Song Of The Sea** arrived to a red carpet reception for its European premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday afternoon. Taking pride of place for the festival's Family Gala, the keenly anticipated second feature from The Secret Of Kells director Tomm Moore was well supported by the creators and voice actors.
The film follows the story of a young boy, Conor (voiced by David Rawle) and his quiet little sister Saoirse (Lucy O’Connell), who live by the sea in Ireland with their widowed father (Brendan Gleeson). Soon their ordinary lives take a turn for the strange and the family start to question whether the ancient myths of their country might actually contain some real life truth.
The story was conjured up by director Moore and magicked into a screenplay by Will Collins. "The original fantasy that Tomm had," said Collins, "was a story about a family who lived out by the sea and he wanted to tackle the issue of the way our mythology and our culture was slowly eroding, but also to pursue some environmental themes as well. For me, the first thing I thought about was how we could make this issue a family story, and essentially a relatable story with an emotional take to it. So I really wanted to focus on developing the family and seeing what was the problem in their world, trying to find a way of fixing that."
Much of Collins’ work was developed from brainstorming the story along with the visuals with the director. "Tomm would have a piece of paper in front of him and I'd be taking notes while he was illustrating," remembered the writer, "then we’d would come up with ideas. Once, we had this character who we came across called the Hairy Man, and who in the film is called the Great Shanakee. I remember the day we came up with him - Tomm was literally drawing this concept of a huge mass of hair and by the time we’d finished our conversation he spun around his paper and goes, ‘Is he a bit like this?’. I just said, ‘That’s exactly like him, actually he’s better than what I imagined.' When you work with such brilliant artists, whatever I had in my head they thought of something that was ten times better."
Rawle, the voice of the character Conor and star of Irish sitcom Moone Boy, also took some time to chat. This was his first work on an animated feature, and he was enthusiastic to talk about the recording process.
"We recorded the voices first then they did the small movements after. I’d never done anything like that before but I’d seen The Secret Of Kells, which was just amazing. It’s going to be interesting to see this one too as it’s my first time seeing the whole movie."
Recording an animated voice was a new process for Lisa Hannigan too, who plays Bronagh. The acclaimed Irish singer had her first experience of acting on the film, although it initially came as something of a surprise.
"Well, at first they asked me just to do singing," she said, "which was fine for me because I really like singing, and then they asked if I would be alright to do a little acting. I was worried that it would be terrible - for them, not for me - but then I thought I’d just give it a go and they were so encouraging and nice about it."
Despite the slight trepidation, Hannigan, like all the red carpet attendees, was excited to see Song Of The Sea on the big screen, where its rich visuals belong. The animation, which also features the voices of Fionnula Flanagan, Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt, has yet to announce a UK release date.
Reporting by Jenny Scouler*