Tomm Moore's Next Irish Folklore Film, 'Wolfwalkers' Pitch Trailer Released

In a time of superstition and magic, when wolves are seen as demonic and nature an evil to be tamed, a young apprentice hunter, ROBYN, comes to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last pack. But when Robyn saves a wild native girl, MEBH, their friendship leads her to discover the world of the WOLFWALKERS and transform her into the very thing her father is tasked to destroy.

The third animated feature film from director Tomm Moore and Cartoon Saloon, (Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea) Wolfwalkers has had fans eager to know more ever since the first pieces of concept art and a synopsis were teased, back in 2015. (Click on images for a closer look.)

This week, Tomm Moore (yes, we're spelling his name correctly), and his co-director Ross Stewart pitched Wolfwalkers at the Cartoon Movie Festival - and that meant a 'pitch trailer' with test animation, (different from a regular trailer, since all art was made to pitch the movie, instead of pulled fro the movie to entice you to see it), along with additional concept art.

At Cartoon Movie festival : Wolfwalkers movie by Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart / Cartoon Saloon

You can see the trademark Tomm Moore design sensibility (aka simply beautiful and mythic), along with some possible hints at other aspects in the title text.

Here is the pitch trailer:

Wolfwalkers teaser at Cartoon Movie festival March 9th

From Den of Geek, (Nov 2015):

Cartoon Saloon’s next feature (FTNH Ed: after 'The Breadwinner') is expected to be Tomm Moore’s third, and another piece of Irish folklore. As you can see... Moore is dabbling with lycanthropy, though with a definite twist. According to Moore... the film draws on Oliver Cromwell’s decision to ‘tame Ireland’ by slaughtering their wolves. 

The inclusion of a character called Mebh (pronounced like Maeve) might be an allusion to Táin Bó Cúailnge, the episode of the Ulster cycle that deals with the driving off of the cows of Cooley.

The lead for this film was changed, fairly early on, from a little boy (like the previous two films main protagonists were) to a girl, which means we'll be looking at a 'girl friendship' film - something which is still unusual in animation (and not just there, either). Here's some concept art, the pencil drawings by Moore:

From Tomm Moore (via Animation for Adults):

It's set during the English Civil War in the mid 1600s but Oliver Cromwell decided he was going to symbolically tame Ireland by killing all the Wolves. So he sent all these hunters over, and if they killed a certain amount of wolves they got a bit of land. So the main protagonist is this little boy from England who comes over with his Dad, and he arrives actually near where I live in Killkenny. And he runs up against that around here wolves weren't seen as baddies, they were actually seen as people. The belief was that wolves were people that St Patrick had put a curse on when they wouldn't convert from paganism. So a lot of people believed that wolves.. especially around the Killkenny area.. were people. So that's the kind of premise! I won't tell you any more than that...

And on that note, here's a little something Tomm tweeted a couple of days ago...

The projected release date for Wolfwalkers is 2018 but that's not firm and without much to go on, it's difficult to know what stage of the production the film is currently in. Whenever that will be, it won't feel soon enough!

Advertising From the (Unpublished) Vault: Sky Broadband Fairy Tale Commercials & Fairy Tale Times

We don't think we ever posted these from 2010, a few (!) years ago, but they're worth a repeat viewing either way. We like that the theme of change (linked to transformation in fairy tales) is used so inventively. We do remember posting The Boy Who Cried Wolf ad from 2011 though. (You can find that HERE.)

The Princess and the Pea

The Frog Prince

 Little Red Riding Hood

Aladdin

Pretty fun take on fairy tales we think!

We also recently found these Fairy Tale Times pages for Sky Broadband, which we hadn't seen before. Looks like the advertising team had a lot of fun with these! We've included full sizes of each page where available, as the text really is an enjoyable read.

               

           

 We love the variety of tales included here! Kind of makes us wish we could subscribe to a fairy tale newspaper.

