Latest / Kids Media Club Podcast / Cartoon Saloon's Jason Tammemagi on Brave Storytelling, the Kilkenny Creative Hub, and Why Fear Is the Story Killer

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Cartoon Saloon's Jason Tammemagi on Brave Storytelling, the Kilkenny Creative Hub, and Why Fear Is the Story Killer · Kids Media Club Podcast

• 0:05
  Hello and welcome to the Kids Media Club Podcast.
• 0:08
  We are without Emily today.
• 0:10
  We're on summer schedule, so it's just me and Andy.
• 0:13
  But I'm delighted that we've got a guest today.
• 0:15
  Andy, who have we got?
• 0:17
  Yes, we're delighted to welcome Jason Tamamagi from Cartoon Saloon onto the podcast.
• 0:23
  Jason, thanks so much for joining us.
• 0:25
  Hi, Andy.
• 0:26
  Yeah, great to be here.
• 0:27
  Thank you.
• 0:28
  And before we get started, could you just kind of tell us a bit about what you're.
• 0:33
  A bit about your background and what your kind of role involves?
• 0:37
  Sure.
• 0:37
  Well, I'm the Chief Creative Officer of Cartoon Saloon, and to give you a bit of history, I mean, it's a long history, so I'll try and give you the very brief version.
• 0:46
  I started as an animator back in the pencil and paper days.
• 0:51
  I did a lot of different things and then became a director, firstly directing commercials and directing TV shows, then creating TV shows, then writing TV shows.
• 1:00
  I was creative director of a small studio studio in Ireland for some time.
• 1:06
  And so, yeah, I had a long and varied career before then starting my own little studio called Mushku, which I had for seven years, almost seven years, and I closed that down.
• 1:17
  And about a month later, I was in Cartoon Saloon originally to head up TV series development, but then very quickly was put onto a movie.
• 1:27
  So I was kind of a general creative producer.
• 1:29
  I'd get pulled into different things in.
• 1:31
  In different capacities.
• 1:32
  Sometimes very hands on with the creative, sometimes more on the kind of strategy and pipeline stuff, sometimes early development, sometimes in the heart of production.
• 1:42
  So it was always really varied.
• 1:43
  It was one of those things when people, even in the studio, you know, I'd be getting coffee and someone asked, would ask, like, what do you do?
• 1:48
  And I'm like, that's a long question.
• 1:51
  You know, there's.
• 1:53
  There's a lot.
• 1:54
  It's really been about where I've been most needed.
• 1:56
  And it did hit a point where I was touching all of the creative in some form and I was very deep in the management group and so at that point was given the role of Chief Creative Officer, which
• 2:07
  they hadn't had up to now.
• 2:09
  It's a very fancy title.
• 2:10
  It's a nice title.
• 2:11
  I like it.
• 2:12
  I still have that thing sometimes of.
• 2:15
  I find fancy titles a little funny when we make cartoons, you know, when you consider what we do, you know, and we make good cartoons, but they're cartoons.
• 2:25
  So, yeah, in the studio, I'm very much.
• 2:27
  I.
• 2:27
  I see it as a support role for Tom, Paul and Nora, the studio directors, because they're all creatives.
• 2:32
  They're all creatives.
• 2:34
  And I'm.
• 2:36
  I work with them often very closely, often in different ways because they're very different types of people.
• 2:42
  So sometimes I'm very bigger picture, other times I'm in the weeds with them and then thinking about the strategy and the market and where things are going to go and so on.
• 2:51
  So in all honesty, it's not an easy role to pin down.
• 2:55
  But that's.
• 2:55
  That's a kind of general overview.
• 2:58
  Amazing.
• 2:58
  And it probably draws upon a lot of the experience that you've ended up gaining throughout your career as well.
• 3:03
  I mean, because that's kind of an impressive talent stack of just different things that you've managed to kind of draw into your experience.
• 3:10
  You know, it, It.
• 3:11
  Andy.
• 3:12
  I think that's what it actually came down to because I think they had realized they need, at the time, they realized they need a producer.
• 3:19
  But like I said, Tom, Paul and Nora are creatives.
• 3:22
  And I think it was my creative history that said, okay, here's a producer that we can trust, will value the creative and will understand the creative and will understand the needs behind it and why we're pushing for certain
• 3:35
  things.
• 3:36
  And so I actually think, yeah, that, that, that creative history that I had actually counted for more, I think, than the producer history I had.
• 3:47
  And you know what?
• 3:48
  One thing I say to people which was, is that, like, I did.
• 3:51
  I knew, I went to college with Tom, so, so we've kind of had a relationship.
• 3:55
  I knew them all from the studio, but, like, when I joined, they had been doing stuff for 20 years.
• 3:59
  They know their stuff.
• 4:01
  They've been making great stuff.
• 4:02
  You know, they had already been nominated for so many Oscars at this point, so they knew what they were.
• 4:07
  But when I joined, like, in the first week, they brought me right into the heart of everything, which was amazing.
• 4:12
  And I, like, I.
• 4:14
  I would be like, you guys, you guys know this.
• 4:16
  You know how to do it.
• 4:17
  You don't need me.
• 4:17
  And they're like, yeah, but we want to know how you would do it, you know, so.
• 4:21
  So, yeah, I think it was that varied creative history that really counted in the job for sure.
• 4:26
  And do.
• 4:27
  Do you think that makes you a better manager or a leader?
• 4:30
  Because I often think that, you know, when I, when I was first kind of thinking about my career, you were always encouraged to specialize.
• 4:40
  And like you, my career has been a little bit varied.
