Our last installment for this series on Brown Bag Films is the award winning Peter Rabbit. Beatrix Potter’s classic tale has been brought to life for a whole new audience to enjoy in this special animated series.
Directed by David McCamley Peter Rabbit had already won 3 Emmys in 2014 for Production Design, Art Direction and Storyboard and this year picked up the Emmy win again for Outstanding Individual Achievement Award in Animation, for Storyboard Artist Mårten Jönmark.
Mårten Jönmark – Storyboard Artist
Mårten is practically an old hand at the awards thing now, having won the Emmy last year, he is also the episodic director on The Octonauts.
Congrats on your win at the Emmys! This is your second win for Peter Rabbit, is it as good as the first? Where do you keep the Emmy?
The first time around when breaking the news to someone they tended to react like the house was on fire “Whoa, hold on there! What did you say?! No way! Really! That’s unbelievable!!!” and so on. The second time around it was more along the lines of “Oh, cool. Nice weather we’re having today.” For me though, I’m just as flabbergasted as I was for the first win. Both are kept clean and dust free here at Brown Bag Films. I guess I could’ve taken them home. It’s kind of nice though that when we have visitors in the studio they can be amazed and inspired by them. We do have a lot of animation trophies here but the Emmy is an instantly recognisable one.
How long does it take to get from storyboard to finished piece?
It can vary from show to show, but on Peter Rabbit storyboarding was about 10 months. So for all 56 episodes of the first season it would’ve taken about 47 years without the brilliant minds of production getting the idea to stagger the schedule. Working on several episodes at once, a full season takes from start to finish about 2 years.
Are you working on anything else at the moment?
I’m currently working as an episodic director on the Octonauts preschools series. It’s a great show about a gang of deep sea explorers who go on adventures and meet all these fantastical creatures.
Octonauts is a Silvergate Media production for BBC. Peter Rabbit is also a Silvergate Media production for Nickelodeon and the BBC.