Quebec talent is highlighted in the American film Riverdance: The animated adventure, created and drawn entirely by 400 artists, right here in Montreal.
“Montreal has raised the bar for computer animation,” says co-director Dave Rosembaum in a video conference with Le Journal.
The American filmmaker spent a long period in the city – where the company Cinesite has been established for several years – to work on Riverdance: The Animated Adventure.
It took three years to bring to the screen this story of a young boy learning the basics of Irish dancing from a group of magical stags. The film is obviously inspired by the show Riverdance, a worldwide success that has been performed all over the world for 25 years now.
Precision work
The task of bringing Riverdance: The Animated Adventure to life was not an easy one. Indeed, its story is based on musical numbers whose choreography requires an almost surgical precision and an exemplary meticulousness.
No turning corners,” says co-director Eamonn Butler.
“It was very complex, but it was important to respect the discipline and technique involved. We tried to film the dancers first, but their feet move so fast that it was impossible to recreate their movements just by watching them. So everything had to be done by motion capture to include every detail,” he says.
Montreal, a “creative” city
In addition to sharing the directing duties for Riverdance: The Animated Adventure, David Rosenbaum and Eamonn Butler are creative director and animation director, respectively, at Cinesite.
The company, which also has offices in Vancouver and London, chose Montreal to camp a portion of its North American operations, opening its studio there in 2016. They have since worked on the animated adventures of The Addams Family, among others.
“Montreal is a city that already had a very strong artistic culture, both in visual effects and video games. The animation industry was not as developed as it is today, but we wanted to focus on a place where schools were training creative and talented people,” explains Eamonn Butler.
Montreal’s expertise will also be showcased later this year with the release of two Cinesite animated productions, Hitpig and Blazing Samurai.
Riverdance: The Animated Adventure is available on Netflix.
