Wizart Animation
Wizart Animation is a Russian animation studio headquartered in Voronezh, Russia. The studio specializes in the production of high-quality family animated feature films TV shows, their distribution and promotion in the Russian and international markets.The animation studio is a subdivision of Wizart. It was formed in 2007 from a company specializing in software development as well as multimedia and software localization. It has been operating under the brand name Wizart Animation since 2012. Leaping from an independent animation studio, today Wizart has reached international success professionally producing 3D content for the cinema industry and is one of the fastest and most dynamically developing animation studios in Russia. Wizart Animation has produced highly acclaimed animated features The Snow Queen, The Snow Queen 2,,, and the Sheep and Wolves series. The company employs over 150 animators. Wizart continues the tradition of Voronezh animation as well as Russian animation itself, ever since the city's animation debut in 1988 when director Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin released the cartoon The Kitten from Lizyukov Street. The company's flagship product, The Snow Queen series was the company's debut that has managed to carve out a niche in the animation film festivals and animation industry.
The animated movies by Wizart have been sold to over 150 countries; participated in over 40 festivals; and its movies have been favorably appraised by distributors in countries like China, South Korea, Middle East countries, Turkey, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, UK, South Africa, Italy, France, Brazil. Today, they are working on a variety of animated movie and TV features.
History
Diversification
The studio was founded in 2007 in Voronezh, Russia by a group of artists from the computer game and information technology industry. Their experience allowed them to launch a new type of computer animation studio that involve young artists from different cities of Russia. In 2011, Wizart Animation created new business department to promote and sell animation content in Russian and international markets. Their vision was a production facility to produce world-class family animated feature films and animated series, as well as international sales and a marketing department. Until 2012, the studio operated under the name Inlay Studio with the main production site of the studio located in Voronezh, and some divisions located in Moscow.The newly independent Wizart animation studio was headed by Vladimir Nikolaev as chief executive producer and Yuri Moskvin as CEO. Vladimir Nikolaev introduced the company's franchises through many film festivals like the 17th Open Russian Comedy Movie Festival held in Tula Oblast. Yuri Moskvin's role as a spokesperson for the organization as well as a leading producer for the studio's first franchise The Snow Queen paved the way for the studio's rise to publicity. Other key people include Diana Yurinova, head of international distribution at Wizart Animation as well as Anna Pokorskaya, the international distribution manager. Under their oversight, Wizart has managed to emerge as a global brand in animation. They presented the films in international sale markets such as the film festivals of Cannes.and Toronto International Film Festival. At the Animation Summit, Wizart revealed animation in Russia is developing in the right direction. A few highlights of Wizart's accomplishments were presented such as Wizart's own film was the first Russian animated feature film with a wide theatrical release in mainland China. Distribution-wise, movies like The Snow Queen was appraised by different global distributors from South Korea, Brazil, Turkey, Middle East, and Czech Republic for a total of 140 different countries round the world. Its films are selected in more than 40 internationally acclaimed festivals.
Debut
Wizart's first project The Snow Queen a 3D computer-animated fantasy comedy family film was ready for release in 2012 ever since the idea was sprouted since the company's founding. The company had a relatively easy domestic release. However international release was complicated due to the Russian animation industry just bouncing back from the 1990s. As Wizart noted, during the film festivals they have attended such as the AFM and the Cannes, top studios like Walt Disney and Pixar already were in full competition. Wizart had to conduct difficult negotiations with distributors. Despite these challenges, Wizart found a breakthrough in November 2011,as The Snow Queen was first presented for international buyers at the AFM. The film received very positive feedback from buyers from over 20 territories, including USA, Canada, Germany, Italy, South Korea and China, among others. The movie also found massive appeal to distributors at the 67th Cannes International Film Festival in France. After releasing in 2012, it earned $14 million worldwide, setting a record for a Russian animated feature. On January 29, 2013, a few weeks after the release, Voronezh State University partnered with Wizart to open an animation department at the university. The partnership was intended to be a training base for future employees to the animation studio as renewed interest for animation picked after the studio's first debut movie. Sergey Selyanov, a well-known film producer and winner of the State Prize of the Russian Federation, visited Voronezh during 2013 and met with Governor Alexey Gordeev. Selyanov remarked within a very short time Wizart Animation was able to become the leader of the domestic as well as world high-tech film industry. It is now comparable to its peers in St.Petersburg. At the top 10 highest-grossing production centers and film companies in Russia, in the first half of 2013, Wizart came in 10th place.In 2014, the original movie was followed by the sequel, titled . The Bazelevs Company produced both films, and its success was apparent after the film was well received both domestically and internationally. In 2015 the company was included in the TOP 25 Animation Companies to Watch catalog, a list of animation companies with most international potential, compiled by the highly regarded Animation Magazine. The studio's first original film, titled Sheep and Wolves, was released in Russian theaters on 28 April 2016. In 2016, Wizart revamped its marketing team with addition of new members. The move coincided with it main goals of promoting its brand through advertising within international and domestic markets.
