My Dog Tulip review on the BBC

[Byron]

Just heard that My Dog Tulip is to be reviewed on the BBC Radio 4 arts program, Front Row in about ten minutes! Of course, I shall be listening - and I expect it will be available after the broadcast via the 'Listen Again' service.

Does this mean Tulip is to be screened in the UK? I expect I'll find out after The Archers!

[Paul Fierlinger]

Tulip is now playing in many places around the UK. Here's a list of the first reviews sent to us by the UK distributor:
(In the U.S. Tulip is everywhere available on Video on Demand, Amazon, and in July DVDs and BluRay disks will be on sale on Amazon too.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... eview.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/ar ... -1.1099574" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://living.scotsman.com/features/Fil ... 6763202.jp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.metro.co.uk/film/reviews/862 ... s-its-tail" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts-and-cul ... dog-.thtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bcc13698-7678 ... z1LZxTW8DO" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/may ... lip-review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/apr ... -thirlwell" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/theatr ... ulip-15003" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/my-dog-tulip" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/rev ... FID=137226" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/revi ... he-book.do" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Byron]

Ah - good stuff. Can't believe I missed that! My teachers always said I should pay more attention! The Front Row review was very positive. They particularly liked the animation and visual style. They weren't so keen on the scatological detail!

[Paul Fierlinger]

It can be heard here: (starts just before the middle; at 00:11:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b010t6cn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
She hates it; he loves it. She’s straight; he’s gay. It’s quite short but in my view, gives the film a good ‘go and see for yourself’.

[Byron]

Yes, I was disappointed that it was such a brief review. Nice to hear someone, in a non animation specific context, take the trouble to point out that the film is completely hand drawn using a paperless animation application, rather than implying, as reviewers often seem to do, that it is somehow 'computer generated'.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Sometimes the case might go towards the opposite nonsense, when I wish the writer had said nothing about how the film was made; cases when the reviewer says that this is the first hand drawn and painted film ever made, or just as bad, made with the latest software that gives the film a perfect hand made look.

To be so close to the subject is giving me an unasked for insight into how these reviews are hastily written. I can see how one writer is copying material from several writers down the road and, unknowingly, screwing up the facts along the way, where the next writer picks up the misinformation and turns the nonsense into something dumber. I am beginning to understand how few really good journalists even exist who are willing to diligently research their material before putting fingers to the keyboard. It reminds me of what Dick Cavett wrote in one of his books over 30 years ago, when contemplating the plethora of bad films and bad actors that flood the TV screens and arriving at the simple conclusion that the number of films demanded by the industry far outweigh the number of good filmmakers and actors available.

The ultimate democracy of the Internet brings this flotsam and jetsam right to the surface in streams, rivers and entire oceans of bad writers taking apart the good, the bad and the everything in between which calls itself Art and pollutes the Internet just as indiscriminately.

[Byron]

Indeed. I've had similar experiences with music journalists. On the whole, they know little or nothing of the technicalities of music production, but are happy to wax lyrical on the subject, safe in the knowledge that 95% of their readership are likely to be equally ignorant, which, as you say, is then compounded by the internet's gift to journalism: Copy & Paste Chinese Whispers!

[Paul Fierlinger]

From my British brother: It's on tonight on TV - BBC4 at 9.00 pm!

which I forwarded
to my producers and distributors with these words:

I guess it’s final then – Sandra and I don’t get to see another penny after all of the critical acclaim and world-wide dissemination of our work; indeed strange….

I am not so much hurt or insulted by this wide spread and unhappily accepted fact of life and business shared by most independent filmmakers today, but as a forewarning to all who consider the making of a feature film the brass ring of their careers: reconsider because that's not aiming high anymore.

[Paul Fierlinger]

And the unusually quick response from the distributor:

How are you, long time no talk.

I have been thinking recently, that a film so well done and with the reviews it got, why it is not performing better.

We sold it to Warner Brother for VOD
and the Internet hoping to put the film
in front of the bigger number of homes on their platform. It was a very big disappointment.

Their explanation was that this film that
we all loved appeal to an older more
sophisticated audience that doesn't see films on VOD.

We have not been able to sell the film
to TV, everyone has turned it down.

As of the last producer report we were unrecouped on our expenses. We will
continue to work hard on the film, but
I am afraid that it will continued to be and endeavor of love and not too much financial reward.

[Byron]

I watched My Dog Tulip tonight on BBC4 (ashamed to say that this is the first time I've seen it). I was utterly captivated from start to finish. A beautiful wonderful film.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Thanks. It says something to me about you too; not everyone likes this film, some hate it.

[Byron]

You're welcome. It got three stars in the Radio Times too - but alas no review on their film pages, which is an outrage! (I only spotted it by chance, as I tend to check what's on BBC4 as a matter of course). I see that the BBC are currently running it on their iPlayer, so I'm going to be recommending it to as many people as I can think of.

I think it's a shame that all the reviews seem to focus, often exclusively, on the scatological - surely some of them must have owned a dog! And the film is so much more than that.

[Paul Fierlinger]

The film is really about the desire of all of us to hold control over others -- whether we realize it or not; some of us are worse than others but we all do love to have control and this is why people love to have dogs; always willing to be at their master's service and only to give affection in return.

I see many faults in that film though and would have changed several scenes if I had been given the time and money. It is pure joy to work on another feature these days, over which I hold perfect control, not being hindered even by a deadline nor prescribed length of story. I already have drawn through the length of Tulip yet have covered just 2/3 of the story I want to tell. But Slocum is a story that my target audience of one will read/watch in segments of 5 or 6 minutes at a time, so it's a lot different than a one time sit-in for a theater audience to absorb the entire story's length.

Nevertheless it is unimaginable that a purse holder would sit still while I decide to replace poorly working scenes with better ones at my leisure.

[Klaus Hoefs]

I have always seen My Dog Tulip as a film based on American ways of thinking but with a great influence of European film tradition (Bergmann, Truffaut...). This is only one more interesting aspect of our film's many levels to watch and to think about.

Maybe it is an arrogant statement to ascertain beyond doubt that the paying audience (in general) has become stultified and is disregarding complex and sensitive approaches. Looking at the system with recipients, creators, producers, money lenders etc. it is like a down falling spiral of self-fullfilling - nowadays it has not much to do with the literal meaning of filmmaking.

But as it is with every decadent system the signs of decay (eg uniformity of animation films) are visible to everyone. For sure, the distribution system will change. With the new, steady establishing eMarket (or iMarket), Producers will have to find new tasks. Creators will have more independent chances - hopefully they can make a living of it.

[Paul Fierlinger]

But as it is with every decadent system the signs of decay (eg uniformity of animation films) are visible to everyone.

Simply said and so true. There is an information overload of audio and visuals everywhere too. So few people ever go to picture galleries anymore, or to music recitals, the theater or the movies, myself included. It's all ready packaged for me right here, on this same screen I am typing on. Whether good or bad, it is a new fact of our lives and one striking part of this new development delights me the most; the producer has been eliminated out of my life. Welcome the pirate; just half of the producer.