I've got to say, the French have got it going on when it comes to children's animation. We've loudly sung the praises of Michel Ocelot in these pages and now it looks as though French animation house Gebeka have got something truly remarkable coming in Tom Moore's Brendan and the Secret of Kells. We've written about this one a couple of times in the past and while it still seems a little surprising to base a children's film on the creation of one of the most famous pieces of Biblical calligraphy in the world Moore has taken that as his starting point and built something truly striking out of it.
We've posted the trailer in the past and now that trailer is joined by three extended clips from the film. You'll find them all below the break. Tasty/
Clip One
Clip Two
Clip Three
Trailer
Looks very interesting. Wish I spoke French, though....
Your comment is a sad example of poor research. And spelling. Cartoon Saloon is one producer of several, France's Gebeka being a major contributor without whom the film wouldn't have been made. And you are, of course, aware that ALL animation is dubbed? This is the French dub, yes, but it is no less 'original' than the English - for which no trailers or clips have been released to my knowledge yet, the French version being the first out of the gate - as it was prepared right at the beginning of the production process.
agree. anyway, the movie has been produced by ireland, france and belgium but it has to be said that the creative side is basically irish, as the story and concept were born about ten years ago at cartoon saloon and developed there for a long long time before getting into coproduction. about the original language, the characters' lips has been animated on the irish audio track, so in that way you can say that the french version is a dubbed one.
http://theblogofkells.blogspot.com/2005/12/hohoho.html
http://theblogofkells.blogspot.com/2006/05/voice-recording.html
You'll like this one (SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 01, 2009)
http://theblogofkells.blogspot.com/
As a more specific correction, Gébéka is not an animation studio but a distributor of films in France who specialise in features and package films aimed at families and children, many of which are animated and a smaller number – including Ocelot's Princes et princesses and Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages – they've also produced but Brendan is not one of these; they're only distributing it. The animation production companies that joined forces with Cartoon Saloon to realise it as a feature were Les Armateurs in France (who were the main producer of the Kirikou films and Les Triplettes de Belleville and also did the digital ink and paint for at least the first of those), who outsourced their third of the animation to Kecskemet Film in Hungary, and Vivi Film in Belgium, who outsourced their third rather closer to home – to Walking the Dog, also Belgian. See http://theblogofkells.blogspot.com/2006/03/co-production.html for the full breakdown of who did what and why and how.
The screenplay, based on Moore's story, was written by a French person, Fabrice Ziolkowski, whom I imagine would have thought of it in English and French simultaneously. But the English version does indeed seem to be the one recorded first, to the animatic, which the animation will then have been based on.