Spain Jumps Into CGI Features

Forget about India. Or China. Or upstarts in Hong Kong. Ilion Animation (in Madrid) and Handmade Films (in London) are bringing a $54 million cgi feature to the world marketplace:

Shrek didn't remain forever after at Prince Farquaad's swanky castle. Now one of his creators, screenwriter Joe Stillman ("Shrek," "Shrek 2"), has also found pastures green outside Hollywood, penning the screenplay for indie toon "Planet One."

Produced by Madrid's Ilion Animation Studios and London's Handmade Films in a 60-40 financing split, the 1950s-style alien-world spoof underscores the existence of increasingly ambitious life in the international CGI animation arena.

Directed by Jorge Blanco, the $54 million pic is the biggest-budgeted film of any type ever to come out of Spain.

It's the twenty-first century, and like almost everything else, animation lives in a global economy. Animated features are going to get made in studios all over the world, and writers, board artists and animators are going to travel the world to work in them.

I'm made aware of this on a daily basis, as immigration visas come across my desk for review. Asia, Europe and South America all have animation communities, and lots of their folks come to the U.S. to work on product...even as Americans head offshore to work on features, commercials and television shows in different parts of the globe.

It's the new reality that we all live with, like it or not.