• 4:44
  And it wasn't until I read a book called Range a few years ago that talks about how generalists can often triumph in a very specialized world because of lots of different things that change.
• 4:55
  I realized that it was my superpower.
• 4:57
  And I do think that when you get to a certain level or when you're required to flip into strategic kind of 30,000ft view mode, having that varied career actually can, can really be your superpower.
• 5:12
  Would you say that that's what they saw in you when they said we want to know how you do it?
• 5:16
  Totally.
• 5:17
  It's exactly that.
• 5:17
  It's exactly that.
• 5:18
  And you know, a lot of my career, especially early on, was not planned.
• 5:22
  I had no grand plan.
• 5:23
  You know, we're all kind of just making decisions and taking opportunities as we find them.
• 5:27
  And especially early on in my career where I did so many varied things and in every one of them I can point to so many people who are better than me at them, you know, like so much better
• 5:38
  than I am at those specific things.
• 5:40
  But having that view and understanding of what it's like to be in that role has, has been a huge advantage, you know, massive advantage.
• 5:50
  Absolutely.
• 5:52
  Yeah, it's, it, I think it's massive strength.
• 5:56
  As you say.
• 5:56
  Generalist.
• 5:57
  Actually.
• 5:57
  There's a lot of value to that.
• 5:59
  Yeah, yeah, there really is.
• 6:02
  And I think as well that the way that you're, you know, you've started as an animator, you've actually, you've been at that desk and working in those roles.
• 6:14
  Did.
• 6:15
  Do you think that kind of helps to empower you to kind of take.
• 6:20
  I'm trying to kind of put my finger on it, but it's, I think if you, for people that just come in from a top down management level, maybe they don't have that sense of the value of the craft
• 6:31
  and the hand drawn style of animation that is at the heart of Cartoon Saloon that does that.
• 6:38
  Kind of the fact that you've had that hands on experience kind of give you more a sense of, you know, passing that torch and kind of feeling responsibility for that completely.
• 6:48
  Especially in Cartoon Saloon because as you said, like the craft is so important to the studio.
• 6:54
  Like it really is, it's, it's, it's baked into the DNA of the studio.
• 7:00
  And it is funny because when you talk to Tom in particular, like I said, I went to college with Tom.
• 7:05
  I was the year above him.
• 7:06
  I think even now when he thinks of me, he thinks, oh, Jay was a good animator, you know, and that in a way is one of the big things that that counts for Tom.
• 7:16
  You know, when, when he thinks back to those days and like Tom was way better than I Ever was.
• 7:21
  But, but he looked up to me in those days, you know, and it is that, that appreciation for the craft.
• 7:28
  And it's funny because the reality is I actually fell out of love with, with the craft of animation in a way that top.
• 7:34
  In a way that Tom never did.
• 7:37
  And, and Cartoon Saloon kind of brought me back to that love of, of the craft.
• 7:41
  But definitely what Tom did know and what, what Paul and Nora knew was why I had the understanding, the hands on understanding, as you say, Andy.
• 7:49
  I had sat at that desk, I had held the pencil, you know, and,.
• 7:55
  And keeping that, the craft alive when, particularly when you're a business and there's so much pressure on to adopt new technologies or to make things faster and cheaper and all of that.
• 8:08
  How, I mean, whose decision was it, a collective one to say no, actually we're going to turn this into our usp.
• 8:14
  We are going to protect the craft that will be our selling.
• 8:18
  I, I don't think it was as thought through as that.
• 8:22
  I think it actually just comes from a genuine passion for it, a genuine love of it.
• 8:28
  I don't, at least to my knowledge now, you know, to my knowledge they weren't sitting down, strategizing, but I think it is actually, it's pretty incredible when you think about it, if you kind of cast your mind back
• 8:42
  to that time, because I remember it was, God, was I about second year in college when Toy Story came out.
• 8:49
  It might have been around that time.
• 8:51
  And I don't know if you remember how quickly things changed.
• 8:55
  There was such a push, hard push to go.
• 8:58
  3D, 2D studios collapsed, closed down everywhere.
• 9:03
  Shrek came out.
• 9:04
  And the narrative of the time was this is not just the future, but this is the present.
• 9:08
  And you have to get on board right now.
• 9:09
  You know, it is a little bit like the AI discussion now.
• 9:12
  It's like, get on board, guys.
• 9:13
  You know, you're gonna, you're gonna miss out.
• 9:14
  So when you, when you think of that climate, I think it was a little bit of an insane act of bravery for Cartoon saloon to embrace 2D hand drawn art forms.
• 9:27
  It was, it was not.
• 9:30
  You know, no, nobody from a business perspective would have given them that advice, but God, I'm really glad they did, you know, because the other thing as well is I, this is something that I feel sometimes gets a
• 9:41
  little bit lost in the discussions of Cartoon Saloon.
• 9:45
  And this again, this is just personal viewpoint, but there sometimes can be this narrative of protecting the hand drawn thing, like it's an old craft and there is a bit of that.
• 9:55
  But I also feel it was progressive at the time in the sense that 2D was on a journey.
• 10:00
  You know, there was, there was, there was a journey happening, an evolution happening.
• 10:05
  And I think that journey didn't have to end just because 3D happened.
• 10:10
  If anything, if you look at the Secret of Kells, like, yes, it was built on 100 years of animation history and thousands of years of art history, but it, it was a move forward.
• 10:19
  Like, nobody looked at the Secret of Kells and said, oh, it's like 1940s Disney or whatever.
• 10:23
  Like it wasn't a throwback to anything.
