Russian tales

Magder Entertainment of Toronto has a deal with Los Angeles-based By Jove Film to coproduce 26 half-hours of an animated series. Co-executive producer Nathan Rapoport says he’s counting on no new animation work for the project.

The series for children, Stories From My Childhood, will be constructed through cleaning, digital reworking, editing and adding new voices to old Russian filmed material that dates from the early ’40s through the ’70s. Rapoport says the animation is beautiful – ‘very Disneyesque’ with bold colors and designs.

While the series with its ancient heritage may sound obscure, it has attracted the interest of former Warner Bros. International Television president Michael Jay Solomon, who has bought the international tv rights through Solomon International Enterprises, Live Entertainment, which holds international rights for video, and co-executive producer Mikhail Baryshnikov.

A domino effect was triggered when Baryshnikov came on board and then brought on Michael Medavoy, another Russian emigre, who packaged the deal with Arnie Messer through Phoenix Entertainment.

The history behind the production is a long one involving co-executive producer Joan Borsten of By Jove, her Russian emigre husband and a library of old Russian animated fables that he remembered from childhood. The abridged version of the tale comes down to Borsten’s purchase from the Soyuzmult Film Studios Library of six years’ worth of material with plans to repurpose and Americanize the old movies.

Rickie Magder (producer on the series) and Magder gm Rapoport had been talking to Borsten about a Canadian/Israeli coproduction when the idea for Stories From My Childhood cropped up. With Magder’s post facility Motion Picture Video conveniently at hand, the two companies joined forces.

‘We started looking at the possibilities of posting and producing in Canada,’ says Rapoport, ‘but we decided we didn’t want to use tax dollars or any of those methods to access funds because we didn’t want to limit the project to Canadian talent.’

Rapoport adds the strategy is ‘not a slight’ to Canadian talent but has everything to do with a marketing plan to get high-profile Yankee talent on board. So far, the plan is working. Through an agreement with the Audrey Hepburn Hollywood (foundation for) Children to donate a percentage of profits from the project, the $3 million series has been able to sign Jessica Lange, Joe Pesci, Wynona Ryder, Michael J. Fox, Gene Hackman and others to do the voices at scale. As well, about 22 Canadian voices will be recorded for the project.

Magder’s mpv post facilities will be handling most of the post-production work and Rapoport says the series will keep him and Magder busy as well as employ three people from mpv through mid-March.

The first step is to redigitize the footage using a system called dvnr, which Rapoport says mpv has exclusively in Canada. It goes frame by frame and takes out the shimmying in the picture and cleans the film. Hand-cleaning is also in the picture, as is digitizing the stock through mpv’s Panasonic D5 component digital system.

The offline is being done in l.a. as well as by mpv. Editing is by mpv’s Al Knight. Bill Mather of McClear Pathe Sound is the sound designer and the final mix will be done at Pathe.

Rapoport says the u.s. rights still have to be sold pending signed deals with American voice talent. PC