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Bingo! – how determination made a nordic kids franchise

Bingo! – how determination made a nordic kids franchise
Preview from issue #005 | March 2020 | This article is made available for free by Fredrikstad Animation Festival
Bingo!
Frank Mosvold talk about
​Ella Bella Bingo


Frank Mosvold is the brains behind Ella Bella Bingo, the beloved animated TV series that has just launched a feature film. To call him a “producer” doesn’t really do justice to the full scope of his vision, his involvement, and his influence on his projects and on the Nordic animation community. Currently busy traveling with the premiere of the Ella Bella Bingo movie, he took time for an interview with WeAnimate. 
Foto: Tore SkaarPhoto: Tore Skaar
WA: Firstly, congratulations on the spectacular success of Ella Bella Bingo. It’s broadcast around the world, and been on the air for over ten years… you’ve been working with it for all that time, and must have been in development for a year or two before that. 

FM: Actually, that’s a funny story. In 2009 we were working with NRK (the Norwegian public broadcaster) on a project called “Babboo”, about a monkey. Cartoon Forum was in Norway that year, and it was important for us as a Norwegian studio to be there and represent well, so we were going to pitch it at Cartoon Forum, with the support of NRK.

The Friday before our meeting, NRK called me up and said that they didn’t like the Babboo trailer, and were withdrawing from the project. So, off the top of my head, I lied and told them, “Well, we are also working on another project you might like. If I can present it to you on Wednesday, can we still make the Cartoon Forum deadline?”, and they agreed. 

When I got off the phone with them, I went to my designer, Tom Petter Hansen, and said “You know that picture you drew of your daughter? I always liked that, so let’s make a TV series around it. It will be loosely based on your life; the story of an active girl with a single father, living in the apartment building you live in. We need to add some supporting characters, so let’s add a strict old lady, and a friendly janitor, and she needs friends, so let’s add two twins… can you draw that up over the weekend?”

After I talked to Tom Petter, I called my screenwriter buddy, Trond Morten Venaasen, and said “I have a fantastic idea for a new project! I’ll send you the picture of the main character, and then I need some taglines for episodes and some character descriptions.” I described the characters and the setting, and then I named the show after my cousin Elfrid.

So that Wednesday morning I got the taglines and the drawings, and I went to NRK and presented it. They said, “This is fantastic! Why didn’t you bring us this before?”

They supported the project, we got it into Cartoon Forum, got some broadcasters interested, and got it into production. 

And the whole thing came from just that single drawing.


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The first ever drawing of Ella Bella Bingo
©Mosvold Studios, all rights reserved


WA: Amazing! Are you just the world’s best project pitcher? 

FM: Well, I don’t like to think of it as “pitching”. Pitching makes me nervous; elevator pitching and saying everything in two sentences make me anxious. So I never ask for pitch meetings. I just ask for a meeting to talk about the project, and show them how enthusiastic I am. People connect with your own enthusiasm. 

NRK liked Ella Bella Bingo because Nordic audiences at the time were hungry for strong, proactive female characters. Everyone was tired of these passive princess characters, and wanted girls who were more interesting and dynamic. We had this tough, modern, Pippi Longstocking type of character, and that was something they really needed.

​WA: And the feature grew from that? 


FM: I always wanted to make it into a feature; that was the plan from the very beginning. The biggest problem was coming up with a story. Our characters were originally a bit shallow, because we only had a week to develop them. In a TV series, your characters can’t have big story arcs, because they can’t evolve; if your character develops over time, you throw off the continuity of the series.

The character always has to go back to where they were at the beginning. But that doesn’t work in a feature film, which needs story development and a character arc. 


The Ella Bella Bingo universe is also unusual in that our stories don’t have bad guys, and it’s difficult to develop a feature film story arc that isn’t based on an antagonist. Some of the characters are flawed, but there isn’t a bad guy, which makes the film warmer and more relatable.

WA: How did you resolve that and make it work?

FM: If you look at the story arc of a Pixar film, their stories don’t revolve around a simple conflict between good and evil characters. Their stories are all based around the main character losing the thing they love the most. Look at Finding Nemo, and Toy Story… it gives you so much to work with if you take away what people care about and make them work to try to find it, and they grow along the way.
​
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WA: It must at least save some time to make a feature from a series, though, because you would expect to be able to re-use some of your existing designs and assets?


FM: Well, the TV series is done in Flash on a very low budget, and wouldn’t work for the big screen. Our original plan was to just have simple matte paintings for the backgrounds, but then buyers started looking at it and wanting more. Our budget increased and it got more and more complex and ended up being a complete redesign. 

Our biggest challenge was her hair: Ella Bella has wild, curly hair, and it’s kind of her trademark. It’s incredibly difficult to realize that hair in 3D on the budget we had. I am so grateful to Gimpville, who worked for next-to-nothing during our long development, as we tried various ways to get that hair right, but we ended up having to make her hair a lot shorter. 

If the movie goes well, which it seems like it will, the plan is to return to the TV series with the assets we made for the film, so future seasons will be 3D animated and have the designs we made for the feature.  ​

​

animationfestival.no


WA: So now that you’ve made the series and the feature, has your role evolved? Will you be stepping back a bit and delegating more? 

FM: (laughs) As Ella Bella Bingo was a low budget production, and I am the cheapest guy around, I did do too much myself. And I am too attached; it’s my biggest strength and my biggest weakness. I wish I could work better with others. 