• 10:25
  The design was very modern design.
• 10:27
  It absolutely did.
• 10:29
  So it's funny.
• 10:29
  It is.
• 10:30
  You know, it's built on, on, on old traditional craft.
• 10:35
  But I think Cartoon Saloon is kind of constantly progressive.
• 10:37
  That's the way I see it.
• 10:38
  That's, that's, that's my own take on it.
• 10:40
  You know, I, I can see that.
• 10:42
  And I think the, the calling back Toy Story in that whole experience, there is a really interesting comparison point because everyone agrees that Toy Story is amazing and Pixar as animators are some of the best in, in the
• 10:58
  business.
• 10:59
  But a lot of bad creative choices were made in the wake of the success of Toy Story.
• 11:06
  I think, you know, I don't think it's controversial to say that make going from stop motion to CGI for Bob the Builder wasn't maybe in the long term interests of that brand.
• 11:21
  It may be kind of maybe immediate commercial.
• 11:24
  Very diplomatically, Andy, but, but, but I.
• 11:27
  Think that brand might have had more longevity and more impact if they had retained that style.
• 11:34
  Completely agree, totally.
• 11:36
  I, and I think, yeah, that, that was something a lot, you know, a lot of decisions.
• 11:40
  And I get it.
• 11:41
  A lot of decisions are made for ease, for budget, for schedules.
• 11:47
  I get it.
• 11:47
  You know, I mean, we've, we've got to be viable.
• 11:51
  But I think you're right, Andy.
• 11:53
  Sometimes I think that that can bite you in the ass.
• 11:55
  And I think with, with, with cg.
• 11:57
  Yeah, there was just such a push to make everything cg.
• 12:01
  And sometimes like people have done incredibly beautiful things in cg, like beauty, just insanely gorgeous art and stories.
• 12:10
  And so yes, it's absolutely.
• 12:13
  Can be a wonderful, wonderful way of telling stories, but it's not the only way.
• 12:16
  And there's, there's so many other beautiful ways as well.
• 12:20
  And when, when it comes down to that, this idea of protecting the heart of the story, what does that mean in 2026 now when you're thinking about how you do that?
• 12:31
  Because Much like you said, even though there's a craft which very often is synonymous with tradition, actually that evolves with time, as you said, you know, with the secret of Kells having that kind of real kind of modern
• 12:44
  aesthetic.
• 12:45
  So tell us how you protect the heart of the story in 2026 when you're in an animation shooting.
• 12:51
  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's funny.
• 12:52
  That's a big thing for me, protecting the core of the story.
• 12:55
  And it always had.
• 12:56
  Like before I was at Cartoon Saloon, that was always, I guess, a big driver for me.
• 13:02
  But it's also part of the reason that, that I was happy to be with Cartoon Saloon because I feel like they've always done that.
• 13:10
  They, they.
• 13:11
  There is a thing in Cartoon Saloon of telling brave stories.
• 13:15
  And it definitely gets hard sometimes in risk averse climates, you know, which we are of course, absolutely in one.
• 13:26
  And I guess one thing that we face and I faced out there in the markets is there's often a conflict in the sense that so many people love Cartoon Saloon and appreciate Cartoon Saloon for that unique storytelling, for
• 13:45
  the artistry, for the craft that's at the core of the story.
• 13:49
  Storytelling for the, the mythic feel, but, but also like the touches of melancholy or the beauty that sometimes has a strength behind it, sometimes a sadness behind it, and sometimes even where the stories kind of exist in uncomfortable
• 14:03
  gray areas.
• 14:04
  And so this is why a lot of our stuff is celebrated.
• 14:08
  But it's also the, the reason why sometimes that can feel risky, you know, or someone will, or someone will go, I love all this.
• 14:16
  And now let's shave all of that off in development, you know, let's, let's get rid of all those awkward things that we adore but is risky, you know.
• 14:25
  And you know what, what I find it's funny even internally.
• 14:29
  This is one of the, one of the downsides to having a lot of experience and a long career.
• 14:34
  I don't know if you guys have faced this, but over the space of 20 or 30 years, naturally you see a lot of things go wrong.
• 14:42
  You know, you encounter rejections, you see things that didn't work or didn't hit.
• 14:46
  And sometimes I think, you know, I sometimes think this is why just like old people are more naturally fearful, but like you, you end up with this massive list of here's all the places things can go wrong.
• 14:59
  And so even with notes internally, I sometimes have to look at them and go, okay, is this note something that's going to make a story better, going to enhance it, going to improve or strengthen the core of the
• 15:10
  story?
• 15:11
  Or is this actually a note that comes from fear?
• 15:13
  Fear of, oh, no, this is going to be taken the wrong way or going to pull it towards, you know, we can't do this because of this reason or it's going to fail because of this.
• 15:23
  And that can happen all too easy.
• 15:25
  I actually say it in the studio a lot, that fear is the story killer.
• 15:28
  You know, you have to.
• 15:30
  You have to commit.
• 15:31
  And it's funny because I think, like, with Tom, Paul and Nora, they have built a studio on telling stories, brave stories, you know, so sometimes I feel like I'm reminding people in the studio of stuff they already know.
• 15:42
  But I also think that those risky stories are actually what the market needs.
• 15:50
  I don't think the.
• 15:52
  I don't think the safe stories are ever safe.
• 15:55
  I don't.
• 15:55
  I don't believe that.
• 15:56
  You know, I think.
• 15:57
  I think the safer you make a story, the less excited people will be for it.
• 16:03
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:05
  Feel that.
• 16:06
  So, yeah, I guess.
