My short film Requiem for Romance, made it all the way to the shortlist for the Academy Awards. This week the nominations were announced and unfortunately for my film, it did not advance. Congratulations to the 5 films that got nominated, Feral, Mr. Hublot, Possessions, Get a Horse and Room on the Broom. I also want to make mention of the 3 NFB films that were also on the shortlist Gloria Victoria, Subconscious Password and Hollow Land, with The Missing Scarf rounding out the list. It was an honour to be in your company! The whole process was an up and down whirlwind, but similar to a lottery ticket, it gave me the ability to really imagine how far the film could go.
During the shortlist stage, I had a job interview for a short term storyboard contract in Montreal to work on the animated feature film, The Little Prince, based on the famous children's book. The film's director is Mark Osborne, the director of Kung Fu Panda. During the interview, I showed my film, and he already knew it had been shortlisted which was probably a big plus in getting me hired. He'd been through that whole process before and he was really excited for me and seemed happy to hire me. Work on The Little Prince has been super fun and engaging. Mark is a really great director and I think the film is going to be a huge success.
One of my favourite films from the past year, Ernest et Célestine, was recently nominated for an Academy Award in the Feature Animation category.
The animation team from Ernest et Célestine will be the head studio in France working with our studio in Montreal on the Jacques Tardi film Un Monde Truqué, which starts in March, immediately after my contract on The Little Prince ends. I am really excited about this project, as it looks like a cross between Tintin and Steamboy, with a great story, and I feel that the level of animation is so incredibly high, that I will grow even more from it.
The week prior to the Academy Award nominations, some other good news dropped for me as far as my personal work. My collaboration with Kid Koala, and Hollolabs got major funding from the CMF for the development stage of a Floor Kids mobile game. Pretty much my dream come true!
Not to mention that I signed the writer's agreement with my executive producer for my full-length animated film Legend of Cloud and Phoenix. The story is ironing itself out as the co-writer and I continue to reshape the story's structure. I'm slowly starting to storyboard key sequences for it as well.
2013 was a great year to sail the world with my film and it finished off with a shortlisting, an honour I did not expect. 2014 has begun and it will be yet another year of epic production!
