Pandy Show

Title of the project: Pandy Show

Estimated budget: 123,745.50 €

Logline:

All animals are too awesome to go extinct!

Description of the main story and poetics:

Young Bornean Orangutan Bumi is panda Pandy’s guest in “Pandy Show”. Bumi is the tree planting champion of his forest because of pooping! (Seeds of fruit of course). But he hasn’t pooped for days now because he is on a strike. Chicken Henrietta is reporting live from Borneo with cinematographer octopus Octavia: giant machines are destroying everything orangutans plant so they refuse to poop. Pandy’s friend racoon Robbie gets the idea to make seed bombs – they will use them to plant even more trees and help orangutans save their home! The poop strike is over, and orangutans are finally relieved.

Concept:

All animals are too awesome to go extinct! That’s the main idea behind this short. If endangered animals could host their own show, what would they say to us? The inspiration comes from talk shows and podcasts – both being the “me telling you my own story” formats. Although we speak about climate change, an important topic that affects every living being on our planet, we don’t want to scare kids and make them sad. That’s why “Pandy Show” is imagined as fun and playful, a real comedy. Kids will see how funny and smart orangutans are, find out how important they are for making their island green. They will have fun with Pandy and his friends in their TV show adventure, get to know animals better and learn to develop empathy for them, for others and their problems and to take action. The visual style of the film is defined by two different animation techniques. The characters will be made in rigged 2D animation with additional pop-up effects, such as emojis or anime expressions. We want to emphasise the anthropomorphic traits of characters but also make them goofy and funny. Their simple shapes and outlines should stand in contrast to the backgrounds, which are imagined as mixed media photo collages, showing realistic environments. This is a subtle way of teaching kids about flora and fauna. This style’s DIY feel would encourage kids to do crafts, upcycle and reuse.

Director’s biography:

Maida Srabović and Vedran Štefan are colleagues from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, Croatia, who are co-founders of TETRABOT studio, where they are working on their original ideas as writers and directors. They have previously worked together in post-production on numerous projects in Croatia, from student productions to music videos, TV series and short films.

Writer & director: Vedran Štefan is a director, animator, VFX artist and scriptwriter. Winner of the Golden Arena for Best Visual Effects in 2020 for his work on the Croatian feature film Go, Went, Gone (dir. Ljubo Zdjelarević). VFX artist for 2 seasons of TV series #don’t tell anyone (2014-2016, Kombinat for HRT). Author of the animated intro video for ZAGREBDOX festival. Main animator and VFX artist of the Music Biennale Zagreb kidz web series (2021).

Writer & director: Maida Srabović is a film editor, director and illustrator. Currently, she is directing her first animated short Fačuk. Previously to working in animation, she was the editor on numerous projects of different formats: TV series, documentaries, features and almost 100 music videos. Her transition to animation happened while she was editing the animated experimental short Microcassette – The Smallest Cassette I’ve Ever Seen.

Presentation of the production company:

TETRABOT is a Croatian animation and post-production studio that specializes in 2D animation, motion graphics and VFX. The studio was awarded a Golden Arena, a Croatian film award, for VFX work on the feature Go, Went, Gone (dir. Ljubo Zdjelarević, 2019). Notable projects include commissioned work for Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture, Music Biennale Zagreb and ZAGREBDOX festival.

List of partners on the project so far/ Amounts already negotiated:

CEE Animation Workshop 2021 scholarship: 2.700 €