Opening for Croatian Animated Film Festival

[skomdra]

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I worked on it for three weeks. The characters from first part are main characters from the golden era of Zagreb Film. The Little Wolf is named by Croatian legendary animator Dušan Vukotić, whose name means a little wolf.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Nicely done and in keeping with the old but always fresh Zagreb school of animation. Is this because you were asked to adhere to the tradition or is the tradition naturally well and alive among younger Croatian animators?

[skomdra]

Is this because you were asked to adhere to the tradition or is the tradition naturally well and alive among younger Croatian animators?

Thank you, Paul.
I wasn't asked, it was my decision because it reflects what's happening today, we are discovering again what genius minds were here 40 yrs ago, not everybody, but group of new directors I am collaborating with. Wolf character is designed by young prosperous student of animation, so the message is, who understands, here is what it was before, and now new authors are coming. As Zagreb film serves as distributor and has enormous archive, it's natural that we use this as an resource and try to connect with aesthetics which shaped our cultural heritage. Tradition is not so alive, but clearly present, since old masters, most of them, are still alive and it's possible to speak with them and ask them for a help. For example, one of the pioneers Borivoj Dovniković had his film last year, and Pavao Štalter and Zlatko Bourek got funding for the next project. On the other hand, great films, like Surogat, Don Kihot, Satiemania, etc. almost disappeared from the school curriculum and having this characters exposed in the front of the young audience was my homage to this great authors.

If you are coming in June with Tulip, I would like to introduce the new generation of Zagreb animation to you and Sandra.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Have the old animators adopted digital technology? It seems that in many ways they were ahead of their times, because, like McLaren's or Buzzetto's works, much of it looks today as if it were drawn in software such as Flash or TVPaint had it existed back then. What should hopefully interest them too, is that the opening of the Internet for business with its trend towards small screens should be the ideal venue for their leanings towards individuation and simplified graphics with few, if any words.

Sorry, Sandra and I have no plans to visit Zagreb this year. Our producers have overloaded us with travel events and our own work is becoming very disrupted by these commitments.

[skomdra]

Have the old animators adopted digital technology?

Well, not, really. They use digital ink and paint, but still work traditionally on papers. Just new animators consider paperless animation. The same thing is with the Internet, lack of knowledge or strategy, so everything depends on few individual personal blogs, or at least Facebook.

For me, and few others, revolution was discovery of TVPaint and it's ability to use traditional knowledge, but I still have a hard time to find inbetweener or colorist who are willing to invest in license to start to use it. The old school masters are not aware of tablets and this is always struggle with producer in which equipment to invest, since 90% of 2d production is still on papers, so they always think about expensive solutions like Toonz or Toon Boom Harmony, etc, mainly for digital ink and paint and camera replacement.

I'm sorry to hear that you're busy for Zagreb, but it'll be plenty other opportunities some other year.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I had all but forgotten how those of my generation who remained in their homelands had been spoiled by the security of state sponsored studios. I had never fallen into that yoke because I started off as an independent animator right from my first film because the state run studios would not take me in -- which turned out to be a blessing for me in the end.

For you the solution would perhaps be to buy a second TVPaint set and hire colorists to work on your own equipment. This would make it easier to offset the hassles connected with rapid turnovers of colorists, because let's face it, not too many people want to remain colorists for too long. This way you could also create a small pool of temps whom you could circulate. Remember what Marx wrote in Das Kapital about those who own the means of production holding power over those who can't afford it but need the work.

[skomdra]

For you the solution would perhaps be to buy a second TVPaint set and hire colorists to work on your own equipment. This would make it easier to offset the hassles connected with rapid turnovers of colorists, because let's face it, not too many people want to remain colorists for too long. This way you could also create a small pool of temps whom you could circulate. Remember what Marx wrote in Das Kapital about those who own the means of production holding power over those who can't afford it but need the work.

I'm certainly gonna think about that I'm happy to see that old socialist jokes are still alive, same as here. I would like that state pays for few thousand licenses of TVPaint and give us instead of free, as some kind of infrastructure (like streets), I can handle the fee myself

[Paul Fierlinger]

Not to drag this private conversation too far, but just one more question; does everyone still get free rides on street cars in Zagreb? For those who haven't been there in the recent past, street cars were never free but everyone stopped paying at some point and the obdurate behavior was somehow tolerated by city officials, thus turning the public transport into a state sponsored system. Some habits are hard to overcome.

[skomdra]

Not to drag this private conversation too far, but just one more question; does everyone still get free rides on street cars in Zagreb?

Well, there are still those, very rare, who believe in system and honor (and believe that our country will become prosper), and they pay.