HRTv Innovates At Cartoon Forum With New Kids' Show

Hibbert Ralph Animation's TV arm, HRTv, hits Norway's Cartoon Forum this week to pitch an innovative package to networks that combines bold content creation with pioneering use of game engine technology in the form of an animated children's TV series called Pebble Bay Ponies.
Directed by HRTv's Kim Burdon and written by Di Redmond (Angelina Ballerina, Magic Roundabout, Bob the Builder, Postman Pat), the series is created in a graphic 3D animation style of a four to six year old primarily girl audience and follows the adventures of a group of six ponies in the Pebble Bay rescue centre, each with different personalities and talents.
HRTv is developing Pebble Bay Ponies in order to expand content creation and rights ownership. HRtv has thus far produced a six-minute pilot of the programme using HRA's proprietary 3D storyboarding software, Redboard, which improves CG workflows by using game engine driven storyboarding to preview sets and backgrounds in realtime. HRA has been invited to present Redboard in more detail to the CVMP (Conference on Visual Media Production) in November 2009.
Game engine technology is being further researched at Hibbert Ralph using the Pebble Bay Ponies project. The goal is to be able to produce the entire animated show in machinima, via Epic's Unreal Engine, allowing animators to work in realtime.
HRA Founder and Director, Jerry Hibbert, commented: "Not only is Pebble Bay Ponies a great children's TV series, we can also offer innovative ways of producing it cost-effectively by using this new technology to achieve a super-fast result with high production values. This makes Pebble Bay Ponies a truly sellable proposition for networks so we're excited to see reactions at the Cartoon Forum."
(KMcA/BMcC)