Pink Parrot Media has secured a ScreenX format release for the 3D animated family feature Butterfly Tale, which is voiced by Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany and Mena Massoud (Aladdin).
Korea’s CJ 4DPLEX and Canadian producer Carpe Diem partnered to show the animated feature in the 270-degree panoramic ScreenX format in North America and internationally. The producers insist Butterfly Tale is the first 3D animated feature to be made in the ScreenX format from the pre-production stage.
Director Sophie Roy said challenges in making an animated ScreenX film included camera work and lighting. “Keeping the horizon equal throughout the three screens when the camera tilts was especially difficult and matching the light direction on all three screens took some serious work to make it all look seamless, a real challenge, but the results exceeded our expectations,” Roy said in a statement.
ScreenX is a multi-projection theater technology developed in South Korea that allows a panoramic, 270-degree movie-watching experience. It uses a proprietary system to expand the center screen image to the side walls, surrounding audiences with imagery and providing a sense of being inside the movie.
Pink Parrot Media will represent the animated feature — a co-production between Canada’s Carpe Diem and Germany’s Ulysses Filmproduktion — for sales at the Toronto Film Festival. Directed by Roy from a script by Heidi Foss and Lienne Sawatsky, the lead characters are voiced by Maslany as Jennifer and Massoud as Patrick.
Set against the backdrop of the great Monarch butterfly migration, the film has Patrick as a one-winged butterfly stowaway in a milkweed trailer who ends up on a journey with a goofy caterpillar named Marty and Jennifer as a butterfly who is afraid of heights. Patrick will become an unlikely hero, but first must face his fear, embrace his uniqueness and triumph over adversity, which includes three evil birds bent on revenge
The soundtrack includes the song “Something Big,” performed by Shawn Mendes. Marie-Claude Beauchamp and Emely Christians share the producer credits.
Besides a Canadian release from Oct. 13 via Vortex, Butterly Tale has been sold by Pink Parrot Media to Wildbunch (Germany and France), Monolith (Poland), Front Row (Middle East), Filmart (Turkey), Mis Label (Scandinavia), Just Ent (Benelux), Pro Film (Bulgaria), Blitz (Former Yugoslavia), Flins & Piniculas (Spain), Forefront Media (South Africa) and Top Film (CIS and Baltics).
CJ 4DPLEX is headquartered in Seoul with international offices in Los Angeles and Beijing. The company has created immersive film technologies — including multisensory 4DX, ScreenX and 4DX with ScreenX — for theaters worldwide.
