Kilkenny’s Cartoon Saloon receive Creative Emmy in LA
Irish producer, voice actor, and Cartoon Saloon co-founder Paul Young (The Breadwinner, Wolfwalkers), recently made his directorial debut with the short Star Wars animation ‘Screecher’s Reach’. The episode of animated anthology series Star Wars: Visions has received a Creative Emmy award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation in the Production Design category.
‘Screecher’s Reach’, animated in a similar style to previous Cartoon Saloon productions Wolfwalkers and The Breadwinner, follows a young girl and her friends who discover a cave haunted by a Banshee-like creature. The adventure gives her a reprieve from her days in a rural workhouse.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner when the episode released in May 2023, director Young talked about the creative freedom Cartoon Saloon had working with LucasFilm:
“They wanted us to bring a little bit of our own culture to it, the opportunity to say, oh, we can have Irish actors in there, the accents can be Irish.”
The episode is packed with Irish talent with a cast that includes Eva Whittaker (Puffin Rock and the New Friends), Alex Connolly (Sunlight), Molly McCann (Herself), Niamh Moyles (The Breadwinner), Noah Rafferty, as well as Anjelica Huston (The Dead). Will Collins (Wolfwalkers) and Jason Tammemägi (Dublin 1) wrote the screenplay for the episode. Richie Cody (My Father’s Dragon) edited.
Katja Schumann (Song of the Sea) produced for Cartoon Saloon, along with Dan Bailey and Flannery Huntley for LucasFilm and LucasFilm Animation. Cartoon Saloon co-founders Nora Twomey and Tomm Moore executive produced the episode with Tammemägi and Gerry Shirren.
Star Wars: Visions is available to watch on Disney+.
