Northern Irish award-winning independent production company The Magician’s Niece have completed an R&D project exploring feasibility of creating a multi-character, motion capture children’s animated series in a single studio setting. Having confirmed the possibilities, the team was contacted by Field Day Lab, University of Wisconsin to develop an educational video game to pair with the proposed animated mini-series. The Future Screens NI award went towards preliminary development of live-action capture pilot and video game development with an aim towards developing a convincing combined package to sell to broadcasters in the USA.
The R&D activity was initially targeted at exploring the feasibility of creating a whole animated show for children in motion capture. The findings have confirmed this is possible the team moved with the intent of making a pilot episode in 2022. Over the course of this project, the team have worked with a studio in Belfast and their collaborators in Los Angeles (Regular Twin LLC) to create artwork and to develop tone, characters and settings for the pilot episode. In addition to our planned activities, the team have collaborated with a studio at the University of Wisconsin, Field Day Lab. Wisconsin reached out to the team having heard about the project through social media. The Magician’s Niece have worked with Field Day in developing an educational video game to pair with the animated mini-series.