In the past couple of years MOME animations achieved quite an amount of successes. This year two short films have competed at Annency, and Balázs Turai, who also graduated there, has won the Grand Prix. How was this educational and festival system built?

Animation can be interpreted in a lot of ways, so we also cannot take it for granted that performing well on festivals confirms the success of a school’s operation. Nowadays a comic book adaptation, or any other blockbuster film of a certain genre has a multitude of animation elements of which the average viewer doesn’t even know about: even if it looks quite realistic, it is far from physical reality. These are all the works of animators and animation professionals, and their education happens in schools specialised in these, most of the time at a university. When we started to develop this study program 15-20 years ago, our main goal was to set ourselves a mission, and set those fields we would’ve liked to focus on. Taking the traditions of the institution into account, the development trends seen at the time, and the attitude of the students, we came to the conclusion that our path should be the training of animation film artists.

So, we wanted to train autonomous creators who use the animation tool-system to realise their artistic visions.

To this we added the objective of providing students with the opportunity to make their own films during their time here. We have seen that, thanks to more focused talent management, those who come to our animation program training can produce films of the same quality as, for example, students of a French or an English university. And if we already have good films, then we must invest energy in managing the afterlife of these works. This is how it came to be that we deal a lot with sending off the finished films to festivals.

What are the qualities that you expect from an animator admissioning to MOME?

A high level of visual representation skills is one of the most important requirements. It is also important to learn a time-based approach: today, not even a graphic designer works only with still images, many orders come in when the expected material to be created has some kind of temporal extension, so something must also move in the case of a digitally created artwork.

During admission, it is therefore important for the applicant to be able to think in sequences. The existence of animation skills is also a key issue, meaning the creator must be able to bring his own or other people's visions to life.

And above all this stands: originality – that someone can combine all these tools with a vision that stands out of the average. In addition, of course, we also try to find out how the person can exist in a team, communicate, cooperate, and pay empathetic attention to his fellow creators.

How are the films made at MOME developed? Is there a fail-safe system, or do the instructors take a different approach for each project?

Of course, the cliché answer would be that every project is different, but this is only half true. For each work, we have to define the time frames of development and preparation separately, which are followed by the production phase. The first two often overlap with the third, either due to financing or deadline problems, and this never does any good for the end-result. On the other hand, continuous mentoring is necessary, regardless of the style and genre of the given work. This is not only important for the work itself.

One of the major shortcomings of the Hungarian animation scene is that workshops have ceased to exist. This is a problem because the finished work itself is only the tip of the iceberg, until then there is a lot of work that is not visible for the audience.

Experiencing this invisible work is essential. For this reason, we also prefer creating workshops within our education. A student makes two or three films during the years spent here, but unfortunately this still does not replace what he gets in a workshop in cooperation with more experienced colleagues over a long period of time. One of our most important tasks is to create this workshop atmosphere as much as possible, to model the functioning of such a community.

Does this model need to be constantly polished and changed for it to work smoothly?

Yes, this is constantly changing, as most of the parameters are also changing. For example, today's applicants come with a completely different preparation than those applying 15 years ago. Their life situation, their living conditions, the problems they are currently dealing with are very different. For example, after the pandemic, many of them prefer to work and study from home rather than move into the school studio. Another changing parameter is the technological environment, which comes with the changing of the model. In any case, our basic principle is to find the right form for the content. We have students who work with painting-animation, others experiment with stop-motion and mixed techniques. It is important to familiarize them with the basic connections and, once this is in place, to find a way to implement unique ideas.

First, you yourself worked with applied animation and graphics. How well does MOME prepare someone for transition between authored and applied animation?

From the standpoint of the use of tools and awareness, it doesn't matter whether someone creates authored or applied animation, but interoperability is a really important issue in many ways. I see a lot of educational institutions trying to somehow deal with this alignment issue. Students tend to approach the creation of an applied animation in a creative and innovative way, even in an educational situation. Of course, this is possible, but when these orders arrive one after another on a conveyor belt, efficiency and speed become very important.

It is a difficult task to create a 'rigid', market microclimate within a school that trains artists when students are forced to use established habits and professional solutions in a given situation.

We try to include projects in the program, even in collaboration with real customers, that simulate the market environment. So, the students present to the clients, lead a conversation with them, they have to consider their opinion, adapt to the deadlines, while doing all this as part of a team. Therefore, the primary difference between the authored and the applied approach is not a qualitative difference, rather a socio-economical or even a legal one, but within these, an applied work can-, and almost always does carry artistic value.

For the films made here, you appear as ‘producer’ on the credits. How do you work in this position, where does your work begin and where does it end?

This title was justified by the fact that at the time the Hungarian National Film Fund was established, we became one of the institutions that received production support to produce exam- and diploma films. One of the conditions of this support system is the existence of the role of the producer, and that’s how it happened that I was chosen for MOME's animated films. This is the formal part. In the case of a diploma film, each student has a supervisor who accompanies them through the entire process. I often worked as a supervisor, but even if not, I still accompanied most projects from beginning to end – as a producer does. I was also responsible for raising funds, I did my part in lobbying and I tried to contribute to the renewal of subsidies. As rector, I moved a little further away from this process. Today what I do could be defined more as what an executive producer does, since I cannot be present at certain stages of the development process. Now that my term as rector is coming to an end, I am trying to get back into the producer-work just like I did before. There are a lot of exciting films being made, fortunately, it seems that we are not running out of talented creators with unique visions.

As a teacher, producer, and mentor, you have routine in reviewing films. As a jury at Primanima, will you look at works with a different perspective?

I think the perspective of a jury is close to the role of a teacher-mentor. In both situations, you have to give feedback, classify, and constructively judge what you see, so in that sense this is a familiar position for me. Of course, there are no absolute measuring devices in this case either. The efficacy of a production can only be well judged if we are aware of what kind of film the given set of tools and contents would produce in the most optimal case. There are times when the concept is strong, but the animation is not so well-developed, other times the visuals are impressive, but the foundations are clichés. In really good works, all mentioned elements are somewhere above the average. These aspects add up, and a good jury is able to properly put them together. Fortunately, there are so-called "special mentions": a jury member can have personal favourites that, say, the other judges liked less. This gives us the opportunity to highlight them.

How do you see the leeway for animators starting their career today?

Unfortunately, due to the lack of workshops in Hungary, most people start their careers as freelancers. If, on the other hand, the creative intention is not the primary one, then you can find studios where one can create a great existence and learn a lot. The problem is that said companies do not represent that workshop-approach that would help one find and strengthen their creative voice. In any case, those who are able to persistently deal with animation, either as a professional applied-worker or as a creator, will have success either here or abroad.

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Translated by Máté Hirsch