'Tangled: Before Ever After' Series Kicks Off with Original Movie (& Life Gets Hairier)

The world, universe and adventures of Tangled have been begging for exploration ever since its theatrical success and the follow-up short, Tangled: Ever After, wasn't quite what fans were looking for. The fan market has remained strong, almost a decade later, but apart from a wedding only being good for so many laughs for kids, once the 'hairy adventures'  aspect was over, with Rapunzel's hair being bobbed and not quite as potentially weaponized, what was there to watch that could be quite as magical and exciting?

Slight trivia aside: the first thing Rapunzel paints in her new room is the (fairy) tale of what happened in the 2010 movie. Neat huh?

The creators were stumped for a while until they decided to look at the themes of Tangled and, essentially, reboot them in series form. The trick was, to do that without redoing the movie's story and all that mythos and hard-earned happy ending, and they found an interesting way to do just that: turns out, in some ways, Rapunzel traded one prison for another. OK. Maybe that's a bit strong, since nothing quite adds up to being stuck in a doorless tower for most of your life, but it turns out Rapunzel is indeed chafing under the weight and stifling responsibility of her new position, not to mention the duties and the expectations everyone has of her.

Rapunzel sets out to fight that stifling...

[Here's a clip in which Eugene discovers she's slipped out of the castle, defying her father's orders. It illustrates the sense of fun we can expect to see in the coming series as well.]

... and is magically 'helped' along the way by getting back the means by which she was able to explore her freedom before: her magically long hair. (It's not her choice, to get back her 70 feet of blonde-ness, but it's one she embraces pretty quickly.)

Here's the scene in which Eugene tries desperately not to freak out when he discovers The Hair is back:

The series was introduced this weekend, with a special Disney Channel Original Movie, which fills in the gap between the end of Tangled, the movie, and Tangled Before Ever After (which is the new series showing what happens between Tangled and the Tangled Ever After short aka the wedding, got it?)

Confusing, yes. Here it is in story-chronological order:

1. Tangled - feature film 2010
2. Tangled Before Ever After Disney Channel Original Movie - just aired this weekend
3. Tangled Before Ever After series - first episode to air March 24, 2017
4. Tangled Ever After - short (2012)

The movie’s official description reads:

“It’s just the beginning of happily ever after for Rapunzel and Eugene. As Rapunzel reacquaints herself with her parents, her kingdom and the people of Corona, she comes to realize that there is so much more she needs to learn about the world and herself before she becomes Princess of Corona. With the help of her handmaiden and friend, Cassandra, and Eugene, she begins to find the adventure she desires right outside her door. Life is about to get a little hairier!” 

In addition to Moore and Levi, the cast includes Ashley Judd, who plays Rapunzel’s mother Queen Arianna, and Broadway actress Eden Espinosa as Rapunzel’s handmaiden and close friend Cassandra.

As you can see from the promotional artwork and clips, the movie and series are no longer CG but very stylized traditional animation, returning to more of a storybook quality. Turns out fans are really happy about this, feeling like they'll be getting fairy tales again. (Nice to know!) In fact, the response has been so positive, the series has been confirmed as renewed for a second season, even before the first has aired. That's fairly unusual, so you know what that means: people want their fairy tales!

Here's a little more behind-the-scenes info, giving you an idea of how this developed and what they'll be doing with the series.

It's clearly adorable, has a very fun sense of humor and is wonderfully artistic. Though we'll have to see how the individual episodes pan out story-wise, the series looks very promising and is delighting fans of Disney fairy tales everywhere already. Looks like something we should be checking in with regularly when it gets rolling.

Note: The Tangled Before Ever After Original Movie will be available on DVD April 11th, 2017.
It will include four 'Tangled Short Cuts': 
Checkmate
Prison Bake
Make Me Smile
Hare Peace

'Sleeping Beauty' Puppet Opera Brought to Life (Size) by 'King Kong' s Joe Blanck

Victorian Opera stages Respighi's Sleeping Beauty with full size puppets designed & built by Joe Blanck

When I look at what's happening in the world right now, it just seems to me that there is no better time to have a kind of narrative that says 'things are awful, but they will get better'.

