Canada’s Nelvana is planning to encourage in-house creativity with the development of a new animated anthology series.
At this past weekend’s Ottawa International Animation Festival, Jocelyn Hamilton, vp and head of 2D production for Nelvana, stated, "The anthology series will be a series of shorts in a liquid TV format. It’s going to be ‘anything goes’… the best of the best, and completely creator-driven."
Nelvana plans to link to the Web so people can vote on what they like best. "We’re supporting internal talent with this," Hamilton said. "It’s a new endeavor for us. We’re not known as a studio that originates material and we want to change that," she said. "We’ve gotten a lot of support from YTV."
Hamilton advised that Nelvana is currently taking pitches internally, and that some shorts will require more development than others. However, the animation house hopes to have things up and running with the project by December.
Hamilton also said that the company is working on a project with Gene Simmons of KISS, called My Dad, The Rock Star. The show is about a boy who would rather lead a normal life than have a rock-and-roll star father. The Nelvana/Carrere (of France) co-production will be airing on TELETOON.
Production has begun on another Nelvana show, Jacob Two-Two. Based on the famous book by Mordecai Richler, the series is slated to air on YTV and in fall 2003.
