Vision Animation, Malaysia producing Fleabitten

Vision Animation is 80% through with the production of the 2D Animation series, Fleabitten (26episode x 11mins) in co-production with Moody Street Kids (MSK), Australia. Fleabitten is for Channel 9 Australia and is being distributed by ACTF.  Vision and MSK also co-produced Sumo Mouse which ran on Channel 10 Australia.

The animation budget of Fleabitten alone is about USD2.5m of which 2/3rd of the funding is provided by MDeC and the remaining 1/3rd is fronted by Vision. The series is targeted at kids aged 7 to 9 years. The story is about a dog, Flea–Bag while on a pleasant car ride, put his head out of the window to enjoy the delightful wind rushing when –SNAP!!! his collar got caught on a roadside sapling and he found himself alone in the big city. Flea-bag was soon picked up by the dog catcher and deposited in an over-crowded doggie lock-up. And doggie lock-up is no place for a house pooch. There are "bad" dogs here. And where there are bad dogs, there are fleas... In particular: ITCH E. FLEA. Wise-talking, street flea. Believing Itch E.’s claim of knowing the way back home, Flea-bag escapes the dog pound. Their mission: to find Flea-bag’s family and live happily-ever-after. Until then, they will travel the streets of the city looking for their place in this world.

Sharing his excitement with Animation Xpress Asia Pacific Low shares, “We have hit a right cord with this project as there’s a lot of interest for it in the international market. We have already secured deals with major broadcasters. We have even started projecting L& M revenues because the response we are getting from broadcasters is so good.”

The animation of Fleabitten is about 80% done and the remaining episodes will be completed by June 2011, with final delivery of the series by mid to late 2011. Interestingly, this was the first project approved for funding by MDeC’s MAC3 initiative. So this makes Fleabitten ‘the first MAC3 funded co-production project’.

“MSK handled the creative side initially. In fact the IP was developed by Kyla May an Australian designer who has achieved success in publishing books and stationery. She is a successful designer. We used her initial designs to come up with the character development from an animation perceptive. We developed all the backgrounds and we did all the story-boarding and leicas. Post production and voice records will go back to Australia”, says Low.

Low adds, “Gill Carr and I already have another project planned and we’ll start that before we finish this, in Q1 2011. The script is already being written for this new project called Shezow.  It is also 2D Flash.”

“It’s great working with Gill and her team at MSK because we have established great rapport. We feel confident in telling her what will or will not work and to try this or that. If you don’t have confidence in your partner than you won’t take any risks and the quality of work stagnates. So with each project we do, we raise the bar.”

We (Vision) are also looking into comics. We are looking at how we can use the skills that we have as a studio to get into digital comics”, Low further added.