• 16:07
  Sorry, Go on.
• 16:08
  I think.
• 16:08
  And I was just going to say, there's a writer friend was talking to me about, you know, he'd go into pitch to commissioners or production companies, and sometimes you'd get a look which was like, are you insane?
• 16:22
  That's completely the dumbest, stupidest idea I've ever heard.
• 16:27
  But he said the worrying thing was that as he got older, he had less of those moments because his internal commissioner inside his head was already kind of discounting that crazy idea.
• 16:40
  So he never actually got to the room.
• 16:42
  Yeah, some shows that have lost in that process.
• 16:46
  Yeah, I really think that's true.
• 16:48
  I think that's.
• 16:49
  Yeah, it's just that thing.
• 16:51
  We.
• 16:51
  We just start to build up these little fears and we, you know, and even when I give people advice, I just try to be very careful about how I frame it.
• 17:01
  And partly because I remember advice I got years ago, you know, if someone.
• 17:05
  Someone might say to me, oh, that's.
• 17:07
  That's not gonna work.
• 17:09
  And often what they mean is, I tried something a little similar in a different space and time, and it did not work for me.
• 17:17
  And that's.
• 17:17
  That's not the same note.
• 17:19
  You know what I mean?
• 17:21
  So I often try and, like, even if I am flagging things that I think might be a concern, I try and frame the realities of where that's coming from, really, you know, so that people can be informed about
• 17:32
  it.
• 17:32
  It's not just a blanket.
• 17:33
  That's not going to work, you know, because.
• 17:37
  Because the thing about.
• 17:38
  The thing about stories and this Is one of the, I guess, the challenges of the industry and part of the reason I think things.
• 17:47
  Things just can go wrong is.
• 17:49
  Is story, unlike a lot of products, just isn't a formula that can't.
• 17:54
  That.
• 17:55
  That can be repeated.
• 17:56
  You know, if.
• 17:56
  If it was, we would have learned that formula a long time ago.
• 17:59
  Everything would be a is in this industry.
• 18:04
  As much as people are looking for the next Bluey, the next SpongeBob, the next Dora, you know, the next whatever it is.
• 18:09
  Like, you can't copy a success and expect a success.
• 18:13
  Like, has that ever happened?
• 18:14
  I don't know.
• 18:14
  Has that.
• 18:15
  Has it ever happened?
• 18:17
  I think, I think there's an element that I can see playing out at the moment which I think still has a success kind of element to it is I think Barbie is defined an approach to legacy ip.
• 18:32
  Like.
• 18:33
  And so I think that Barbie's approach was cross generational toy brand plus big movie star plus dollops of irony.
• 18:46
  And I think that formula is being tested out at the moment.
• 18:49
  I wondered whether it had gone slightly off the rails with Master of the Universe, but I think that has exploded into life on streaming.
• 18:57
  So I, I think on that level, that formula works, but I think, I think the success.
• 19:03
  Your point too?
• 19:04
  There's a.
• 19:05
  There's a strong idiosyncratic element to the success of spongebob or Bluey that can't just be copy and paste.
• 19:14
  Oh, totally.
• 19:15
  I mean, the.
• 19:16
  The big.
• 19:16
  The big successes were next.
• 19:17
  Were never the next anything.
• 19:19
  Do you know what I mean?
• 19:20
  They were not like spongebob wasn't the next whatever.
• 19:22
  You know, it was new.
• 19:23
  It was.
• 19:24
  It was.
• 19:24
  It was new.
• 19:25
  It was fresh.
• 19:26
  Yeah, like, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were not the next.
• 19:31
  Exactly.
• 19:32
  And.
• 19:32
  And there were a lot of imitators that did, you know, a certain amount of business.
• 19:36
  There were.
• 19:36
  I remember the biker mice from Mars and the.
• 19:39
  The samurai pizza cats and all those.
• 19:41
  And.
• 19:41
  And like, they did okay, but.
• 19:44
  But like, they're not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you know, thing.
• 19:48
  I.
• 19:49
  I agree with you.
• 19:50
  I think there is.
• 19:52
  To your point, Andy, you can see it playing out, but with every iteration, something still has to change because the playbook never works twice in.
• 20:01
  In succession.
• 20:02
  It's like, you know, we've used the comparison with Mr.
• 20:04
  Beast before, even though Mr.
• 20:06
  Beast isn't.
• 20:07
  Well, I guess he's an IP, but, you know, nobody will ever get to Mr.
• 20:11
  Beast numbers of subscribers anymore because you couldn't do that now.
• 20:15
  He's been doing it for 14 years and his success cannot and will not be replicated.
• 20:20
  Now it's, it's a bit like, yeah, Barbie and he man, you know, he man's doing okay on streaming, but it didn't have the success in theaters that that Barbie did, so that I loved it.
• 20:32
  By the way,.
• 20:34
  You see it three times.
• 20:36
  I thought it was, it was.
• 20:37
  Honestly, I, I felt like I was the market for, for that movie.
• 20:41
  I, I loved it.
• 20:42
  I was, I was a fan of the toys back in the day, but I just thought it was so much fun.
• 20:47
  It was just like, I just.
• 20:48
  We spoke about it, Annecy, actually, when we met, and that's right after you raved about it.
• 20:52
  I was thinking, oh, I need, I need to reassess kind of what, what I think about this movie.
• 20:57
  So I'm very keen to see it.
• 20:59
  And I think it's done well enough on Amazon that it'll get a sequel, I think.
• 21:04
  Soldier.
• 21:05
  It is funny because I, I.
