Soviet, U.S. Animators Team Up in Toluca Lake

“People ask what we’ve seen in Los Angeles, but we’re not on a sightseeing trip,” says Soviet animation director Vladimir Tarasov, speaking through an interpreter. “We’ve just been sitting and working side by side with American animators.”

Tarasov and two other artists from Soyuzmultfilm Studio in Moscow--designer/animator Sergei Tunin and studio manager Elza Babakhina--recently spent two weeks here, doing preliminary artwork for the first U.S.-Soviet co-production of an animated film. Instead of visiting tourist traps, they worked with the artists at Film Roman, the studio that produces the “Garfield” specials.

“We feel this is an ideal way to work because the Soviets are not subcontractors like the Taiwanese or Koreans--they’re co-producers,” says producer/director Phil Roman. “Soviet animation is very beautiful, but their storytelling isn’t up to American standards. Under this arrangement, we’ll be able to put a lot more money into the stories, voices and direction, and they’ll supply the animation, inking and painting. This way, we hope to able to produce high-quality animation for what the networks pay in license fees.”

The co-production is largely the brainchild of Peter Gerwe, one of three partners in Storyfirst Entertainment, who helped to arrange the first live interactive U.S.-U.S.S.R. satellite programs in 1982 and 1983 and Billy Joel’s 1987 concert tour.

For the last 2 1/2 years, they’ve been negotiating a production arrangement that wasn’t fee-for-service, but “satisfied the need of the U.S. networks and production companies to feel they had enough control of the projects to make them work.”

The initial collaboration involves an original story by the popular Soviet children’s author Edward Uspensky. “Lucky Start” tells the story of Tristan and Henry, two dolphins who live near the coasts of different countries. Although the countries are never identified, Tunin’s clever designs make it clear that they represent the Soviet Union and the United States: The skyline of one is comprised of Cyrillic letters and missiles; the other is a fantasy of Roman letters and palm trees.

“We came to discuss our work and to see if American professionals felt it would be acceptable to American viewers,” says Tunin. “We knew how it would be received in the Soviet Union--we know our audience--but we wanted to learn what’s considered attractive and interesting here. So we accepted their criticism and praise and worked accordingly to adjust some of the characters.”

As work had already begun on the Soviet television version of the show when plans for the co-production were finalized, it’s not certain whether “Lucky Start” will air in this country. Roman will visit Moscow later this month to continue developing a prologue to introduce Tristan and Henry to American audiences. The partners hope the film will interest network executives in the specials that the Americans and Soviets are developing.

“We came in late on this project, but we really liked what they had done; so rather than change their script, we just wrote a three-minute introduction for the characters,” says Roman. “On future projects, we’ll be doing the directing, the voices, the styling and most of the story work. Because the stories will be aimed at American audiences, it’s important that we control how they’re told.”

At this point, the three partners are concentrating on specials that will air in both America and the Soviet Union, but Gerwe doesn’t rule out the possibility of expanding into Saturday-morning series and feature films.

“We may get involved with feature films when we feel more confident that the Soviet studio can deliver work in that quantity,” he concludes.

“We’ve been teaching them about merchandising characters and how copyright laws can protect their characters. Their ability to put in money to match ours is going to give us a better quality product. It will give us a tradition that will live a long time.”