[Director, Nancy Black]

We first saw mention of this new version of Ottorino Respighi's Opera some time ago but the poster (pictured at bottom of post) just didn't grab our attention. It wasn't until we realized there was a unique and new puppetry element to this opera that we became intrigued.

When we found out Joe Blanck (of the impressive King Kong musical and the award winning Walking with Dinosaurs stage show) was involved, and that these puppets (originally marionettes) were now larger than life, we took a closer look. What ultimately sold us on the production was hearing and reading what Director Nancy Black had to say about the themes of the tale she intended to bring out, and what she felt Sleeping Beauty had to offer us in this current social climate. That her approach was also intriguing, being inspired by Kay Neilsen's work and incorporating newly designed larger-than-life puppets by Blanck, became a bonus. 

Blanck himself also shed an interesting light on their interpretation of the tale: 

“Sleeping Beauty is not your typical love story,” Blanck says. “It’s more about the tragedy, and how people deal with that. Those are the things we’re trying to bring to the surface of the story.” 

Director Nancy Black has conceived a production which sees a group of people joining together to tell a story after some kind of traumatic event. They conjure up the tale of Sleeping Beauty out of thin air.“ 

We’ve kind of left it open to interpretation, creating a community of people come together — whether they’re poor or refugees or something else, it’s not really said,” Blanck says.“ 

That happens at so many events, whether it be at a funeral, or in the aftermath of something else entirely — people come together and tell stories.” (Daily Review)

Nancy Black goes into a little more detail in the video below (it gives a wonderful overview and sneak peeks at the visuals in motion). 

The educational materials Victorian Opera are making available online for free, lead on well from her introduction. (Link at the end so you can download the whole package for yourself.)

(The whole Education Resource is available to download HERE.)

An interview Victorian Opera posted with Director Nancy Black explains further why she's so passionate about this version of Sleeping Beauty. Here are some excerpts:

In 2017, you’ll be returning to Victorian Opera to direct another forgotten gem of the early 20th century with Respighi’s The Sleeping Beauty. What have you enjoyed about discovering this opera? 

Oh my goodness.  So much.  First of all the music is beautiful, very lyrical, and also funny. The opera is filled with interesting characters- from the lovers to animals to satirical representatives of capitalism. It is romantic but also lightly nuanced with philosophical and even political references.  At the beginning Respighi seems to be taking us through a traditional rendition of a well known fairy tale, but then his narrative leaps forward in time to what he imagined would be 1940, and he incorporates mid- 20th Century dance rhythms. Our vision for the work needs to incorporate all of those elements!  What an exciting challenge! 

 

You’ve worked extensively with puppetry in the past and will be working alongside production designer Joe Blanck to create this fascinating blend of opera and puppetry. How are you planning to approach the production? 

After reading the libretto, I knew I wanted to approach this work as though it was a community of people telling a story.  It is a village. Maybe they have come through hard times.  When Respighi wrote this Italy was still struggling with the aftermath of WWI and the devastation of the Spanish Flu. In setting the celebratory end in 1940, he could not have known what lay ahead. 

I am fascinated by our human need for story. Even before mankind had written language, we have used stories as a tool for bringing order out of chaos, for giving us meaning when reason has failed, for instilling hope. 

In our production, a group gathers around a fire; it’s a lovely night.  An ember leaps into the air. It becomes a nightingale puppet, whose song is picked up by one of the singers.  The story unfolds as a combined effort with some taking the singing parts, others the puppetry. Together they tell a story that initially takes them away from their present into a beautiful fantasy, but then weaves itself back into their reality.  

I don’t want to give away too many details, but our creative team that includes Joe, Ben Cobham, Philip Lethlean and Michelle Heaven are devising a production design that draws inspiration from the exquisite illustrations of Kay Nielsen and organic shapes from our forests.  The puppetry will use several forms, always provoking and teasing the imagination, with circus and dance skills adding to what we hope will be a visual delight.