• 21:07
  There was obviously, you know, and this, this is a thing that happens a lot in terms of very quick narratives now.
• 21:11
  You know, narratives form instantly and, and I feel like even before it was released, the, the Masters of the Universe had flopped in essence, you know, narrative, in terms of the narrative.
• 21:21
  But then I thought, okay, this is an Amazon prime movie.
• 21:25
  Like Netflix movies can make zero at the box office because they don't exist and still justify themselves, you know, And I'm like, okay, so maybe there's, there's a bigger picture here, you know.
• 21:35
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 21:37
  That's, yeah.
• 21:38
  And I, I've not seen he man.
• 21:40
  My husband and two sons went to see it and we got the old 80s toys out of my mum's loft.
• 21:46
  You know, we can sitting on the side.
• 21:48
  But yeah, it was interesting because we all saw Barbie that I didn't feel the need to go and see he man.
• 21:54
  But I do now want to see it streaming.
• 21:56
  Yeah, no, no, I think there was, there was definitely a different marketing challenge with that movie, for sure.
• 22:02
  Barbie really hit in so many ways and it was a great movie.
• 22:06
  I thought it was a movie that really had something to say, I thought.
• 22:10
  And it surprised me as well.
• 22:12
  You know, I feel I don't get surprised often in movies anymore.
• 22:15
  Barbie surprised me.
• 22:18
  It really surprised me, that whole take on, on the patriarchy which was not shown in the trailers.
• 22:26
  And I thought it was brilliant.
• 22:28
  I thought it was really good.
• 22:30
  Yeah.
• 22:30
  And I thought I established very well from the off that it was going to be have a different tone of voice.
• 22:35
  The kind of 2001 pasta beginning was really.
• 22:40
  Yeah, yeah, no, it was a lot of Fun.
• 22:44
  Let's stick with that kind of surprise and delight theme that you had with Barbie.
• 22:48
  I mean, that is something that is synonymous with cartoon saloon in terms of your visual language and the roots of the creativity.
• 22:57
  How do you maintain that?
• 23:01
  I'm gonna say the core of that really does come down to Tom, Paul and Nora.
• 23:06
  They are three.
• 23:07
  Three creatives.
• 23:09
  They're three very, very different people.
• 23:13
  They are a group of people.
• 23:14
  They work so well together, and yet there's times I'm like, how did they manage that?
• 23:18
  You know, they're so.
• 23:20
  They're just so different.
• 23:21
  You know, I can just imagine the possibility of if one little thing was out of balance.
• 23:26
  The friction would be insane, you know, But I think they.
• 23:30
  They make each other better.
• 23:33
  And I really do think they're all creatively very strong in different ways in different areas, and they bolster each other and make each other better.
• 23:44
  And the other thing, I think on top of that, even, like I alluded to when we were talking about them, their approach at the beginning, They've never put commercial interests ahead of anything ever.
• 24:02
  Even now, you know, and, and that's why, you know, they.
• 24:05
  There is a good management group there that's like, okay, is this viable?
• 24:08
  Can we do this?
• 24:09
  You know, because they, Their, Their interest is in the storytelling.
• 24:16
  Their interest is in.
• 24:17
  In movies.
• 24:17
  Their interest is in the craft.
• 24:19
  And, and they have stories that they want to tell.
• 24:22
  And that is the first and foremost thing that is considered ever.
• 24:26
  Like always, in every single case.
• 24:28
  There's.
• 24:29
  It's never not the main thing.
• 24:33
  And that must have been true in the early years, and it is still true to this day.
• 24:40
  And I have to imagine there's been people with that same intention that just would love to have done that and not survived in the industry.
• 24:48
  The industry probably chew them.
• 24:49
  Chews them up and spits them out, but Tom, Paul and Nora made it work.
• 24:54
  And yeah, they just.
• 24:57
  Every.
• 24:58
  Everything is about the creative really is.
• 25:00
  And it's.
• 25:01
  It's amazing that they have survived.
• 25:03
  Not just survived, but thrived.
• 25:05
  It's.
• 25:05
  It's actually, it is.
• 25:06
  It is fantastic.
• 25:07
  It's.
• 25:08
  It's great.
• 25:08
  And that makes it.
• 25:10
  That makes it a wonderful environment to be in, I have to say, because the.
• 25:13
  The level of artistry and talent that's around me day to day is.
• 25:18
  Is just amazing.
• 25:19
  And they are put first.
• 25:22
  So, yeah, I don't take that for granted because like I said, I think that it's very difficult thing to sustain in the industry that we've been in.
• 25:31
  I mean, we've all seen all the ups and downs over the last 25 years.
• 25:36
  There's a lot of times it must have been very tough to keep that going, but they've done it.
• 25:42
  What do you think the secret to that resilience is?
• 25:48
  That's.
• 25:48
  It's such a tough question.
• 25:50
  I think.
• 25:52
  I think some of it is simply determination.
• 25:57
  Even when I think about Secret of Kells, so their first movie, so.
• 26:01
  So I knew Tom in college.
• 26:02
  He was the year below me.
• 26:03
  He was talking about that movie at that time.
• 26:05
  He called it Rebel at the time.
• 26:07
  But he was like, I'm gonna make a movie, and the rest of us are going, sure, Tom.
• 26:10
  Yeah.
• 26:10
  How's that gonna work out now?
• 26:13
  It was 14 years later that that movie was released, and he never once gave up on that movie.
• 26:21
  And they were chipping away at it the whole time.
• 26:24
  They had to do a lot of work.
• 26:25
  They did ads, they did, you know, service work.
