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Huge success on NBC

Israeli animation conquers O'Brien

Plot: Two pale men fight evil using laser-shooting nipples. Animation by: Three Israeli artists. Result: Yet another Israeli occupation

This is a story about Israelis who made good in the world, and it’s just the kind of story that we like to love. It began a year ago when comedian Jim Gaffigan, a guest on Conan O’Brien’s late night show on NBC, showed a pilot for an animated series called Pale Force that he’d worked on with New Yorker cartoonist Paul Noth.

 

Pale Force was far from your typical animated film. In fact, it was something completely different. While it did feature Gaffigan as a crime-fighting hero, both his character and the weak and cowardly O’Brien character use a different type of weapon: paleness. For their exalted task Gaffin and O’Brien’s animated characters are equipped with laser-shooting nipples. The pilot was so wildly successful that NBC decided to buy the entire series from Gaffigan and Noth, and six weeks ago placed a film on its web site showing Gaffigan and O’Brien’s exploits against the forces of evil.

 

The film was not created by a well-known company in New York or a leading high-tech company, but by three young Tel Avivians, two of them owners of multimedia company Kapara, who made a big impression on Gaffigan and his associates.

 

Stories about Israelis who succeed abroad usually appear in the financial pages or are discussed in the world of high-tech. They don’t usually involve creative types, but the story of Kapara shows that Israelis aren’t lacking in creativity.

 

Israeli kind of Cinderella

 

Hadas Drachli and Shahar Naor, long-term friends who worked in media in New York, planned a joint Internet project. At the same time another friend, Roi Werner, conquered the Big Apple with his special effects and digital editing.

 

Drachli and Naor returned to Israel and founded a multimedia company, working with Werner on joint projects. Through Werner’s connections they got a project building a site for an American company that does sound design for movies. When their client created the sound for the Pale Force pilot, they ended up doing the animated clip for Gaffigan, and the rest is history.

 

Werner and Drachli come to the world of animation from different backgrounds: Werner, a director of video clips, began working with video at the age of 16 and served in the IDF’s film unit. Drachli, a Kung Fu instructor, was a producer on the movie channel. Only Naor had a background in drawing.

 

“I got to Flash because it allowed me to do what I always wanted to do: animated films,” says Naor. “When we got this project, this was the fulfillment of a dream for me.”

 

Was there stiff competition?

 

Werner: They spoke to several American Flash companies and got quotes. But the personal connection and the fact that we got a warm recommendation worked in our favor. Gaffigan and Noth really loved our work. The fact that our bid was apparently the lowest didn’t hurt us.

 

Is this project worth it for you financially?

 

Drachli: This might sound funny, but we didn’t take the project for the money. Our price was really low.

 

Werner: We took the work mostly because Shahar really wanted to do it. We aren’t going to get rich from this. We’ll probably frame the check we get from them.

 

The three of you lived and worked in New York for a long time. Wouldn't it have been easier for you to work from there?

 

Werner: Even if they’d asked me I'd have refused. Look at this beautiful ocean where we’re sitting and talking. You don’t have that in New York.

 

Drachli: But it’s not just the ocean. Here we have Israel around us, the people and the atmosphere and the great stuff that you don’t have anywhere else in the world. It was actually when we came back to Israel that we got the work, and we wouldn't have gotten it in New York. It might sound patriotic, but for us there is also the issue of pride in being Israeli.

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.16.06, 20:25
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