Our latest animated short film, 'Saving Chops', directed by Cora McKenna, was commissioned by RTÉ Junior, as past of their 'HOME' animated shorts series.
The gang were invited down to RTÉ on Wednesday the 15th of June to a special screening and panel with the directors of every animated short included in RTÉ Junior's 'Home' commission. Suzanne Kelly, Head of Children's and Young People's Content for RTÉ, opened the event with notes about RTÉ's continued commitment to animation, which was followed by a speech by the wonderful, Ronan McCabe, CEO of Animation Ireland. We were all interested to learn about RTÉ's Podcast sector, with a presentation from Audio and Podcast Producer, Nicky Coghlan, who talked us through the progression of Turnip and Duck's new animated series, Maddie and Trigs, which started as a podcast!
The talks were followed by a screening of all of the commissioned shorts -
‘Saving Chops’ - directed by Cora McKenna and Produced by Studio Meala
‘The Mighty Oak’ - directed by Dave Minogue and Produced by Adventurverse
‘Home Bird’ - directed by Aoife Doyle and Produced by Pink Kong Studios
‘Dembaya’ - directed by Borja Espana Guillot and Produced by Jam Media
‘Drawn Together’ - directed by Domhnall Cotter and Produced by Cardel Entertainment
‘Envelope’ - directed by Kayvon Darabi-Fard and Produced by Distillery Films
Each short was visually and tonally unique but all interpreted the theme of 'HOME' in a personal and emotional way. Our short, 'Saving Chops', is a deeply personal story of how Cora's real life pet cat, Chops, was rescued.
A little synopsis of 'Saving Chops' below -
A battle scarred stray cat wanders its city in search of a place to call home on a stormy night. She limps around searching tirelessly for the perfect comfortable and dry place. Just as she thinks she has found a perfectly fluffy pillow through an open window, she’s jumped by a housecat. Barely escaping no thanks to her injured leg. She runs onto an empty road, which is suddenly lit by headlights. Bracing herself, the car barely passes over her head. The next thing you know, she’s being grabbed! She puts up a fight at first, but soon succumbs to the warmth of the soft and cosy blanket. When she comes-to she’s in a dry and warm room with a comfortable cat bed. Not only that but her limp is gone, leg amputated right off but she can move better than ever before. She hops to the window with a perfect view of the city, the perfect home!
After the screenings, Eimear O'Mahony, Executive Producer of Children's & Young People's Programming at RTÉ, hosted an illuminating and sometimes hilarious panel with all of the directors.
We loved the experience of producing Saving Chops with RTÉ Junior and to see it share the stage with such compelling and interesting shorts, was a great moment for our team. We thoroughly enjoyed being there, as you can tell from the following pictures...
A massive thank you to Suzanne Kelly and Eimear O'Mahony and all the team at RTÉ for inviting us to showcase our work, incredible to see Chops on the iconic Late Late Show stage!
'Saving Chops', along with the rest of the shorts commissioned by RTÉ for the Home animated shorts series, will air on Monday 20th of June 2024 on RTÉ 2. They will also be available on the RTÉ Player from that date.
Team Meala!