Bags of Talent

Established by two "art school dropouts" in 1994, Brown Bag Films has gone on to enjoy the kind of success that founders Cathal Gaffney and Darragh O'Connell could never have imagined (much less their lecturers at Ballyfermot College). Gaffney, a self-described "animation obsessive", has perhaps the best piece of college memorobilia ever on his office wall: the letter telling him he was being thrown out of Ballyfermot, framed alongside the one from the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences telling him that Give Up Yer Aul Sins, Brown Bag's 2001 animated short, had been nominated for an Oscar.

In the 16 years since the production company was founded it has won numerous international awards, as well as two Oscar nominations, the second for the brilliant Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (2008). They've also picked up international commissions from the BBC, Nickelodeon, and now Disney Junior, who've hired them to make their newest show, Doc MacStuffin'.
Bearing in mind the success they've already achieved, what are their ambitions for the future?
"We would absolutely love to move into feature films," says Gaffney, "but we'd like to do that in parallel with a meaty kind of TV business as well. It's all about the content, and still caring what the kids want to watch. I'd hate to just be doing shows for co-production value. I'd love just to find out the kids who watch our stuff are happy with the work that we do."
What does he think makes for a good animated show?
"Respect for the audience is essential. Most people say, ‘Oh I have an idea that'll make a good cartoon'. They have no respect for their audience. You've really, really got to know what's in a kid's brain, to know the difference between a three and a half year old boy and a five year old girl. And you need total respect for those differences."
As the Oscar nominations demonstrate, Brown Bag have an excellent international reputation. Their work is shown all over the world, though not on our own channels, something that irritates Gaffney.
"Children are absolutely neglected by RTE," he says. "They're the public service broadcaster, so I think there's an [obligation] upon them to commission more visual programmes for children. Because you can't sell advertising around the children's block, they don't."
He's clearly warming to the subject.
"My feeling is that there should be an obligation based on the fact that Irish children are entitled to watch programmes that are culturally relevant. At the moment RTÉ spend less than a half a percent of their annual budget on animation. Irish children expect to see yellow school buses and red post boxes, and they're all gonna start speaking with American accents. I think that's the greatest shame. When we were children it was Wanderly Wagon and that, but at the moment only imported programming is being broadcast."
He then goes on to decry the state of the television industry in general. "Animation gets a total of 2% of all the available funds [to Irish television productions]. Brown Bag is punching well above its weight, because all our work is exported to other countries. If animation could have 10% or 15%, of the money being spent Ireland would have a real industry. As much as I love working with the BBC and Nickelodeon, I'd love to be doing stuff for Irish children and RTÉ. I can't because they won't let me."