Les' Copaque developing new TV series, Pada Zaman Dahulu (PZD)

After the huge success of Upin & Ipin (both series and feature), Les’ Copaque- the creators of the property, are developing a new animation series called ‘Pada Zaman Dahulu’ which means ‘Once upon a Time’ in English. The series follows the same format like Upin & Ipin and will be 7 minute episodic. One story will be linked on 3 episodes. Currently around 25 artists are working on the series.

The story of this news series is based on the Malay folklore and revolves around the adventures of Sang Kancil, a clever and cunning mousedeer, in the animal kingdom. The story of Sang Kancil is told by Aki to his grandchildren, Aris and Ara who are from the city and have been sent to the village to live with their grandparents, Aki and Wan. Aki loves telling stories, which he finds is the best approach to bond with his grandchildren.

Speaking to AnimationXpress Asia Pacific, Les’ Copaque’s Fuad Bin Md Din shares, “We are trying to achieve a painting look on our characters and environment. At the moment, we are targeting to finish upto 6 episodes in June. For the first season, we are testing PZD with 12 episodes.”

Primarily it will be released in Malaysia, but for the content and story Les’ Copaque is targeting the worldwide audience for this series. According to Fuad Bin Md Din, it will appeal to the local audience because of the cultural touch and as for the worldwide audience they want to expose the Malaysian culture to the world.

Les’ Copaque has spoken to a number of broadcasters. So far they have secured a deal with MNC TV of Indonesia, there are a couple of local broadcasters interested, but no deals have been finalized yet.  At this time, they are looking for interested licensors and sponsors for the series.

About the future plans Fuad Bin Md Din says, “For me personally, the goal of this series is to challenge ourselves in every aspect, so we can make the team grow to be much stronger. We pushed our team to give a different approach in terms of visual aspects, animation styles, and also story telling. So we came up with the Sneak Peek video as benchmark and concept of the series and released it online”.

“We love the reactions and support we got from the local internet communities and bloggers. After releasing the video, we received hundreds of positive and constructive comments from Blogs, Facebook, and Youtube”, he concludes.

Les’ Copaque Production Sdn. Bhd. released its maiden animated feature film Geng (3D Animated, 90 Minutes) in February. Budgeted at US$1.15 Million + an additional US$ 18 000 spent on marketing, the film which stars the already popular characters Upin Ipin became an instant rage across Malaysia. The film released with 56 prints across the country, ran for more than 8 weeks and has at last count grossed around USD 1.8 Million.

Before they released Geng, they had released Upin Ipin characters in the form of a TV series to make them popular. They released 6 episodes on TV 9 during Ramadan in 2007 and the characters instantly connected with the kids and got to their hearts. They got a rating of around 1.5 Million viewers per episode.