Award-winning animation studio Blue-Zoo Prods. has been commissioned by RDF Media-owned The Foundation and Entertainment Rights, to create 65 animated shorts for the sixth series of THE BASIL BRUSH SHOW for CBBC.
The animations will place the famous fox in adventurous situations, such as surfing, tango dancing and flying through space, while sharing a joke with the audience.
The new BASIL BRUSH animations have also been designed for the multi-platform market, and will be used in both the CBBC show and as stand-alone digital content for the BASIL BRUSH website, www.basilbrush.com. They are also aimed at the mobile download market.
The BASIL BRUSH animations will be designed by illustrator Bill Ledger and produced by animation director Tom Box.
"We're thrilled to be bringing to life through animation one of children's TV's most enduring characters," said Tom Box, co-founder/head of creative services, Blue-Zoo Prods. "The BASIL BRUSH animations have a traditional 2D look, which will give the flexibility to work both on TV, online and on mobile."
THE BASIL BRUSH SHOW is a The Foundation/Entertainment Rights production commissioned by Anne Gilchrist for CBBC. Exec producers for ER are Mike Heap and Jane Smith, Vanessa Hill for The Foundation and Alison Gregory for the BBC. The series producer is Ged Allen.
David Collier is producing the series, directed by Michael Kerrigan and Mark Sendell and written by Simon A Brown, Sean Carson, Peter Cocks, Craig Ferguson and Patrick Gallagher, and Ben Ward.
THE BASIL BRUSH SHOW (65x30) is one of CBBC's most-popular programs, attracting more than 1.5 million viewers a week. Basil's dedicated website receives more than 10 million hits a month and has a fan base of some 20,000 subscribers.
Blue-Zoo Prods. (www.blue-zoo.co.uk) is an award-winning animation house founded in 2000 by young entrepreneurs Adam Shaw, Box and Oli Hyatt. Based in the heart of Soho, London, the BAFTA-nominated company has built a considerable reputation for producing high-quality 2D and 3D computer animated children's programming, TV commercials and promos, graphics and websites and is one of the U.K.'s fastest growing animation producers. It had an annual turnover of £1.1m producing some 60 animated projects in 2006. The Blue-Zoo Productions portfolio includes: THOSE SCURVY RASCALS (Nickelodeon/Entara), BASIL BRUSH (BBC/Entertainment Rights), THE STORY MAKERS -- Bluecow (BBC).
