FINNISH ANIMATION: general research

just a bit of general noodling about on my research on Finnish animation (which is purely, ashamedly through that wonderful digital resource we call the world wide webs)

Finnanimation is pretty interesting. a non profit association, it has a comprehensive list of all the Finnish animation production companies that have joined it as members (it's also supported by the Finnish Minister for Education and Culture, which makes it pretty official).

a worthwhile nugget: the president for Animation Magazine visited the country in 2009 and wrote an article here

also, Nick Dorra has some interesting animation stuff on his blog (although it hasn't been updated since 2011, the article on the Finnish animation environment is especially interesting)

some excerpts:

The studios are doing well, the Finnish animation sector in general is growing at a good pace. Animation contributes 32% of the Finnish audiovisual exports (survey 2011 by FAVEX)

(so while I don't necessarily know much Finnish animation, it seems to be doing pretty well! it might not be as burgeoning as say, Belgian animation but it's certainly not in a complete drought)

The financial environment is that of a small European country. This means that there is a limited national audience (5 million inhabitants), forcing producers to seek out coproduction options. Like elsewhere in the Nordic countries, programmes are subtitled, not dubbed, which makes for easy intertanional transactions.

The Finnish Film Foundation supports short and feature films reasonably well, but takes a much more reserved role with TV projects (usually only helping to finance development and a trailer or pilot). The Centre for Audiovisual Arts (AVEK) supports small scale demo projects tailored to the new media / transmedia niche. TEKES, “The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation” also supports some projects, especially with a more technological focus.

The film investment business in Finland is quite unevolved. However there have been some recent developments and one interesting player to look at is Mediatonic.
Interesting stuff! so there's some funding there and it's doing okay. I'm going to have to noodle around more (something I'm interested in is whether, as in certain schools, continents or countries there's a definite, 'flavour' of animation)

FINNISH ANIMATION: Marjut Rimminen

from Marjut Rimminem's 'Stain', 1991

currently I'm scouring finnish animation, looking for notable names, companies and what the er, 'scene' over there is.

Marjut Rimminen lives in London and is, "the most famous Finnish animator" (I glimpsed somewhere I can't remember that talked about Finnish animation as an incredibly niche thing and perhaps Marjut's emigration to London at the age of 30 is evidence of this: though that was a long time ago and I need to do some more investigation).


I suppose the fact that she is a notable player in European animation and I had not even heard of her says something: and it's not just me. Although Many Happy Returns is beautiful and eerily done it has a disappointingly paltry amount of youtube views (that said, I'm sure there's plenty of master animators in Europe and more eastern stretches that suffer the same problem). But she works in a variety of different ways, always with these beautiful gritty textures and more subdued colours. 


And of her recent foray into picture books she says:


"After all the years of painstaking stop-frame animation I have discovered the pleasure of making picture books. Instead of shooting hundreds of frames as in animation, I only need to get one shot of the scene for telling the story."


That's an interesting thing to think about! Is it worth the pain of stop motion, or can you tell the story in a series of beautifully lit, purposefully posed still pictures?


She works now giving animation masterclasses and was the animation consultant for this strange little idea (which I'm very curious about!) I think I need to look into this more.

MONSTRA 2012

Returned from the Monstra festival in Lisbon with fellow animation students (to a Bristol as sunny and warm as Portugal)

lots of animations were seen (not to mention tiles, funny looking people, dogs...). some were exceptionally good (above I've posted the link to one of my personal favourites: lovely storytelling and an interesting use of travel sketchbooks. you will note, on the website, that it did not even get a mention as far as awards go. such is life)

but also, a lot of stuff that tried too hard to be flashy or clever or deep. I suppose it's easy to judge from afar (and I'm not saying they were badly animated) but so many films were extremely alienating. I left many screenings with a heavy heart and furrowed brow and that was nothing to do with the emotional impact of the films. what was happened to humour and empathy?

but that's life and industry, I suppose!

and rather than be entirely disheartened by the whole thing, I'm buoyed up with hope. I hope that my peers  (in Bristol and around the world) and maybe me too can rail against this sort of thing and some day make some films with real oomph and magic! and maybe that's naive, but I think it is an achieveable hope.