P3K: Pinocchio 3000 updates the classic story to the 31st century when Geppetto creates a robot instead of marionette. All images © 2002 Ciné-Groupe Pinocchio 3001.

P3K: Pinocchio 3000 is a futuristic spin on Carlo Collodi’s classic tale, filmed in visually stunning 3D animation, in which Geppetto’s ultimate creation is a robot, rather than a wooden marionette.

Geppetto, with the help of his loyal assistant Spencer, the cyber penguin, (voiced by Howie Mandel) creates Pinocchio, a one-of-a- kind super-robot equipped for imagination, thanks to the P3K microprocessor. But Scamboli, Geppetto’s archrival, thinks that kids disrupt the perfect order of his techno city Scamboville, and builds an amusement park to contain them all in one spot. Scamboli then manipulates Pinocchio into helping him with a devious scheme to turn all of the children into robots, but Pinocchio realizes that something is wrong. With the help of his friends, Pinocchio confronts Scamboli and learns the valuable lessons that Cyberina, the holographic fairy (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg) requires of him to make his dream come true. Adventure, action, a father’s love and a son’s quest to discover what it means to a real boy! A cyber classic!
 

Director Daniel Robichaud found a way to adapt the designs and the screenplay to the CG medium. Along with the producers, he created a two-minute animated trailer to show potential financial backers.

The idea of bringing this classic children’s tale into the 31st century began in 1998, when Medialab, a French 3D animation company, approached CinéGroupe to co-develop a variety of projects, P3K: Pinocchio 3000 among them. Medialab executives were looking for a director and approached Daniel Robichaud with the task, after having seen his award-winning short Tightrope at Monte Carlo’s Imagina Festival. “When they asked me to direct the still-in-development-film in 1999, I was instantly charmed by the originality of the script, as well as the early character designs” explains Robichaud. “The first challenge was to adapt both the designs and the screenplay to the requirements of the CG medium. To help the producers finding a way to finance the movie they created a two-minute animated trailer. The ultimate challenge, though, came when the project got the green light: we had 12 months and a modest budget (based on industry standards) to deliver the film, while assembling an animation team and defining a technical pipeline for the studio.”

Robichaud started doing computer graphics in 1983 and worked for the Canadian national television (CBC) as a designer and art director. In the early `90s, he moved to Hollywood, enthusiastic about the fascinating new promises of the digital medium in high-end effects films. “I was hired by Digital Domain as an animation director, and went on to contribute to such movies as Apollo 13, Terminator 2: 3D, The Fifth Element and Titanic. I also had the opportunity to direct my own animated short film, Tightrope, which caught the eyes of the producers of Pinocchio 3000. Before the movie went in production, I supervised character animation on three more film projects, The Scorpion King, K-Pax and Willard.