Wizart Animation continued on its record to produce sequels to the franchise The Snow Queen. In 2016, was released. Even before its trailer announcement, foreign distributors already bought rights to the sequel confirming Wizart managed to create a secondary niche among animation movie studios. The trequel became a breakthrough event as it went on to became the highest-grossing Russian film in foreign box office. The fourth accompaniment to the franchise was released on January 1, 2019. For the first time in Russian animation history, a film was co-directed by a Hollywood animator, Robert Lence, who worked previously for the script in the prequel. Few days later on January 24, 2019 the sequel to Sheep and Wolves released titled. Both award-winning or nominated films have been warmly received by the audience with releases still awaiting new territories in 2020.
The brands The Snow Queen and Sheep and Wolves have set new records for the animation studio. Areas once inaccessible to Russian movie industry are now opening such as the French territories.Wizart
Present Era
Currently in production are movies to their beloved franchises as well as the preschool animated TV series, Yoko. Wizart is also debuting a repertoire of animation films in the 2020s that include animated renditions of Pushkin's poem Ruslan and Ludmila and gingerbread house fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. In February 2019, Wizart decided to decorate Voronezh the city where the studio is located with the keynote art objects originating from their repertoire of animated films.Units
Divisions
- Wizart
- * Wizart animation
- * Wizart series
- * Wizart distribution
- * Wizart animation school
Wizart Animation School
The project was aimed to recruit new animators aiming to improve their skills with additional availability of many perks. Today, online courses are offered that include Maya, Animation in Maya, digital sculpting, and Autodesk Maya. Students have the opportunity to learn how to animate characters, simulate the environment, light, render, sculpt, compose, create visual effects, and even manage the dynamics of virtual fabrics. At the end of the training, the best students will be employed. 50 graduates of the school will be granted full-time employees at the animation studio.
Feature Films and TV series
Traditions
Wizart’s main objective is to develop, produce, and distribute high-quality adventure fantasy comedy family film animated media that combine innovative technologies such as stereoscopy and CGI animation with traditional animation. The stories they main audience is the children and even adults with a family-friendly content. The stories narrate positive themes like believing in miracles and family importance. The company’s portfolio contains animation projects at various stages of production. Wizart recommends that once the studio has the first 10-15 minutes of the film, it should already be shown in the film markets.The rise from a regional animation studio to an international company had much to do with their expertise in presenting the promotional material during these film festivals. Once a film is developed it must be presented in film festivals with accurate documentation. Foreign distributors are bidding for the value of a film, therefore as Wizart noted it is crucial the packaging is attractive for sale despite over competition from animation studio giants. During animation development of The Snow Queen as well as Sheep and Wolves, it is noted the studio has over 14-17 departments that use various animation technology such as operating, lighting and sound engineers, but the standard classic use of boards, paper, pencils, still form the basis for much of their work. Voronezh animators stick to the studio because for them Voronezh is a city of creative people and glorious history.Chief Executive Producer, Vladimir Nikolaev explains the animation studio's main goal is to find features that can be accepted into global animation community, who has stated, “From the very beginning, our goal has been to create commercial animation features that a viewer of any country will find interesting.”
