Melnitsa Animation Studio

Melnitsa Animation Studio

File:Melnitsa Animation logo.svg
Industry	Animation Motion pictures
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Saint Petersburg, Russia
Products	Animated films
Number of employees	325 (2014)
Website	www.melnitsa.com

Melnitsa Animation Studio (Russian: Студия анимационного кино «Мельница», "melnitsa" meaning "windmill") is one of the largest animation studios in Russia. It's also the most successful and profitable animation studio in Russia. Alongside its animation projects, Melnitsa has an effort devoted to creating digital special effects for both animation projects and live-action films.

The studio traces its roots to several animated projects in the late 1990s, including television commercials, the short film Die Hard by Konstantin Bronzit (Grand Prix of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, 1998), and the animated series "Global Bears Rescue" and "Technology", created for Poseidon Film Distributors Ltd.

In 1999, Melnitsa was formally established and received funding from "Midi-Cinema" (Миди-Синема) and the film company STV (СТВ). The newly formed studio's first project was Adventures in Oz (Приключения в Изумрудном Городе) for NTV-film (НТВ-кино), a four-part animation released in 2000.

In 2001, Melnitsa released its first 3D-animated project - the short film Good Morning (С добрым утром) by Denis Chernov. In 2002 Melnitsa released two short films by the famous animator and director Konstantin Bronzit: There Was an Old Lady for Scholastic Entertainment and the 3D-animated film The God (winner of a number of international festival awards).

In 2000, Melnitsa began work on the feature-length animated film Little Longnose (Карлик Нос) directed by Ilya Maksimov, based on the fairy tale of Wilhelm Hauff. The film premiered on March 20, 2003. Although advertised as "the first Russian animated feature film released to theatres in 40 years", this claim has not been substantiated.

On December 23, 2004, the feature film Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin Zmey (Алёша Попович и Тугарин Змей) was released, directed by Konstantin Bronzit. The film was completed on the modest budget of $300,000 in a little over a year. The film took in about $1.7 million at the box office. This marked the beginning of Melnitsa's "3 Bogatyrs" trilogy, and two more films were planned over the next several years.

On January 2005, at the 10th Open Russian Festival of Animated Film in Suzdal, the new short film by Konstantin Bronzit premiered, called Cat and Fox (Кот и Лиса). Work on it had been finished in November 2004. Bronzit's film, based on a national Russian tale, was part of the huge government-sponsored project by Moscow-based Pilot studio called "Gora Samotsvetov" (Гора самоцветов)[1]. The project, when complete, will consist of 52 13-minute films based on fairy tales from all of Russia's nationalities.

On March 15, 2006, the second film in the "3 Bogatyrs" trilogy was released, called Dobrynya Nikitich and Zmey Gorynych (Добрыня Никитич и Змей Горыныч), directed by Ilya Maksimov. It came on the heels of the animated blockbuster Prince Vladimir, which was released on February 22, 2006.

The third film in the trilogy, Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber (Илья Муромец и Соловей Разбойник), was released on July 7, 2007.

Filmography

Full length

Year	Title cartoon	Director	Author(s) script	Production Designer	Budget	Fees
2003	«Little Longnose (Карлик Нос)»	Ilya Maksimov	Aleksander Boyarsky	Aleksandra Averianova	$2,5 million	$569 837
2004	«Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin Zmey»	Konstantin Bronzit	Aleksander Boyarsky Maksim Sveshnikov Ilya Maksimov Konstantin Bronzit	Ol'ga Ovinnikova	$4 million	$1 730 000
2006	«Dobrynya Nikitich and Zmey Gorynych»	Ilya Maksimov	Aleksander Boyarsky Maksim Sveshnikov Ilya Maksimov	Ol'ga Ovinnikova	$4,5 million	$3 620 000
2007	«Ilya Muromets and Solovey-Razboinik»	Vladimir Toropchin	Aleksander Boyarsky Maksim Sveshnikov	Ol'ga Ovinnikova Oleg Markelov	$2 million	$9 739 679
2008	«The Tale of Soldier Fedot, The Daring Fellow»	Lyudmila Steblyanko	Lyudmila Steblyanko Roman Smorodin	Anastasia Vasil'eva	—	$2 586 097
2010	«Three heroes and Shamahanskaya queen»	Sergey Glezin	Alexander Boyarsky Ol'ga Nikiforova	Ol'ga Ovinnikova Elena Lavrent'eva Oleg Markelov	$2,5 million	$19 010 585
2011	«Ivan Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf»	Vladimir Toropchin	Alexander Boyarsky	Marina Kudryavtseva	$3 million	$24 830 497
2012	«Three heroes on distant shores»	Konstantin Feoktistov	Alexander Boyarsky	Lidiya Savina	$3,5 million	$31 505 876
2013	«Ivan Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf 2»	Vladimir Toropchin	Vladimir Toropchin Alexander Boyarsky Svetlana Sachenko	Svetlana Degtyarёva	—	$20 962 988
2015	«Three heroes. Horse Course»	Konstantin Feoktistov	Alexander Boyarsky Svetlana Sachenko	Svetlana Degtuarёva	$3,5 million	$19 390 136
	«Krepost(Fortress)»	Konstantin Feoktistov	Alexander Boyarsky	Oleg Markelov	—	$1 165 764
2016	«Ivan Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf 3»	Vladimir Toropchin	—	—	—	$

In production

Full length

Year	Title cartoon	Director	Author(s) script	Production Designer	Start of production
2016	«Oorfene Juce»	Vladimir Toropchin	Aleksander Boyarsky Darina Shmidt	Anatolii Sokolov	2014
2017	«Three Knights and the King of the Sea»	---	---	---	2015

Serial cartoons

Title cartoon	Start of production	Information
«Luntik» ru:Приключения Лунтика и его друзей	Since August 2014	In production 8 season

Serial cartoons

Year	Title cartoon	Directed by of the animated series	The main authors of the script (as at 2014)	Production Designer	Number of seasons	Number of series
2005—present	«Luntik» ru:Приключения Лунтика и его друзей	Darina Shmidt	Darina Shmidt Fёdor Dmitriev Elena Galdobina Mariya Domogatskaya Anna Sosnora Alexandr Mal'gin Svetlana Sachenko Tatiana Gorbushina	Marina Komarkevich (1-2 seasons) Tatiana Klein (2-6 seasons) Irina Fёdorova (5-6 seasons) Vita Tkachёva (7 seasons: series 2012) Ekaterina Maksimenko (since 7 seasons)	7, in production 8 season	440+
2011—2012; 2014	«Unbeatables»	Elena Galdobina	Elena Galdobina Fёdor Dmitriev Anna Sosnora Tatiana Gorbushina Alexandra Shoha	Ludmila Steblyanko (1-100 series) Alesya Barsukova (90-129 series) Marina Makarova (since 130 series)	2	142

See also

• History of Russian animation
• List of animated feature films

External links

• Official website
• Melnitsa Animation Studio at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website of the "3 Bogatyrs" trilogy (Russian)
• Interview with Konstantin Bronzit (Russian)
• La monto da gemoj - some Gora samotsvetov (Gem Mountain) series with subtitles in Esperanto.