From South Africa to the world — local filmmakers Phil Cunningham and Brent Dawes talk about bringing the Old Testament tale of David to the screen as an animated feature film. You don’t get more David vs Goliath than an animated musical adventure made in South Africa opening against a sequel to the highest-grossing blockbuster of all time. And yet that’s exactly what happened withDavid, made by Noordhoek headquarteredSunrise Animation Studios.
In its first week of cinema release, David brokerecordsfor its production partner and distributor Angel Studios, and set new box office benchmarks for faith-based animated movies (surpassing The King of Kings and The Prince of Egypt). All whileopening in second placebehind James Cameron and Disney’s Avatar: Fire and Ash. Resoundingly ticking the box for earnest family entertainment this festive season, David is a polished and surprisingly sophisticated tackling of the Old Testament tale where a humble shepherd boy becomes the leader of the Israelites.
Along the way, he steps up to face Goliath, the monstrous champion of the Philistines, and triggers the paranoia of his once-patron and friend King Saul. Originally from Zimbabwe, David film creator and producer Phil Cunningham wrote and executive produced the 2003 stop-motion film The Legend of the Sky Kingdom, before going on to found Sunrise in Cape Town with his wife Jacqui. One of Sunrise’s greatest successes to date is itsJungle Beat franchise,comprising TV series, YouTube shorts, feature films and game adaptation.
Read Full Article on Daily Maverick
[paywall]
Long-time Sunrise creative lead Brent Dawes was a key figure steering those projects and, in addition to directing David, was one of the film’s writers. Here is our interview with David co-directors Cunningham and Dawes about the against-the-odds success story of bringing their animated film to the world. David was a film 20 to 30 years in the making.
Could you walk me through the timeline of the film’s development? Specifically, when and how did the Angel Studios partnership come into being? Phil Cunningham:The vision for this film started over 30 years ago when I was canoeing down the Zambezi River.
You could canoe for four days and five nights and not see a human being; just elephants, buffalos, lions, beautiful thunderstorms and sunsets. Growing up in the wild I fell in love with adventure and always loved storytelling, especially around the campfire at night. There was nothing better than falling asleep looking up at the galaxies above and thinking about stories that would inspire the world.
This is where the idea of telling David’s story was birthed. He was a flawed human like all of us but lived expansively and adventurously, and the telling of his story might inspire people to take on the giants of their lives and of our generation. In 2015 we made our first research trip, and Brent wrote the first draft of the script.
In 2017 we made the demo – a proof of concept for the film to raise the finance. It was in 2019 that we first made contact with Angel Studios, and we reached out to them. We began crowdfunding with them and went into full production after that.
Note: Angel’s crowdfunding approach raised $49.7-million of David’s $60.9-million project budget,according to Angelin 2023. David is a poster child for contemporary animation in that it’s a massive collaborative venture, with in-house and remote contributors around the world. What was that like?
[/paywall]
