Wolfwalkers: 'This year the Oscars are coming to Kilkenny'

There is no mistaking the pride in Tomm Moore's voice when asked about his animation studio's latest award nomination.

"This year the Oscars are coming to Kilkenny," he said.

It's the fifth time that Cartoon Saloon has been nominated for an Oscar.

But, so far, the gold statuette has eluded them.

Moore is co-founder of the Kilkenny-based operation that is now considered a key player on the animation world stage.

According to the County Down native, previous disappointments don't take the shine off the Oscar nod for the studio's most recent animated feature, Wolfwalkers.

Although he does admit the 2021 Academy Awards will be very different, as Covid-19 travel restrictions mean no glitzy trip to Hollywood for them.

"They're setting up an outside broadcast for us in front of Kilkenny Castle, so we'll be standing there from about 2am onwards," he said.

"It's always exciting to be part of such a big event, the trick is to take it reasonably lightly and enjoy it rather than take it too seriously."

Cartoon Saloon's previous Oscar nominations were for the critically-acclaimed animated films The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea. They all share the DNA of Irish myths, legends and folklore.

The studio was set up by Moore and two other friends he met at art college in Dublin in the late 1990s.

"We wanted to find a way to showcase Irish art and Irish stories in a narrative told by hand-drawn animation.

"We were inspired by films like Disney's Mulan which drew on Chinese art and folklore and also, at the time, there were some big animation studios that had a base in Ireland."

'A blend of old and new'

During the 1980s and into the 1990s, two big American animation studios set up shop in Ireland thanks to some attractive tax breaks.

Some of famed US animator Don Bluth's best-known films, including The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven, came out of its studio near Dublin's Phoenix Park.

And children of the 1980s might be excited to learn that Murakami Wolf, the studio behind the hugely popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated TV show, also had a base in Dublin.

Eventually, these studios became unable to compete with animations being produced out of Asia at a quicker and cheaper rate.

Moore says this was a make or break period for the Irish animation industry.

"When we set up Cartoon Saloon, our first desks came from Jimmy Murakam's studios as they were closing down.

"They thought we were mad setting up a hand-drawn animations studio, but once these big studios began to leave Ireland there were two options - either emigrate or set up our own thing."

Cartoon Saloon mixes classic animation techniques with the latest emerging technology

Moore believes the decision to stay in Ireland has paid off - the films hark back to Irish folklore and mix classic animation techniques with the latest emerging technology.

"We have been doing the opposite of studios like Pixar, where we start with a CG [computer graphics] model, for example of a forest, and once that's finished we go back and redraw what we have, using that as a reference," he said.

"So even though what's on screen is paper, pencil and charcoal, we use computers to help us design what the camera moves will be, so it's a blend of old and new."

'It symbolises hope'

The studio's latest animated film Wolfwalkers is set in Ireland during the mid-1600s. It follows the story of a young English girl called Robyn who is the daughter of an English huntsman, voiced by Sean Bean.

He has the job of clearing the wolves from a forest near Kilkenny, at the same time that Robyn befriends a wolf that can transform into a human girl.

Moore says their friendship is the central theme of the film and something that resonated with him.

He added: "For me it symbolises hope, because as a small kid you don't think about these differences, you see the similarities more and you have to be taught what the differences are.

"I was born in Newry in Northern Ireland and I remember being a young kid in the playground being informed what I was. I didn't know I was Catholic, until someone told me."

Moore says the friendship between the two young protagonists is the key theme of the film

In recent years, Cartoon Saloon has garnered high praise from some of the biggest names in animation.

Pete Docter, the Oscar winning director of Pixar's hugely successful animation Inside Out, is a self-confessed fan of the Irish animation studio's work.

So how does Moore feel about the studio being dubbed by some as 'The Irish Pixar'?

"If that's the shorthand people want to use to say that our work is good, it doesn't sound like an insult to me. So, I'll be taking that as a compliment," he said.

Pixar's latest film, Soul, is the Irish studio's biggest competitor in the Best Animated Feature Film category in Sunday night's Oscars.

Soul features Pixar's first black protagonist, a jazz pianist who goes on an existential journey about the meaning of life. It fended off competition from Wolfwalkers to pick up a Bafta for Best Animated Film earlier this month.

But Moore is pretty relaxed about his chances of winning.

"Its always to hard to beat Disney and Pixar, it would be amazing if it happened, and who knows?

"We've been an underdog for a long time. My favourite film is Rocky you know, so I don't mind being the underdog."