• 26:27
  They made shows.
• 26:29
  They had to do a lot of work to keep getting there, but they never let go of that goal and were constantly pushing at it.
• 26:35
  Now, I think a lot of us would have given up a long time ago, and I think that determination to keep going really, really stood to them.
• 26:46
  And they've never lost that.
• 26:49
  I think so, yeah.
• 26:52
  And I mean, there's so many other factors.
• 26:54
  I think even, you know, even thinking about Paul, I don't know if, you know, how well you know Paul Young, but even him as a kind of out person out at the markets, like, Paul is wonderful.
• 27:04
  Everyone loves Paul, and so I think he was great at being the face in the markets of Cartoon Saloon.
• 27:09
  I think that end shouldn't be ignored.
• 27:11
  That can't be underestimated.
• 27:13
  Yeah.
• 27:13
  He got to know everybody and is such a.
• 27:18
  A lovely person.
• 27:19
  He said, like, you.
• 27:19
  You feel like you're friends with Paul almost instantly.
• 27:22
  And I feel like everyone in the industry did.
• 27:24
  And.
• 27:24
  And, you know, when I think about it, like, people buy from their friends, you know, that's a lot of the way the industry works.
• 27:30
  So Paul, I think, was.
• 27:32
  Paul being out there and being driven in the markets was a huge thing.
• 27:37
  I remember, I think one of the first times I met Paul when I was working in another studio, and I just remember him coming in and asking every question of, like, how is this put together?
• 27:46
  How's the finance for this thing pieced together?
• 27:48
  How is this like.
• 27:49
  And no shame about asking all the questions, but he just soaked in that information that was.
• 27:53
  That was him very young, early in his career, and.
• 27:56
  And he did.
• 27:57
  He soaked it in.
• 27:58
  And he learned it.
• 28:00
  But it was always.
• 28:01
  Yeah, with a view to.
• 28:02
  He.
• 28:03
  He was like their.
• 28:03
  Their biggest champion for Tom's movies and for.
• 28:06
  For Nora's movies.
• 28:08
  And now.
• 28:08
  Now he's directing a movie of his own.
• 28:10
  And so, yeah, it's.
• 28:12
  There's.
• 28:12
  There's a lot of factors, but it's not easy.
• 28:14
  You know, I think there was.
• 28:15
  And, you know, some.
• 28:16
  Some of it as well is just good fortune and timing.
• 28:19
  I think that's always the case.
• 28:20
  You know, my own career, a lot of it I have to say I put down to, you know, and again, you know, that thing about.
• 28:25
  Is something repeatable like my path.
• 28:28
  No, it isn't.
• 28:28
  You know, someone.
• 28:29
  You can't repeat those same steps and expect the same results.
• 28:32
  And there were definitely certain.
• 28:34
  Certain parts of my career that I was just.
• 28:35
  Right place, right time.
• 28:36
  Yeah, yeah.
• 28:38
  But also that comes from putting yourself out there as well, doesn't it, and taking those opportunities.
• 28:42
  And yeah, when.
• 28:44
  When you look at that.
• 28:45
  That cultural identity so that you can think about Irish folklore and, and what Cartoon Saloon stands for, I mean, we've got this great shift in the last few years in the sense that storytelling now can come from more
• 29:03
  places than ever.
• 29:04
  And you know, we've got Bluey that came out of Australia, we've got South Korean kind of content.
• 29:09
  We've got this newfound love and discovery of anime and manga, where as for most of the preceding 20 years, you know, story storytelling came out of the west coast studio system.
• 29:22
  Do you.
• 29:23
  I mean, that.
• 29:24
  That cultural identity, do you think that is something now that's having its moment?
• 29:29
  You know, these things that are rooted somewhere.
• 29:32
  Yes, for.
• 29:33
  For sure.
• 29:34
  And that is a.
• 29:35
  As you said, that that's something that was.
• 29:37
  That.
• 29:37
  That changed hugely.
• 29:38
  And again, you know, when I, When I talk about the bravery of Secret of Kells, which I can take no credit for as long before I was ever in.
• 29:44
  In Cartoon Saloon and the cultural specificity of that.
• 29:48
  Because if you, if you look back at that time, as you say, so much of the.
• 29:52
  The media was.
• 29:53
  Was US west coast system.
• 29:57
  And there was such a push on all of us, even in Europe, that you.
• 30:01
  You had to make every story international, which really meant American.
• 30:05
  You know, there was.
• 30:06
  That.
• 30:06
  That really was what you were told so many times.
• 30:09
  And then you look at Cartoon Saloon, Secret of Kells, which is so Irish.
• 30:14
  It's just like the, the cultural voice is so specific.
• 30:18
  So I do think that's.
• 30:19
  That's massively changed for the better.
• 30:20
  It's one of the things, you know, for all the.
• 30:23
  The difficulties and the ups and downs, I think one of the things streaming has done really well is bring so many varied voices, specific views, shows and movies from different countries.
• 30:34
  They can now travel and they can reach whole new audiences.
• 30:37
  Like, my daughter was hooked on K dramas for years, you know, and anime and stuff that like, that would not have even been an option to track down when I was young.
• 30:46
  Like, you simply could not have access that stuff.
• 30:49
  So now I think those cultural.
• 30:53
  Not just cultural, but any specific specificity, I think that often makes your story stronger rather than weaker.
• 30:58
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:02
  It really makes it stand out.
• 31:03
  And I think the.
• 31:05
  What streaming did, as you alluded to there, is that something that maybe in one territory wouldn't have the critical mass to really make it work.
