can be very transparent about that upfront, and that’s definitely an interesting model to work from.’

‘It’s just hard for us when we were starting out, because you’re looking for somewhere in the region of €6million to make a film. It’s getting easier now, thanks to the success; the next one is €10million, but we have that money already without selling all over the world. For ‘The Breadwinner’, we’ve raised that $10million through Canada, Ireland and Luxembourg, and we have the entire North America and everywhere else yet to sell to. What happens is, when you co-produce with four other territories, a lot of your market is already gone - so, you have a much slower return. You expect a return for everyone, but, it’s just much slower.’

How much of an effect has the Oscar nominations had on getting that budget money to flow?

‘Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It took us, for example, about five years to get the money for ‘The Secret Of Kells’, and then we had a two-year production time. We started the company by doing a trailer for ‘The Secret Of Kells’, and we had to work on other things to pay the bills until that was finally realised. With ‘Song Of The Sea’, it was a shorter turnaround, but it had its own challenges. We decided to just work with production studios in Europe, feeling that they would be much more engaged, and not being just a service studio. This time round, it just took two years to put ‘The Breadwinner’ budget together, and with much more interest from big names. We’ll be announcing in a couple of months a major star attached to this one, which will help support the film.

From the financiers’ point of view, I’m sure there looking for more Lasseter and less Miyazaki. Have you had to change your way of thinking, given how tough the market is out there?

‘We’ll never go there, because I’m a big believer in being niche, being global. There’s no point in trying to compete with the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks - they do a great job of those big movies, and I love watching them, but they’ll have one big massive money supplier, and that’s just not us. Because we’re never going to reach those kind of budgets and own the stuff, own the stuff we make, we have plans to do licensing and merchandising around the characters we create, as with Puffin Rock and the books. In order for our business not to be so short-term, and just surviving from film to film, we want to own the stuff and grow the business that people will recognise the name and want to see what we have to offer. You want to have your own individual stall, and establish a brand, an expectation.’

‘I think when our next film comes out, there will be a fanbase there who will go and see it because it’s from Cartoon Saloon. And they might be inspired to buy the three movies before that. With every movie that we do, people will be interested in all our other work. And we’ll build up a relationship with the likes of Amazon and Netflix, and people like that, and get more of a direct line to the people who want to see our movies.’

Given what you know now about the animation industry, would you have any words of advice for any budding Tomm, Nora or Pauls starting out in Ireland today?

‘I think the big lesson is that, no matter how good your idea might be, they’ll die away without a good team to push them through. So, you can turn any great idea into a film, a TV series, a short, if you’re working with the right people. For young people, the faster you start working with other people, the better. On your own, it’s very difficult. Even writers have to get out there and start working with directors, with other writers. Sometimes creative careers start very lonely, but even the most fine art painter figures out that they need a team around them.’

‘Song Of The Sea’ hits Irish cinemas July 10th. Check out the trailer below:





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