A Nation Waits With Bated Breath… Sweden’s Most Ambitious Animated Project
Skwigly
Thomas Deutschmann CEO and producer at Fido animation production company talks to Keith Miles from Skwigly about ‘Hakan Brakan and Josef’.
A nation waits with bated breath…and that nation is Sweden.
During October, the nation that gave the world ABBA, Volvo and those rather worrying looking hot dogs that cost 4p at IKEA takes on the world of animation. By far and away the most ambitious animated project to come out of Sweden, the digital feature film ‘Hakan Brakan and Josef’(perhaps not the snappiest of titles to take on the world?) is the culmination of a steady commercial and creative progression from the production company Fido (quite a snappy title!).
Fido started in January 2000 and is the result of four companies merging their respective talents. The initiative came from Thomas Deutschmann who, at the time, was part owner of a small 3D animation company started in -94. The four were specialised in 3D, compositing/editing, animatronics and make-up effects. The resulting Fido has a, for Swedish standards, very broad technical base and is able to solve a large range of technically demanding projects. The technical abilities are however always considered second to the creative and artistic height that is Fido’s first and foremost priority’ says Deutschmann.
Merging four companies led to a situation with many owners. In 2002 all shares were bought by Thomas Deutschmann and Kaj Steveman who now own 50% each. At this time a clear focus on character oriented effects was established. Thomas is CEO and producer, Kaj is creative director and animation director.
Fido enjoys a solid, good reputation in Sweden. The client base has shifted during the last couple of years from production companies of commercials, to advertising agencies and movie producers. Fido now acts as Production Company for most of the work done for advertising and is becoming a skilled partner for the development and execution of movies.
During 2003 Fido did two complicated make-up effects projects for Malaysian movies and during the spring of 2004 the first feature film project in Thailand was completed. Two of these projects were fat make-ups and costumes and one was an old age make-up. Foam latex and advanced silicones are the materials used.
For the feature, Fido has created the character Josef who is a tortoise with ‘somewhat of an attitude’ (oh dear!). He will be Sweden’s first photo realistic digital character but in this great technical leap forward they have managed to create a character that bears more than a passing resemblance to ET with haemorrhoids. Nevertheless Josef is in a line of tortoise characters from Warner Brothers Cecil to the Creature Comforts manifestation. There is a certain familiarity here but one that it is hoped will tap in to a comfort zone.
The main character “Hakan Brakan” is very well known in Sweden from many books, movies and TV-series. The property is owned by SF (Swedish Film Industry) – the biggest movie producer in Sweden. This time around the movie script contained a character ‘everyone quickly saw should be done with CGI’.
The first discussions started in April 03. In June Fido was awarded the project and the work started in August 03.
All major players in Sweden were contacted as well as one company in Paris and one in London. Fido and three other companies were placed on a short list. The quotes from companies abroad were not even close to the available budget. But none of the companies in Sweden were able to make it work either since the character in the script was a hamster. The technical difficulties with fur and complicated body, made it impossible to meet the budget. ‘Since the standard for that kind of character has been set with Stuart little, we did not feel we could do it’ says Deutschmann. Personally anything that sets Stuart Little as the benchmark, worries me a bit.
Thomas and Kaj sat down to try and figure a way out to make this work. Their suggestion was a bit radical – change the animal all together. We did a bunch of design sketches which, in our opinion, clearly showed that a tortoise was, not only technically easier, but also a more interesting animal to work with. After a couple of week’s deliberation the director decided we were right, and the job was Fido’s.
Hakan Brakan is a six year old boy with two older siblings. He has been used to being the smallest member of the family and enjoying the extra “freedom” that comes with being small and cute. His life is about to change a lot since a new family member is on the way and he is soon going to start school.
In that process he is about to “break free” as kids do. Instead of the dog he wants for his birthday, he gets a tortoise (very easily pleased, kids in Sweden). Much to his disappointment. Josef the tortoise then becomes something like “the devil on the shoulder” urging Hakan to break free and do dangerous things to his little sister. Only Hakan sees the tortoise as a talking character so we get the feeling that he is something of a fantasy friend.
At first Josef is mostly a pretty mean character and they do not get along. But when Hakan reaches the point where he decides to go against the rest of the family, the two of them become a tight team. Towards the end Hakan runs away and there is a dramatic scene where we think Josef has been run over by a car. As a storyline, it will not be troubling Brecht, even if he wasn’t dead.
With a budget of $530,000 this is no small potatoes, although Fido have managed to cut further corners by developing their own in house clip handling software called Fido Dog pound(better!). The animation is created on Maya and it is good to know that even at this end of the European market they use Photoshop for textures.
Fido and Sweden and a great many of the animated nations of northern Europe are putting a lot of faith in this feature. The merchandising, you will be pleased to know, is on the way and I would guess it will be slightly better quality than some of the stuff that takes up Woolworths shelving.
One has to wish Fido well with such an ambitious project as it is always heartening to see a European attempt at taking on the US big boys at their own feature length digital game. They have chosen a well worn and solid family storyline path but you do have to wonder whether Hakan can travel the world…and as far as the tortoise is concerned, well I hope he grows on me.