Ukraine's creators of cartoon characters say their profession is suffering in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s animation school, once famous in the Soviet Union, is currently in decline. But it’s not for lack of talent. It suffers from a lack of job prospects at home. Enthusiastic youths who stick with the profession continue to win recognition at international festivals, and then return home to find that their skills are not in demand here.
Ukrainian animators are hired by foreign studios producing commercial animations or computer games. “A job like that is easy and well-paid. That is why – to survive – we have no other chance than to sell our talent for money,” said Stepan Koval, 44, a Ukrainian animator and winner of the Silver Bear award at the Berlinale International Film Festival. “But working like that, the older I get, the less humor I feel inside me. It is being stifled by lack of money, lack of demand for real talent as an animation director, loads of unrealized personal ideas.”
Koval is luckier and more entrepreneurial than many of his peers. He actually collected enough money to start a private animation studio, Novator-Film on 32 Vasylkivska Street in Kyiv.
Apart from commercial activity, the studio also offers internships to aspiring young animators. “It is ridiculous, but very often we are being hired by French, German, Polish producers to work for animation series that Ukraine buys later to show on our TV,” Koval said. By taking interns, Koval feels he is continuing a good tradition that his own teacher set in Soviet times at the state-owned Ukranimafilm years ago.
Ukranimafilm is long gone, but its living legend and Koval’s teacher, 72-year-old Yevhen Syvokon is still teaching the young talent. Syvokon created hundreds of cartoons over the past decades.
There are some 10 animators who graduate from Karpenko-Kary University in Kyiv each year. Syvokon has been their teacher for decades. He says his school is unique because it teaches all animation techniques and encourages students to experiment with traditional media along with the 3-D animation programs preferred by most these days.
“Each term I make them do some pieces of animation with the help of various materials, including fabric, modeling clay, food. I make them try working with their own hands, not only in 3D animation which is popular in the West. I give them a wide choice so that they could choose materials they like the most,” Syvokon said.
These experiments pay off well as Syvokon’s students regularly take awards at various festivals in Poland, Latvia, Austria, Russia, Brazil and France with their rare hand-made animations. Koval, who received a Silver bear at Berlinale Festival in 2003 and another 26 festival awards later, was rewarded for his 10-minute plasticine animation “The Tram # 9 Was Going.” It can be found on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr8SpVmcKPg.
Some of Syvokon’s own creations – like the famous cartoons depicting adventures of the Ukrainian Kozaks belong to the priceless heritage of Ukrainian animation. But, paradoxically, neither Ukraine not its creator has any ownership rights for it. “I was trying to find the cartoons I made between 1962 and 1991. There are over 350 cartoons, but all of them were lost in Ukraine. As I was told later, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine sold all of them to the Russian TV,” he said.
Syvokon had to copy some of these cartoons from a Russian TV channel to a DVD to save them for his own grandsons. “It is the theatre of the absurd. To watch my own cartoons, I have to order them from Russia and pay them some money because I have no copyright.”
Animators praise Russia for its attention to the animation industry. “In 2008 our closest neighbor, Russia, made some 160 children cartoons, we made only two or three. That is why our young generation does not understand clearly what is good and what is bad, they have no feeling of patriotism and have a strong desire to move somewhere abroad where, as they have watched since childhood, life is much better than in Ukraine.” Koval said.
Syvokon and Koval are currently completing an order from the Culture Ministry for a series of patriotic cartoons called “My country – Ukraine” (Moya krayina – Ukrayina). “We are gathering old national fairy tales and narrations about each oblast of Ukraine. We make very little profit from this order but we love animation and are working in Ukraine with the hope that our project will help to bring up a new, more patriotic generation.” Koval said.
Ukraine’s Cabinet assigned Hr 2.4 million to make 16 movies, including one animation this year. France, by comparison, sets aside 46 million euros annually to produce seven cartoons, according to Victor Sleptsov, general producer of a private animation studio Borysfen-S. Film directors call Ukraine’s budget “a mockery.”
“This money would only be enough for me to make a movie about people who got stuck in an elevator with no lights,” said Mykhailo Illyenko, a film director. To create a proper modern movie-length animation the investment would have to be around 1 million euro, coming over the period of 1.5 to two years, Syvokon said.
“However, in Ukraine, only a quarter of that sum is usually available to an animator group after it has passed through all the state organizations. The only way I see to solve the problem is to create state grant animation programs like those in Europe and the U.S. No bureaucracy will be involved in the process while only the author is able to receive the money,” Syvokon said.
Most young animators start by making their movies on home computers. Anatoliy Lavrenishin, a student of Syvokon, tells his story: “I made my 10-minute animation ‘Wandering Between’ by myself at home. Later it was awarded at Irpen Film Festival and ‘The End of The Pier’ British Festival. It was bought soon by an Australian and a Taiwanese TV channel,” he says, proudly. It can also be viewed on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vV4j-S-D38
Until recently, Syvokon was taking pride in the fact that despite their miserable existence, none of his really talented students quit the profession. Unfortunately, the first precedent occurred just recently.
“Some of my students are working in Ukraine for foreign money, some on television, some are making computer games or working abroad because of lack of finances in Ukraine.”
“But what scared me the most is that the first of my students recently left animation and works as a makeup artist which means the beginning of the end in Ukraine for the profession that I love so much,” Syvokon said.
The most popular Ukrainian animations are available on YouTube and on the Novator-Film website:
Yevhen Syvokon’s “The Snow will cover the Road”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22rDJvvKmGk
Yevhen Syvokon’s famous Soviet cartoons depicting adventures of the Ukrainian Kozak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaQmIQEn1c8
Yevhen Syvokon’s “Laziness (+English subtitles)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmRUeZpsSFA
Stepan Koval’s “The Tram # 9 Was Going.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr8SpVmcKPg
Koval’s “Zlydni”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX7p6sK9NmwPart1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvYzVHZcGOE&feature=related– Part2
Anatoliy Lavrenishin’s “Wandering Between”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vV4j-S-D38
Official website of Novator-Film Ukrainian animation studio
