ROMEO & JULIET: SEALED WITH A KISS SYNOPSIS Directed by Phil Nibbelink Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With a Kiss is a fully animated feature fantasy about two star crossed seals from warring families that fall in love against their parents' wishes. When Juliet's father gives her hand in marriage to the monstrous elephant seal Prince, Juliet must fake her death in order to be reunited with Romeo. But the plan goes afoul and becomes a desperate race against time! With the help of their friends Friar Lawrence and Kissy (the kissing fish), the day is saved and the young lovers are reunited in this wonderful retelling of the ageless tale of love and prejudice set in an undersea world. Rating: Pending TECH SPECS: ROMEO & JULIET: SEALED WITH A KISS Directed by Phil Nibbelink Starring: Daniel Trippet, Patricia Trippet, Chip Albers, Michael Toland, Stephen Goldberg, Phil Nibbelink and introducing Chanelle Nibblelink. Runtime: 92 minutes Format: 1:85 Flat (35MM) Sound: Dolby Digital Rating: G Country: USA Website: www.indicanpictures.com or www.romeoandjulietfilm.com Genre: Children’s Animated Trailer: Available Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With a Kiss HEAD CREDITS Phil Nibbelink Productions Romeo & Juliet Sealed With A Kiss TAIL CREDITS Written, Directed and Animated by Phil Nibbelink Produced by Margit Friesacher Starring Daniel Trippet as Romeo Patricia Trippet as Juliet Chip Albers as Mercutio Michael Toland as Friar Lawrence and Capulet Stephen Goldberg as Montague Phil Nibbelink as the Prince and introducing Chanelle Nibbelink as Kissy the kissing fish Special Thanks Tony Anselmo Alex Cirulis Robert J. Morris Audrey Johnson Jacqui Carbonna Michael Smith Mike Kelly Alex Moradian Ted Wilson Bruce Tausher Richard Kaufman Karen Prell Roman Hobbs Paul Nibbelink Paul & Isa Friesacher Max Howard John McKenna Bill Panagouleas Music Courtesy of Dick De Benedictis Christopher Page Intents Creative Music Tommy Carter British Audio Publishing Stephen Bashaw Crank City Music Jack Waldenmaier Jack Waldenmaier Music Productions in association with The Music Bakery Steven Wenger River City Sound Productions Bill Holloman Bejoodle Music Fresh Music Curt Macdonald Bejoodle Music Fresh Music Kirk Cirillo Music 2 Hues "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" performed by Chanelle Nibbelink arranged by Elva Nibbelink "Bite My Tail" performed by Michael Toland lyrics and music by Phil Nibbelink Singing Starfish performed by Jennifer Nibbelink Russell Nibbelink Gigi Nibbelink Film Recorder by Upgrade Technology Inc. upgradetech.com Negative Cutting Debbie McAfee Film Laboratory Hollywood Film & Video Inc. Producer Rep. Mark Litwak copyright 2005 Phil Nibbelink Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved PHIL NIBBELINK List of Credits ‘The Fox and the Hound’ - Disney Animator ‘The Black Cauldron’ - Disney Animator ‘The Great Mouse Detective’ - Disney Animator ‘Oliver & Company’ - Disney Animator ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ - Disney/Spielberg (Co-Production) Directing Animator ‘The Magic Voyage’ - MS Film/Bavaria Animation Director ‘An American Tail - Fievel Goes West’ - Amblimation (Spielberg) at Universal Director ‘We’re Back’ - Amblimation (Spielberg) at Universal Director ‘Casper’ - Universal (Spielberg) Animation Director ‘Boogie Woogie Whale’ Sing Along - Phil Nibbelink Productions Writer/Director ‘Puss In Boots’ - Phil Nibbelink Productions Writer/Director ‘Leif Ericson - The Boy Who Discovered America’ - Phil Nibbelink Productions Writer/Director ‘Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss’ - Phil Nibbelink Productions Writer/Director Phil Nibbelink went to the Disney Animation program at California Institute of the Arts and started work at Disney Studios as an animator in 1978. There I animated on “The Fox and the Hound”, “The Black Cauldron”, “Basil the Great Mouse Detective”, “Oliver and Company”, and I was a directing animator in London on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. I then went to Germany and did direction and animation on “The Magic Voyage”. From there I joined Steven Spielberg to form Amblimation in London where I directed “An American Tail: Fievel Goes West” and “We’re Back”. I moved back to L.A. and directed the animation on “Casper” and developed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats”. In 1998 I started Phil Nibbelink Productions with my wife Margit Friesacher as Producer and together we made direct to video films “The Boogie Woogie Whale Sing-A-Long”, “Puss in Boots”,and “Leif Ericson: The Boy Who Discovered America”. In 2000 we decided to make the 35mm feature film “Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss”. After completing my other projects I began working on Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss in early 2003. It was exciting as I was putting my two favorite things together, seals and Shakespeare. I figured if Bugs Bunny can do Opera...seals can do Shakespeare! Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss Production Notes I worked for many years in the big studios as an animator and director. The crews on my films ranged anywhere from 150 to 500 people. And although everyone says ‘filmmaking is a collaborative effort’, I came away feeling that it was filmmaking by committee. A lot of money and time was wasted by going in circles. And sadly, the final product was often a confused mash of competing ideas. I was jealous of the novelist, painter and composer, who can sit alone and produce entire creations, free of the noisy clash of egos. And so I determined to make a hand animated feature all by myself. It was a simple question of math. A 78 minute feature would require me to produce 112,320 drawings. If I could make a drawing every 2 minutes, I’d have a finished film in 5 years. I love the play Romeo & Juliet. And I love marine mammals. What if I combined the two? I figured if Bugs Bunny could do opera, seals could do Shakespeare. But how can one man do the work of hundreds? I had to rethink the way animated features are made. They have always been animated with paper and pencil. The final drawings used to be traced onto sheets of celluloid and shot over a background under an animation camera. Now the drawings are scanned and colored in a computer and the digital files are sent to a film recorder. I decided the most efficient way for me to work would be to forget paper and animate directly into the computer using a graphics tablet. This enabled me to skip a lot of time consuming steps. I animated in Flash, a vector based animation software, which produces perfect vector lines that can be blown up to the big screen. And I painted the backgrounds with Painter, which has a natural media look. Unlike traditional film productions, I discovered I didn’t need to make storyboards. The story and staging was clear in my mind and being a one-man-band, meant I didn’t have to pitch my idea to 200 people. All I needed to start, was voices. I built a small recording booth in my basement. And I invited my children and a few friends to help me create the sound track that I would work with for the next 5 years. My daughter Chanelle was 3 years old when she first started recording for the part of Kissy the Kissing Fish. She was so good at improvising that I started making her part bigger and bigger. I could only record a couple of lines with her before she’d get fussy and run back upstairs. So her lines were recorded over 3 years. Once the sound track was cut on my computer I would animate to the voices one drawing at a time. The animation was then digitally composited over the backgrounds. I bought a used film recorder and shot the 112,320 frames to 35mm film. Finally I cut the film and transferred the sound to a 35mm sound track. Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss took me 5 years to complete. I had finished an entire animated feature in a ‘paperless studio’. I wore many hats and had to come down a huge learning curve. But acting and story telling with art has always been my great passion. And making all those thousands of drawings was the fun part for me. I like bringing characters to life. They say an animator is ‘an actor with a pencil’. But with a computer I have being able to play all the rolls. I have surrounded myself with the technology to realize all my dreams.