• 31:14
  There can be enough fans globally that.
• 31:17
  That it becomes a kind of very real proposition.
• 31:20
  Was it retaining that kind of specificity of the.
• 31:27
  Of your kind of.
• 31:28
  That Irish kind of voice?
• 31:29
  Was it?
• 31:30
  Do you think it's important as well to have, like, the studio and the team sort of all be located there now?
• 31:37
  You're far more likely to have kind of distributed teams that might be all across the globe.
• 31:42
  Do you think?
• 31:43
  But do you think it's important to have that sense of place as well, from a studio point of view?
• 31:48
  It has been a big thing for Cartoon Saloon.
• 31:51
  It's funny.
• 31:52
  A few years ago, I went to the Carino Awards.
• 31:54
  Have you ever been to the Carino Awards in Tenerife?
• 31:56
  Okay.
• 31:57
  It's really fascinating event.
• 31:58
  I really loved it.
• 31:59
  It's introduced me to a huge amount of studios from Latin America.
• 32:03
  But it was in a.
• 32:04
  In a place in Tenerife that I'd never been to, and it was beautiful.
• 32:09
  And I remember thinking I could kind of live here.
• 32:11
  And the tax breaks are crazy good.
• 32:14
  So I came back to Cartoon Saloon and I went to Jerry Sheeran, who was the MD at the time, and I laid out the numbers and I said, look, we can open up a Cartoon Saloon studio there, bring
• 32:25
  in a lot of talent.
• 32:26
  I'll set it up.
• 32:27
  I'll get it up and running.
• 32:29
  And he thought about it for a moment, and he said something along the lines of, oh, you know, Kilkenny is Cartoon Saloon, and I don't know if we could ever separate them.
• 32:39
  And I think he was probably right.
• 32:41
  You know, he was.
• 32:42
  There's.
• 32:42
  There is something about that identity that has become part of what we do.
• 32:49
  I also think, you know, as you say, you can have people in different places now.
• 32:53
  Remote work has become so normal, and we made it work in the pandemic.
• 32:57
  Like when I joined Cartoon Saloon, it was actually in the heart of the pandemic.
• 33:00
  And a good chunk of my father's dragon was made remotely.
• 33:04
  A couple of other productions as well.
• 33:06
  It can work and it works fine, you know, and productivity can be absolutely fine.
• 33:11
  I think there is something different and better for me in having everyone in the same place and having that creative energy and that, that visibility on what everyone else is doing and feeding on that and learning from it
• 33:28
  and also then identifying problems that a lot of people never mention.
• 33:31
  And you realize, you know, you get a coffee and over here something, oh, wait, is that a problem?
• 33:34
  Because over here they have this other problem and if I solve that, I can solve this too, you know, and stuff that either never would have been brought up or would have been an hour long meeting with too
• 33:43
  many people in it, you know.
• 33:44
  Yeah.
• 33:45
  But the creative energy generally I think is great.
• 33:48
  It's really, it's really wonderful.
• 33:51
  So, yeah, Kilkenny, Kilkenny is such a small town.
• 33:56
  And one of the great things as well about Kilkenny being so small is that everyone lives so close.
• 34:01
  So like I live a 10 minute walk away from, from the studio.
• 34:05
  I just came here to take this, you know, to have it in quiet.
• 34:09
  I was in the studio.
• 34:11
  That's a proper commute, a prop.
• 34:13
  This is.
• 34:14
  Most, most people are the same, you know, 10, 15, 20 minute walk from the studio.
• 34:18
  And so the commute actually, I feel like that's the worst part, you know, from working in an office or a studio.
• 34:25
  The one thing people would love to cut out is the commute.
• 34:28
  And so people don't have that.
• 34:30
  And they seem to like being in the studio when you take that out of the equation.
• 34:35
  So Kilkenny being so small actually is an advantage in that.
• 34:38
  But yeah, I think Kilkenny is such a.
• 34:40
  It's, it is a big part of this, of just the identity of the studio and it's become this little creative hub as well here in this town, you know.
• 34:47
  And do new talent come to Kilkenny because of cartoon salute?
• 34:52
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:54
  I don't know what the figures are, but, but a good chunk of our studio are from different countries and we attract, yeah, Some of the best talent in the world.
• 35:02
  And often, you know, sometimes it'll be for a specific project.
• 35:05
  And there's also Lighthouse Studio here as well.
• 35:08
  So they're the same.
• 35:08
  Sometimes they, they'll bring in people and often they will stay here, you know, and they'll work remotely for other studios and then kind of come back to Cartoon Saloon or Go to Lighthouse.
• 35:16
  And so, yeah, even beyond Cartoon Saloon now, there really is.
• 35:21
  Yeah, there's a big hub of animators.
• 35:23
  You can kind of see them.
• 35:24
  You know, you go to.
• 35:25
  You go to Little or whatever, and it's like you.
• 35:27
  You can spot someone, they're an animator, you know, I could just.
• 35:30
  I could just tell, you know.
• 35:33
  Amazing.
• 35:34
  Yeah, that's great.
• 35:36
  And we've.
• 35:37
  We've talked about the studio.
• 35:38
  I was.
• 35:39
  I was wondering whether there's a.
• 35:41
  Do you think there's a Cartoon Saloon fan base and audience you're aware of kind of.
• 35:47
  Do you have an idea of who the fan base is?
• 35:49
  Do you have a sense of that?
• 35:51
  That.
• 35:51
  That's actually a very good question.
• 35:53
  We were actually just talking about that earlier in the studio in terms of trying to do a deep dive on that.