(FTNH Ed: Puppetry, circus and dance?! We're in!)

Nancy Black, from the Victorian Opera Educational Material

 Phoebe Briggs is the conductor for the show (there is a live orchestra, as well as singers) and shared in a different interview with Limelight Magazine, why she thinks this production is likely to appeal. Respighi apparently composed the opera with a young audience in mind and though it has some darker themes, as fairy tales tend to, it's designed to have family appeal. Here are some excerpts from that interview, the whole of which will particularly appeal to those with music training:

Is this something that a child today could attend? 

Yes, absolutely. Each character is clearly defined musically and children will certainly be able to follow the story very easily, and will be swept along by the storytelling of the puppets and singers.

Many audience members are only really familiar with Respighi through his tone poems. What might surprise them about the composer of this opera? 

I think what will surprise the audience is Respighi’s ability to jump effortlessly from style to style and from mood to mood. He inserts a Cakewalk or Foxtrot in amongst the neoclassical Marches and Minuets to keep the audience on their toes and this really shows Respighi’s sense of humour shining through. The tone poems are large expansive works whereas his writing here is more compact. He uses styles that are familiar but inserts unexpected harmonies and syncopations to give a modern feel to the work. 

Respighi notably had a real sense of humour when composing The Sleeping Beauty. There are plenty of musical allusions and parodic elements in the score – what has it been like discovering them with the orchestra? 

I’ve had a few laugh-out-loud and ‘oooh’ moments when I realised what Respighi was quoting, as well as the slow recognition of more subtle moments that he has borrowed from other works. I feel that rather than being direct parodies they are compliments to other composers and intended to trigger memories and emotions for the audience.

Here's the official trailer, which gives you a very brief preview of the music as well, though it doesn't grasp the range of Respighi's accessible score:

To further pique your interest, here's a list of characters for the story:

Characters & Cast

The Nightingale Zoe Drummond

The Cuckoo Shakira Tsindos

The Frog/The Spindle Kirilie Blythman

The Ambassador Timothy Newton

The Blue Fairy Elizabeth Barrow

The Jester/Mister Dollar Timothy Reynolds

The Green Fairy Juel Riggall

The King Raphael Wong

The Queen/The Cat Sally Wilson

The Old Lady/The Duchess Liane Keegan

The Princess Jacqueline Porter

The Woodcutter Stephen Marsh

The Prince Carlos E. Bárcenas

A Villager Tomas Dalton

Note: For those local to this production, please note there are also Audio Described Performances and Tactile Tours which are kid friendly too.

You can download a copy of the program, detailing the synopsis and each of the performers, along with letters from the Director, Artistic Director and the Conductor HERE.

We've included a lot of detail and behind-the-scenes, since many of our readers won't have the opportunity to visit Melbourne, Victoria (Australia) to see this production, which is a shame, since we think it would be well received wherever it traveled. (We hope a tour is on the cards!) 

If you're fortunate enough to see this opera and would like to write a review for OUABlog, please let us know. We'd love to hear what an audience member thought of this production.

Victorian Opera
An all-new production of Ottorino Respighi's 1922 reimagining of Sleeping Beauty

11 – 18 March

Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse

11, 14, 15, 17 March 7:30pm18 March 1:00pm

The 'Other' Little Mermaid Just Got A Trailer

Do you remember us mentioning a live action Little Mermaid film, involving Poppy Drayton (Shannara Chronicles), in our -Little-Mermaid-films-in-the-works round-up last October? (You can find that post, listing them all HERE) Well that film  [- NOT DISNEY FOLKS! -] just got a trailer - and it looks... interesting. There's a bit of magic, a circus* and, of course, a mermaid. Not sure how much of the story is based on HCA's tale (difficult to see evidence of that here) but we can see how it might be inspired by it - a little.

