Productions 10th Ave presents its first 3D animation film, The legend of the Christmas Tree, voiced by, among others, Guy Nadon, Carol Cassistat, Sophie Dion, Gabriel Gascon, Nathalie Mallette, Mario Saint-Amand, Joe Bocan, and Paul Buissonneau. The three songs are performed by Chantal Blanchais, Charles Biddle Jr. and Martin L’Heureux.

The first film in The collection of classic Christmas tales, The legend of the Christmas tree tells how, in Quebec City in 1870, a seven-year-old boy named William manages to save a beautiful tree from being chopped down, with the help of his friends Chipmunk and Lotor. The legend of the Christmas tree is an original story by Nancy Savard, and the screenplay was written by Savard and André Jean.

In the hope of making Quebec City a crossroads for animation, Productions 10th Ave is developing a number of projects featuring different animation techniques. The legend of the Christmas tree is intended to be the first in a collection of eight tales, produced at the rate of one per year. “It seemed essential to us that a Quebec product be part of the television Christmas tradition of Ciné-cadeau,” explained producer Nancy Savard. “By 2008, between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Quebecers will be able to see an original story produced in Quebec every day. For Quebec’s 400th anniversary, we will be able to offer a treasure chest of Christmas tales all made in our capital city: we hope it’s a wonderful gift!”

As a production house, the approach of Productions 10th Ave is to train teams that include experts form the Quebec City region. “Our products are inspired by our Quebec reality,” said Savard, “and they are designed to include Quebec artists – the qualities and expertise that each of our suppliers has developed. With our desire to amalgamate the experience of television and movie people in the region with those of our best multimedia artists, we hope to create a centre for animation in the 8th borough of the new Quebec City.”

The legend of the Christmas tree came to fruition thanks to close collaboration with Jean-François Lessard and his team at Interstation, as well as the people at Studio Expression, Sarbakan, and Studio Global.

Aware of the lasting nature that a Christmas work often has, the director chose 3D animation as a support and asked visual artists to contribute a distinctive imagery to her films. “The textures are reminiscent of painting – of oil paints, of pastel, of charcoal drawing. There are many artists in Quebec City, and our film was a reason for all of them to get together on a common project.”

More than 70 people worked on the production. Presented at MipCom Junior 2002 this fall, The legend of the Christmas tree drew the attention of buyers from France, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, and the United States.

“It is thanks to the boldness of Télé-Québec that we were able to produce The Legend of the Christmas Tree,” the producer . “The network’s forward-looking involvement had a considerable impact among our investors such as Telefilm Canada, SODEC, and the Shaw Fund, and we are very appreciative. The contribution of Cécile Bellemare, Victor Harrouch, and Annick Charette was decisive. Today, we can confirm that the second story, The Story of the Christmas Stocking, will begin production next week, with broadcast at Christmas 2003.”

Productions 10th Ave is a new television and film production house. It is distinguished for its projects with a universal theme, its high-quality production values, its original artistic approach, and the international distribution of its productions. Its products are aimed at family, youth, and child audiences.

With its head office in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, the production house believes in forming links with innovative and committed creative artists in new technologies in order to encourage the emergence of new genres and new production methods. It is in this spirit that Productions 10th ave created The collection of classic Christmas stories.