• 36:00
  That exact subject, because we have.
• 36:05
  I mean, we've quite a few different ip.
• 36:08
  So Puffin Rock is kind of separate because that's very much preschool.
• 36:10
  That's a preschool audience, a specific audience, which is really, really growing.
• 36:14
  Emily actually really helped us with.
• 36:16
  With a lot of the research into where our fans are on that and growing that, which has worked really well.
• 36:23
  Then we have.
• 36:24
  And yeah, Buffon Rock, like, is really actually gaining huge amount of momentum, which is wonderful.
• 36:28
  But then we have fans of the individual studio, our individual movies, and then fans of the studio, you know, that are the Cartoon Saloon fans, and they are our real niche, dedicated fan base.
• 36:46
  Like, they, you know, it's funny seeing like, Tom or Nora at Annecy or at events like this where they're treated like rock stars, you know, and it's like, it's great to see because those are the fans who will
• 36:57
  find out what we're doing, will talk about what we're doing.
• 37:01
  And for me, they're the fans we need to feed and need to nurture.
• 37:05
  One of the challenges, I think, with.
• 37:06
  With the speed of what we do is that we can release a movie and our fans will love it.
• 37:16
  And then it's like six years to the next movie, you know, or five years to the next movie.
• 37:19
  And so that's a long gap.
• 37:22
  And.
• 37:23
  And it's very easy for fans to drop off in that gap.
• 37:26
  And so the world and media moves a lot faster than that now.
• 37:31
  So it is.
• 37:32
  It's a kind of a topic of conversation of really nurturing those fans, giving them the stuff that they want to see in between those movies.
• 37:42
  So, yeah, that.
• 37:43
  That's something we're.
• 37:44
  We're digging into right now for exactly that reason, because those Fans exist.
• 37:48
  But, but really giving them, you know, feeding them is a whole different thing.
• 37:52
  Yes.
• 37:52
  And, and they can be so powerful.
• 37:55
  When the time comes around that you're releasing a new movie, you kind of want to activate them then because they are your advocates and your ambassadors and your, I always, you know, say having a marketing army at your
• 38:06
  back is something that can't be bought.
• 38:08
  But as you say that that takes a certain amount of relationship management in between movie releases, which is the very essence of kind of that community and fandom.
• 38:18
  Absolutely.
• 38:20
  Strikes me you're, you're well placed to do that now.
• 38:23
  So, yeah, probably a good time to do that.
• 38:25
  Deep down.
• 38:26
  I, I mean, being a bit of a data and trend nerd, you know, we've spoken about the craft and the roots and the storytelling really coming from the heart.
• 38:38
  But do you look at data?
• 38:40
  Do you look at trends?
• 38:41
  Do you look at what's happening in the market and kind of go, that's interesting, and then determine what it means for, for your kind of storytelling?
• 38:48
  We do, yes, we absolutely do.
• 38:50
  Now, I have to say, I don't feel like Tom, Paul and Nora are hugely influenced by it in the sense that they want to know.
• 39:02
  You know, I think it's that thing of we constantly try to be informed as much as possible, but, and, and there are times they'll go, oh, you know, this is doing well, we should do something like this.
• 39:14
  But really, when it gets to what is motivating them, it's, it's that they'll just find stories they want to tell.
• 39:21
  But the, I think for a lot of us in the, the management level of the studio, yeah, that's, that's something we want to know.
• 39:29
  And, and it's really about being informed.
• 39:32
  And this, I guess it's, it's.
• 39:35
  If you're going to push against a trend, it's doing so deliberately, you know, rather than just doing it accidentally when, when actually we would have loved to have done something like that, you know, so, no, I think there's
• 39:48
  a lot of value in, in having the figures.
• 39:50
  It's, there's a lot of value in knowing what worked and what didn't work and especially in trying to find out why.
• 39:56
  I think traditionally our industry has been wonderful at learning the wrong lessons, but, but I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot to be gained from having that information.
• 40:08
  And then, then, you know, especially when you've got a brand actually like Puff and Rock, you know that that's somewhere it can really help where you can look at.
• 40:14
  Okay, well, it, it did this over here, but it did this over here.
• 40:16
  Why is that?
• 40:17
  And what can we do better?
• 40:19
  And then sometimes you, you kind of need to know if you're going to zig when everyone else is zagging.
• 40:26
  You've.
• 40:26
  You've kind of got to know what's sagging.
• 40:29
  That's exactly.
• 40:29
  To really mangle that analogy.
• 40:31
  No, you're right.
• 40:32
  That's.
• 40:32
  That's it.
• 40:32
  I think, I think it's doing things in an informed way and a deliberate way, you know, rather than just blindly stumbling through a market.
• 40:40
  You know, I think that, that, I think that's the thing.
• 40:43
  It's being informed and you don't have to follow the market.
• 40:46
  But I think it's very.
• 40:47
  It's always good to know what the market is doing.
• 40:49
  I think that's really important.
• 40:51
  Yeah, fabulous.
• 40:52
  Should we end it there?
• 40:54
  Yeah, it's a very good place to end it.
• 40:55
  That was great.
• 40:57
  Thanks so much for that, Jason.
• 40:58
  Oh, you're very welcome.
• 40:59
  Fascinating.
• 41:00
  Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
• 41:02
  I'm gonna leave you to do the, the wrap up handy.
• 41:04
  Yeah, I'll do a quick sign off.
• 41:05
  So thanks to Jason.
• 41:07
  Thank you guys for listening and please, like, subscribe follow us wherever you get your podcast and we will see you all next week.