Triggerfish’ s Game Plan by JENNIFER STEWART
NEW MEDIA
Triggerfish’ s Game Plan by JENNIFER STEWART
STUART FORREST, CEO of Triggerfish Animation Studios, recently spoke to me about the company’ s humble beginnings, its success and his vision for the future, which includes a 20-year plan to produce animated films that rival the majors.
Triggerfish is well on its way to turning that vision into reality. Adventures in Zambezia, SA’ s second highest grossing movie, also enjoyed success in many territories around the world, including Russia, Israel,
Poland, the Netherlands, and has
Stuart Forrest been dubbed into 15 different languages. Khumba was recently shown at Cannes and Annecy where the response was“ through the roof.”
Like the company, which at one point was just Stuart working at home with two simple camera units, Zambezia had humble beginnings, with a pretty basic pilot.“ We didn’ t have a proper production design or even had some of the key elements in place.” The script wasn’ t even ready. But that pilot got presales of over a million dollars, which got them into production.
For the story, they used a threeact structure, which so many emerging South African writers dismiss as formulaic and American.
Stuart disagrees.“ It’ s Greek if anything! It’ s just about intro, middle and end with some key story elements fitting within an established structure. Having a strong story structure brings a level of accessibility to the story for the audience. The trick is to really be creative and original within that structure so that the story is compelling enough not to let you notice it. If you notice it, it hasn’ t worked.”
“ We produce entertainment. In Hollywood they know that what filmmakers are really doing is entertaining people. We try to do that too, and we try to be original, uplifting and accessible. But we’ re not from Hollywood, and that’ s what gives us an edge – we’ re different from the usual fare.” They’ ve succeeded with Zambezia and Khumba, and they’ re currently in development on several new scripts.
In the meantime, Triggerfish aims to create the
78 | WGSA MAG June 2013