Dream Balloon Ent. co-founder Michael Attardi, creator and director of the award-winning, CG-animated short film Once Upon A Christmas Village, tells us he is pushing forward with Snowyville, a feature-length version of the story. Since announcing his intentions to do so in April, he says he has major financing and key team members in place, and is currently in negotiations with a distributor. Actors Jim Belushi and Tim Curry are also in talks to reprise their voice roles.
Once Upon a Christmas Village tells the story of a decorative miniature town that comes to life when Santa’s magic watch accidentally falls under a Christmas tree. The animation was created by animators from Digital Animation and Visual Effects Studio (D.A.V.E.) at Universal Studios-Orlando, Fla. D.A.V.E. School’s Jeff Sheetz will serve as animation producer on the feature and a number of his graduates will likely be employed on the production as well.
Snowyville is being co-written and co-produced by Attardi and Andy van Roon. A certain high-profile producer, whose name Attardi can’t reveal at this point, will be brought on as well. Paul ‘Kit’ Stolen will provide art direction and Dani Donaldi, composer of the short film, is back on board for the feature. Emmy Award-winning vfx supervisor Ron Thornton (Gerry Anderson’s Captain Scarlet, Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles) will serve as line producer and oversee visual effects, while fellow Emmy honoree Lee Stringer (Battlestar Galactica, Firefly) handles miniatures and live-action set work. Muppet movie veteran Patt Garrett will choreograph motion-capture sessions, and former Miramax exec John Hadity will be an exec producer on the pic.
According to Attardi, doing the festival circuit was helpful in finding the right angle for adapting the 15-minute Once Upon A Christmas Village into much longer film. ‘I’m finding that nobody wants G-Rated movies anymore because they’re not attracting an older audience,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to make a kid’s movie, but something that will be more widely accepted in the animation spectrum like Shrek or Finding Nemo.’
Attardi won’t say when Snowyville will be finished, but notes that he and his team at Dream Balloon are ahead of the curve since they will be building on assets created for the short, though the models will be altered to sport a more Disney-esque look. Much of the film’s projected $20 million budget will come from private investors and other sources that cannot be divulged yet.
‘We’ve found an affordable way to do animation in the U.S., and I think that’s important,’ Attardi comments. ‘We’re also bringing the musical back to animation. I hear that families are wanting that.’
Check out a featurette on the making of Once Upon A Christmass Village under the ‘Featurettes’ tab on AniMagTV (www.animag.tv).
