THERE WAS a time not that long ago when our familiarity with the art of animation was either through the classic cinema of Walt Disney, the television cartoons of Hanna Barbera or more esoteric work from Eastern Europe that appeared with regularity on our screens. The notion that we could develop our own animation industry and succeed in having four Oscar nominations in one year probably seemed unimaginable.
Although there may have been some disappointment among the contingent of Irish film-makers who travelled in hope to this year's Oscars ceremony, their achievement in garnering so many nominations is bound to have a knock-on effect that will be invaluable to the international reputation of a creative industry that has flourished in this State in recent years. The attention that comes with these nominations will open doors for both the Kilkenny-based Cartoon Saloon who made The Secret of Kells, and Brown Bag Films, the Dublin studio which produced Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beautyand was previously a nominee for its much-acclaimed Give Up Your Auld Sins.
The most remarkable aspect of all this is that the four animation artists – including the only winner, Richard Baneham who was part of the Avatar special effects team – were graduates of a Dublin college that has nothing like the resources of some of the film schools their competitors attended.
Their alma mater, Ballyfermot College of Further Education, has been pivotal to the recent successes in the Irish animation story, a story that really began almost 25 years ago with the arrival here of Don Bluth, one of America’s most celebrated animators. Bluth, who had previously worked with Disney, was instrumental in establishing the Ballyfermot training course to supply his studios with graduates. Those studios did not survive very long into the 1990s, but the Ballyfermot legacy lives on. The role of Jimmy Murakami was equally vital in the training of young Irish animators and the establishment here of an art-form which shares much with our storytelling tradition.
As the other Irish nomination – Juanita Wilson's short, The Door– demonstrates, animation is not the only area where Irish film is making an impact. There is more than a little irony in the fact that this year's Oscar recognition comes in the wake of the McCarthy report recommendation that would have abolished the Irish Film Board.