Hair(less) The Musical!

Got the chance to see a terrific forty-five minute cartoon musical this weekend at the Royal Cinema in Toronto.

The RUBY GLOOM characters were all singing and all dancing. With a great music score by Ray Parker and Tom Szczesniak, (the same guys who created our COOLMAN! music), HAIR(LESS) sounded and looked gorgeous. Director Robin Budd and his crew pulled out all the stops. Pretty nice stuff for a television budget animated in Toon Boom Harmony. Why not release this on the big screen?

Mr. Coolman goes to Stuttgart...

We're happy to announce that two of the COOLMAN! shows; DEEP SEA BLUES and HOOTCHY KOOTCHY HAIKU, have been selected for the competition ANIMATED SERIES at the 13th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film to take place on April 27 – May 2, 2006 in Stuttgart, Germany. This is a big deal and an honour.

As a change of pace, here's a taste of the storyboard from DEEP SEA BLUES, written by John van Bruggen and storyboarded by Steve Whitehouse. Steve was Flash animation designer for COOLMAN!, and also animator for the entire five minute DEEP SEA BLUES. Congrats to Steve!

Our animators for Hootchy Kootchy Haiku were: Jens Pindal, Daniela Strijleva and James Robertson of Iron Scythe fame. Congratulations, guys!

Mr. Coolman goes to Chicago

We're pleased to announce that our show, COOLMAN! DEEP SEA BLUES, written by John, will screen in competition at The Chicago International Children’s Film Festival (Oct. 27th to Nov. 6th). Here is the link to info on the screening. DEEP SEA BLUES was animated entirely by our friend Steve Whitehouse. He also storyboarded this 5 minute episode and adapted all our character designs to Flash. Kudos to Steve!

In total, four of Nelvana's Funpak shorts were accepted for final competition:

Harold Rosenbaum: Ledger Lad Liquidation
Coolman!: Deep Sea Blues
Gruesomesteins Monsters: Russell's Tussle
Rotting Hills: Drive to School

Congratulations to Matt Ferguson (Harold Rosenbaum), Glen Wyand (Rotting Hills), and Mark Ackland and Riccardo Durante (Gruesomestein's Monsters)!

Mr. Coolman goes to Ottawa

Last year (2004) we created five pilot episodes of COOLMAN! for NELVANA'S FUNPAK, an animated anthology series which aired this year on YTV. You'll find blogs from other Funpak creators in our links list at the left.

We're happy to say that one of our 5 episodes for COOLMAN! is screening in competition at this year's Ottawa International Film Festival, which starts this week. We're especially pleased to be in a category that is new this year: 'Animated Television Series For Adults.' Here's a still from the episode in competition, Hootchy Kootchy Haiku:

Some quick credits for COOLMAN!: Steve Whitehouse was our amazing animation designer. Our animators for Hootchy Kootchy were: Jens Pindal, Daniela Strijleva and James Robertson. BG artists: Kelly de Vries and Joseph Sherman. Our fabulous music designers: Ray Parker and Tom Szczesniak. Voice artists: Ron Pardo (Coolman), Emilie-Claire Barlow (Grace) and Gary Krawford (Professor Prufrock). Casting and Voice direction: Jessie Thomson. Picture editing by: Annellie Samuel and Jason Cohen. Sound editing by: Super Sonics Productions Inc. Thanks to Chris Labonte for creative consultation and support. Everybody gave 200% on this show!

More about COOLMAN! will follow in later posts.