There’s a quote that says “If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room,” and I really believe that. I know that I am a mediocre screenwriter, so even though I had the idea and the story in mind, I am not good at bringing life to it.

I need people like Trond Morten Venaasen to write the TV series, and Rob Sprackling and Johnny Smith to write the feature. When I work with great people, I can relax and know that they are taking my little idea and making it work. And they made it really playful and beautiful. 


For my story artists, I went to IMDB and found all my favorite movies and looked up the story artists that worked on them, and just started calling. I gave them the leeway to play around with it, and they made it funnier than I could have imagined. 

​
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The character line-up from Ella Bella Bingo
©Mosvold Studios, all rights reserved

​The pleasure of being a producer is that in the end you get credit for everything, so it’s in my self-interest to find the best people and give them freedom to do their best work. 
Michael Arndt, who wrote the screenplay for Toy Story 3, has this great quote: 

“The best metaphor for writing a screenplay is that you’re trying to climb a mountain blindfolded. When you think about the challenges of climbing a mountain blindfolded, you think it will be hard because you can’t see the rock face and you don’t know where the top is and you don’t know what’s below you. But actually the hardest part about climbing a mountain blindfolded is just finding the mountain.”

It’s not that I have a clear idea of what the film is going to be like, but I do know what kind of story I want to tell and what the main themes are. I help my team find the mountain, so we can climb it together. 

WA: Incredible quote! And the emphasis on story is so important.

FM: It really is! I went to Loyola Marymount University to study film in the 90s.  The school was more focused on independent cinema than the other big film schools in the US at the time. It was in the era of independent auteurs, when our big heroes were Robert Rodriguez, Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant, and filmmakers who were making private, personal independent films. 

Ultimately, I am part of that independent mindset. I feel like these are my own private, personal stories that I am telling. I often say that Ella Bella Bingo is the little girl inside of me that always wanted to get out. 

​

"I applied nine times to the Norwegian Film Institute and got rejected nine times, but I refused to let them determine my fate”
Frank Mosvold


WA: Your background really has these American and European influences. What do you think of the idea that American animation is commercial and European animation is artistic? 

FM: I really hate the division between “commercial” and “artistic” films. Europeans are always saying “that’s good for a commercial film” or “that was good ticket sales for an art film.” There’s no such thing as a commercial or an artistic film: there are only films that have good stories and good design, and films that don’t.

Films need to stand on their own, and not be measured by those genre criteria. The best films have depth to the characters and do well at the box office, and that’s all. 


WA: Do you think it’s because American films have to demonstrate financial success before they are even made, while European films don’t have that box office pressure? 

FM: Europeans have a lot to learn from Americans, and Americans have a lot to learn from Europeans. Sometimes you end up watching these fantastically animated European films that are wonderful to look at, but they don’t connect with the audience.

Or you see something that is highly polished like Minions, which is really just a series of gags without a story at all.


But then look at Pixar: Pixar makes the absolute best animated films, because they are story-driven, and they keep improving the story until it works. The films aren’t just about looking at pretty pictures; they have depth and meaning. 

WA: Recent years have seen an explosion of new opportunities for animation in Europe. There are new and better distribution channels, more co-productions, more-funding.

FM. There has never been a better time to be working in animation in Europe. It’s an incredible time for someone to be starting a career in animation, because we now have all the opportunities, all the skills, all the technologies, and all the distribution channels that we didn’t have in the past. It won’t last forever, because there will be consolidation of the streaming platforms, but right now is an incredible moment in European animation.


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Photo: Jacob Buchard

​WA: Do you think your success is exceptional? 

FM: Honestly, I am surprised that I have gotten as far as I have, given my limited talents. I see all these people with incredible talents, and don’t understand why they aren’t actually making movies. I think my special ability, if I have one, is that I have more determination. 

WA: Any advice for people who are just starting out? 

FM: Just do it!  Go make your film! Even if you don’t have any support. Listen, you will pitch your project to 100 people, and 95 of them won’t like it. Don’t get discouraged by rejection and just give up on your project. Rejection is okay, it means you are trying; just keep working on it and keep presenting it to potential partners. 

I applied nine times to the Norwegian Film Institute and got rejected nine times, but I refused to let them determine my fate. You will get the support you need if you stay positive and consistent, and if you have a good story. And if nobody likes it and nobody supports it, just go out and put it on YouTube yourself. There is simply no reason for a person to sit around and complain instead of making their film. 

I have a few projects I am looking at right now, and I have no doubt that, when I choose one, it’s going to get made. There’s no question about it. Even if nobody supports it in the beginning, even if I experience rejection. Filmmakers need that kind of persistence and faith in their work. 

WA: Any regrets? 

FM: I really wish we could have kept Ella’s wild hair. ​

​
Written by Rebekah Villon for WeAnimate Magazine
​Images and artwork courtesy of KOOL Production. ©2007-2020, all rights reserved.

​
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  • This issue
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  • Free articles
    • Bingo! – how determination made a nordic kids franchise
    • Striking Gold in the Gaming Business - exclusive
    • Hit Girl In Hollywood - exclusive
    • A Jolly Beginning - Klaus | WAM #004
    • Music to your ears - WAM 002
    • Visiting SYBO Games | WAM #001
    • The Robots are Coming | WAM #002
    • A Tale of Hope and Despair | WAM #002
    • Artist Profile: Jody Ghani Nordby | WAM #002
    • Artist Profile: Sascha Altschuler | WAM #002