Press release:

The first trailer for the live-action version of The Little Mermaid from Conglomerate Media and Kingsway Productions has just been released. This is not Disney’s film, but is based on the famed fairytale from Hans Christian Andersen and stars a solid cast: Shirley MacLaine, Downton Abbey‘s Poppy Drayton, William Moseley (The Chronicles of Narnia), Loreto Peralta (Instructions Not Included) and Gina Gershon (Empire). The film is being planned for release this year. 

Take a look:

There must be more to it than we see here, as fantasy-fun and fairy tale-ish as this seems, especially if they're insisting it's based on Andersen's fairy tale. Whatever the case, it looks like a neat, magical family film.

*It actually reminds us a little of She Creature, with the 'mermaid trapped in a carnival' setting (a much better 'creature feature', resulting from an HBO contest, than you would think - trailer at link). We're guessing the course this movie takes is a full 180 turn away from where She Creature ended up going..! (The link takes you to a fan-made music video that explores the themes without the gore.) If you like darker movies, this one is recommended - lovely production, fantastic (known) cast and well developed story. Not for kids though!

Theater: 'Ladies in Black' Tells A Fresh Feminist 50's Cinderella Tale (but could use more color)

In 1950s Sydney when the city is on the cusp of becoming cosmopolitan, young high school graduate Lisa takes a holiday job at Goodes, the most prestigious department store in town. In that summer of innocence, a world of possibilities opens up as she befriends the ladies of the women’s frocks department – including her new mentor, the exotic European Magda, mysterious mistress of the dresses. (Press release)

Based on Madeleine St. Johns' novel The Women in Black, this musical has more fairy tale leanings than first meets the eye. Say 'Cinderella' and you immediately think rags-to-riches (or riches-to-rags-to-riches), dreams coming true and fairy tale makeovers, but Ladies in Black may just change your view on that fairy tale. (Hint: It's not about the dress. Or the man.)

A description from The Age says it best:

The plot takes us back to Sydney in the early 1960s, where Lisa, a bright and bookish school leaver, has her horizons broadened after taking a summer job at an upmarket department store. 

 

She's soon selling frocks surrounded by working women: her hair-perfect boss Miss Cartwright , the unhappily married Patty, romantically frustrated Fay and quietly heartbroken Miss Jacobs . 

 

But it is the keeper of model gowns – a larger-than-life Hungarian called Magda  – who acts as Lisa's fairy godmother, sharing her love of literature and encouraging her desire to go to university, while warding off the ugly stepsisters of 1950s Australia: the entrenched chauvinism and blinkered monoculture that threaten to smother a smart young woman's future. (FTNH: Emphasis ours.)

This Australian view of the 1950's shows feminism on the cusp of becoming a movement and the changing world view, especially among young women. At the same time, the Antipodes was full of post-war European immigrants and refugees trying to find a way to call Australia home, and the currents of change seem to buffet everyone, no matter where they were in the system. Unfortunately, the portrayal of those forces and tensions in this musical, is still, essentially very "white", leaving the potential of the story wading in the shallows. With a title that includes the words 'ladies' and 'black' together, in today's world, it almost underscores the fact of how white this show actually is. The lack of POC and indigenous peoples in this story is glaring, despite that it accurately reflects the suburban department store culture (which was privileged and white), but this reality is never challenged or questioned, when, especially today, it should. Perhaps it's something that could be considered for future productions to give the show more depth, and perhaps create a tale that is not just a fresh and fun reflection on the past, and challenges the idea of 'fairytale dreams', but has something important to say today as well.

Despite this unfortunate omission, Ladies in Black does a fine job on other issues and is a fresh take on an often tired Cinderella theme. It pays lovely homage to both the camaraderie of women in this time period as well as their resilience under a patriarchal system that was just starting to come under pressure to change (and coming up against those who didn't want it), and that's not insignificant, especially in a time when it appears those advances in society still aren't as 'normal' as they should be.

LADIES IN BLACK

Music & Lyrics by Tim Finn, book by Carolyn Burns

Queensland Theatre Company

Regent Theatre - Melbourne, VIC

Until March 18