by Samuel Ogilvie
Thanks to the Grenada Arts Council, I was able to take full advantage of the opportunity extended by the Caribbean Export Development Agency to participate in the prestigious Annecy Animation Festival in June 2022.
I have always been a fan of animation — whether it was the Saturday morning cartoons I used to wake up at 6 am to catch, or the video games that, over time, grew in complexity and artistry. I myself have been able to contribute a little to the local Grenadian animation scene through voice acting (Tamboulay’s Anansi and Friends web series), as well as some very light animation work in some of the documentaries that I have produced under my company, SOproductions Grenada. I’m thankful that these projects enabled me to be one of those selected many applicants from among the numerous Caribbean islands that Caribbean Export made the call to.
The agency covered airfare to France, festival registration and certain ground transportation costs — which left accommodation and meals to be taken care of. The Grenada Arts Council was kind enough to sponsor that aspect of my journey, which left me to fully enjoy and appreciate the experience with no extraneous worries.
And what an experience Annecy provided! From the get-go, I travelled in the company of regional animators from Trinidad, Jamaica, Belize, Martinique and Guadeloupe. Learning that there are already experienced Caribbean animation professionals working on an international level was heartening for my dreams of the wider Caribbean being able to make our mark on the global animation industry.
At the festival itself, I was able to network with industry professionals from huge, established companies such as Walt Disney, Nickelodeon, Paramount, Netflix and more. Of particular note was Latoya Raveneau, a director and executive producer with Disney who is of St Lucian parentage. She along with “Proud Family” creator Bruce W Smith and writer Ralph Farquhar, held a panel on the popular show’s recent continuation on Disney+ and the need for minority talent inclusion on large content platforms.
I was also privy to sneak peeks and Work-In-Progress (WIP) previews of upcoming television shows and movies. A huge standout to me was the “Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-Verse” preview and scene breakdown. They showcased 2 scenes — an early WIP action set piece and a character drama-focused scene.
It was fascinating hearing the directors dive into the breakthrough technology they developed to achieve their particular visions, and elaborate on their choices for scene direction. For the action scene, while the visuals were unfinished, the voice acting, sound effects and score were very much in place, and it was inspiring to see the steps to construct a narrative, borne directly from a collective imagination.
As a big Genndy Tartakovsky fan (his works include “Samurai Jack”, “Powerpuff Girls” and the “Hotel Transylvania” film series), I was thrilled to catch a preview and panel of his latest series, “Unicorn: Warriors Eternal.” Aside from showing the premiere episode, Genndy went into his love of traditional 2D animation and the influences that classic cartoons had on his own personal distinctive style. The series should premiere on HBOMax in 2023.
I also was pleased to meet animators from the African continent, including Francis Yashua Brown, the man behind Ghana’s first animated series/platform to be picked up by Amazon — “Mmofra.” He highlighted that there was a larger African presence in Annecy this year than the last festival, where he was the only representative. His words gave me hope for similar growth in Grenada and the Caribbean in the very near future.
I met Francis at the African Animators section of the trade fair/expo quadrant of the festival, called MIFA (Annecy International Animation Film Market), where multiple countries and companies had booths showcasing their Intellectual Properties (IPs), products and technologies. This is where I did a great deal of networking and collected a lot of cards, as well as to try out software and hardware that was useful for both animation and live action projects. This also marked my first experience with immersive Virtual Reality (VR). The VR storytelling found in VR short films definitely piqued my interest, and will be something I’ll be pursuing in the near future.
While the festival was held in France, communication was largely easy thanks to many of those in the industry being fluent in English. My tertiary courses in French at TAMCC from more than 20 years ago also came in handy. But above all else, it felt great being able to meet complete strangers and immediately feel that sense of camaraderie that comes with sharing common knowledge of a common interest.
Other highlights included seeing a few celebrities, learning what the big studios are looking for and how soon they want to be involved in projects through panel discussions. One thing that I was disappointed in was the absence of the scheduled moderator for a pan-African content acquisition meeting, which I was hoping would be a channel through which Caribbean animated content could be displayed to the wider world.
Truthfully, the festival was a bit of a whirlwind experience – dizzying with the sheer scope of events that were taking place simultaneously, and somewhat opaque with pertinent, helpful information that could have made my experience (and many other festival attendees, from my conversations with them) more efficient.
However, what I did experience felt like a huge step in the right direction for the Caribbean, and I hope to be able to do my part to bring Grenada into that realm. Should I be blessed with the opportunity to return in 2023, I will be more than ready to make the best of all that the Annecy Festival has to offer.
Samuel Ogilvie has availed himself of opportunities for growth through his involvement with the international work of the Grenada Arts Council (GAC). In 2019 he visited the Biennale di Venezia with a group of young artists from Grenada, and in 2022 he was part of the collective that represented Grenada. These activities are generally preceded by an open call for which anyone can apply. He has represented Grenada well.
GAC