20-09-2010

Rófusz introduces holiday-themed animation series

By Zsolt Gyenge

    SOPRON: Academy Award winning animator, Ferenc Rófusz presented his new series Hoppi Holidays, now in pre-production, at the Cartoon Forum (www.cartoon-media.be/FORUM/index.php ) in Sopron, Hungary 14-17 September. His animation series for 5-11 year old children features "hoppies" -- nice, innocent and humanistic little creatures repsonsible for holidays all over the world. The series will be produced by Hoppi Film Ltd. (www.hoppifilm.hu/ ).

    The first episode of 26 minutes will deal with Christmas: the hoppies make and collect gifts for children while trying to protect the environment. According to producers Péter Tiborszky and Tamás Salusinszky due to the subject this series can be continued indefinitely if the finances are available.

    Rófusz will draw the characters by hand which will be animated in 2D and completed digitally with 3D elements. Currently the first episode is in pre-production, the characters are already designed, and the storyboard, the script and the animation is in development. The budget of one episode will be around 300,000 euros plus postproduction costs. The creative and production team suggest that there are many marketing possibilities such as applications for computers and mobile phones.