The Snow Queen Franchise
The new Wizart company started working on their debut movie as early as 2007. The animators started working with fairy tales because animation as a medium is well suited to describe the magical world and the adventures that are found within the genre. Of all the fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen was an instant favorite. Lev Atamanov of Soyuzmultfilm already presented an adaptation of the fairy tale to the Soviet Union audience in 1957. Due to the fact that the fairy tale already had a worldwide audience as the fairy tale is well known to young viewers and their parents in many countries as well as being a classic in Russia, Wizart used a combination of the traditions of classical animation and 3D stereoscopy to bring to life The Snow Queen movie. Animation of the iconic polar settings were inspired by Denmark, Laplands, and Russia as Gerda the main character and heroine was bought to animated life. The new adaptation used inspiration from its source material but is decidedly more comical. Despite the shift from traditional animation to 3D, the director and the writers kept the spirit of the original story intact. The Snow Queen completed production on 22 October 2012. The cartoon was the directorial debut by Maxim Sveshnikov. Acclaimed producer Timur Bekmambetov of the Bazelevs Company along with InlayFilm agreed to produce the movie. A noteworthy Russian cast was announced as the cartoon headed to theaters. The iconic polar winter background animation and the theme of a family animation movie was the key ingredients that made it well received in Russia as well as all around the world. The favorable outcomes were noteworthy despite a high learning curve and recruitment of personnel within a region that never had an animation school. Critics such as Annecy review noted the movie not only excelled commercially as a successful venture despite its budget being 5% of a Disney budget, but also it was a more faithful adaptation to Andersen's fairy tale than the other modern-day adaptations of the Danish fairy tale.Sequels
With each new project, there is a new level of storytelling and 3D computer graphics quality. The development of the story as well as the quality of animation about Gerda, Kai and their friends is evident in each new installment. Likewise, as is evident in children's films, there is a good moral message. Wizart confirmed to produce a theatrical sequel titled . The original film had already released in more than 35 countries. Alexsey Tsitsilin worked as director as well as the following sequels. The team continued the tale of Gerda as they used new innovations in animation to bring new dynamic movements to the screen that was lacking previously. Wizart continued to improve the international appeal of the brand as they targeted releases of international movies with the countries in mind. An international cast was announced to helm the sound department. Critically acclaimed singers from Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and UK collaborated with Wizart to localize its soundtrack and main theme songs. Working with such international stars for The Snow Queen 2 strengthened the international potential of the franchise. It was released by the Bazelevs Company as a theatrical release in Russia and CIS on January 1, 2015. The 3D film was a commercial success as it became the 7th highest grossing Russian film in 2015. The movie was also critically acclaimed, as the animation studio bought in awards or were nominated for one such as the Golden Globes Award and the Van Gogh Award. The sequel officially made WizartThe Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice
The trequel was the next chapter in Gerda's journey that had the crucial plot elements of reuniting a family as well as meeting new friends that contrasted well with the snowy themes of the prequels. The sequel was noted for its stellar international localization in dubbing, but this time, Wizart increased its international collaboration by bringing Disney's own critically acclaimed scriptwriter Robert Lence as a co-scriptwriter. Robert Lence has worked in the leading studios for more than 30 years as animator and scriptwriter for Walt Disney Animation Studio, as well as Pixar and DreamWorks with animation credits including Beauty and the Beast, Brother Bear 2. With Lence's consultation as well as screenplay from Aleksey Tsitsilin, Vladimir Nikolaev, Aleksey Zamyslov, and Andrey Korenkov they wrote a potential blockbuster. The Voronezh animators then developed the script into groundbreaking animation with plenty of situational comedy. The film was Russia's highest budgeted animation film from any of the previous years. The movie set records in Russia. In total in Russia the film took in $5.14 million from 1,170 cinema screens. The animated movie set records in places like Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The franchise's main foreign collection came from China. The third film was released on the spring of 2018 coinciding with the Qingming festival with the support of a major marketing partner Beijing Turbo Film Corporation Ltd. The third film's theme of reuniting Gerda's lost parents and importance to family was primarily one of the reasons why it was up in screens for record-breaking months. The plot reflects one of the basic values of Chinese culture: fundamental value of the family. Wizart’s animated movies had a great success in Korea also. The trilogy continued the tradition of employing Starship Entertainment record label artists to give voice to its theme songs. South Korea became one of the ‘best-going’ territories in the geographic range of Wizart Animation’s international sales. Critically acclaimed not only for its stunning visuals of fire elements juxtaposed with ice elements, critics such as Новый взгляд also remarked its moral theme, who stated "An extremely positive and life-affirming cartoon, imbued with a mortal instructive sense of fighting evil and injustice, despite everything, teaches you to fight only with good deeds and deeds, never using evil and negativity in return." The studio like its prequels came back with accolades such as the GUKIFF award and has continued to win at the Suzdalfest. With the success of the film The Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice, the trilogy The Snow Queen cemented itself as a popular animation franchise. A fourth installment,, was released on December 21, 2018 in Poland and on January 1, 2019 in Russia. The movie was warmly received by the audience who noted new additions to The Snow Queen universe.Today Wizart has renewed a 19th-century fairy tale with contemporary style while being authentic to its source material. Critics at Impacting Culture see the studio as one of Europe's best in business at animation with potential to compete against Disney-Pixar. The theatrical box office of the popular franchise The Snow Queen has already gained more than $60 million worldwide. Today The Snow Queen'' animated tetralogy series has managed to be released to over 150 countries. The audience is familiar with the adventures of Gerda, Kai, and the troll Orm whose films have been translated into 30 languages.
Sheep and Wolves Franchise
The idea for Sheep and Wolves movie occurred during 2012, alongside the parallel project of The Snow Queen. The movie was WizartFilmography
Feature films
| # | Sheep and Wolves | Year |
| 1 | Sheep and Wolves | 2016 |
| 2 | 2019 | |
| 3 | Sheep and Wolves 3 | 2021 |
| # | Title | Year |
| * | Hansel and Gretel | 2021 |
| * | Ruslan and Ludmila | 2021 |