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Toei Launches The Animal Family Animation Crowdfunding Project
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
Japanese film production and distribution company Toei and director Tomoyasu Murata (Mr. Children's "Hero" music video) announced on Monday that they are launching a crowdfunding campaign to fund a stop-motion animated version of Randall Jarrell's The Animal Family children's novel. The campaign is slated to run on the crowdfunding website Makuake from February to April.
The project is seeking to raise 3.5 million yen (about US$33,700), and it will first use the funds raised to create a three-minute pilot. The campaign is offering various reward tiers to people who donate. Rewards include name listing in the ending credits, DVD of the complete animation, invitation to the filming location, and production illustrations.
Jarrell published The Animal Family with illustrations by Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) in 1965, and it became a Newbery Honor book in 1966. The original story centers on an orphaned man, mermaid, boy, bear, and lynx who learn to live together in a log cabin by the ocean.
Murata debuted with his 2000 stop-motion animation, Suiren no Hito (Nostalgia), and it received the Japan Media Arts Festival Excellence Award. NHK is currently airing his Mori no Recio (Recio of the Forest) stop-motion animated shorts.
Source: animeanime.jp
