Central TAFE Animation Lecturer Todd Millias, from Golden Bay, has won a grant to produce an animated short film for first run broadcast on Nickelodeon Australia.
His proposal, a short film called ‘The Geeks’, beat off stiff competition from a range of independent submissions for the ‘Nick Shorts’ prize.
Film and Television International (FTI), ScreenWest and Nickelodeon join forces each year to present the Nick Shorts’ award.
This initiative invites Western Australian individuals or animator teams to produce one to three minute animations that should be suitable to be broadcast as a ‘stand alone’ product.
The film also needs the potential to be developed into a long-form animation series with international appeal.
The finished product must be suitable for a Nickelodeon audience and be eligible for a G classification.
Since winning the award in the latter half of 2008, Todd’s production company, David Downie Film Productions, have been hard at work on storyboards and script development.
The project was originally called ‘The Nerds’ but had to be changed for the potential USA audience where the term has a slightly different connotation.
The film has to be completed by the end of July. This will be no mean feat. To create one minute of animation takes almost 2000 separate frames. Animators create about 30 seconds worth of animation per week.
Todd’s project will be 6 weeks of animation for a 3 minute film, followed by a month of post production work.
Once it’s finished, ‘The Geeks’ will be put forward to represent WA and its film funding bodies for consideration for a cartoon series by Nickelodeon, where it can potentially reach a global audience.