Wiki the Kiwi set to fly on heel of Government change

Wiki the Kiwi set to fly on heel of Government change

After 20 years of dedication by Flux Animation Studio directors Brent and Susan Chambers – and following recent changes to Government funding – New Zealand’s first animated television series starring our national bird is set to launch internationally.

Wiki the Kiwi is a digital high definition computer-animated show for preschoolers. The first series, compromised of 13 seven-minute episodes, will screen on TV2 on Saturdays at 6.30am commencing on September 14.

The programme has had support from TVNZ and NZ On Air and is already attracting significant international interest including from Australia, Canada, Ireland and Asia. A pre-sale was secured with Australia’s ABC network after the show won a pitch competition at the 2010 Screen Producers’ Association of Australia conference.

“In October at MIPCOM in Cannes, we plan to finalise arrangements with the show’s intended co-producer, the highly regarded Canadian animation provider Yowza Animation. Wiki the Kiwi will feature on the Canadian stand at MIPCOM,” says Brent Chambers.

Flux’s international marketing strategy for the show includes licence rights, merchandising, TV sales, home entertainment, games, interactive rights, stage shows and, potentially, a theme park.

Directed by Flux Director Ray McGrath with musical arrangements by Andrew McDowall’s Auckland music and sound studio, Digicake based in Flux’s Grey Lynn premises, Wiki the Kiwi features the lovable Wiki who enjoys exploring and learning and is often unexpectedly brave. He and his best friend, the highly emotional and frantic Brian the Bat, are the antithesis of each other – Wiki a bird who cannot fly: Brian not a bird but with flight. Together, they take children’s imaginations to places where night is day and day is night, where sameness equates to difference and vice versa, and where upside down can be rightside up! Their friends who live with them in the Fuzzy Forest are an eclectic mix of enchanting personalities.

Twenty years ago, Brent began work on Footbirds, an animated show that was to be a comedy adventure cartoon show about kiwis and their conflicts with introduced species. Back then the series got traction with internationally acclaimed Producer and Director Yoram Gross, best known for adapting Australian children’s book and film characters into animation for young audiences. In 2006, the idea of a Kiwi series was reborn: this time the concept centred around the relationship between a kiwi and a bat.

Brent says: “I worked with scriptwriter Stephen Maire on the new-concept series. We used to create comics during school lunchtimes together. We both loved working with Wiki’s weird-is-normal bottom-of-the-world habitat and love the unique and familiar look of the show. Everything is made of pillows, mattresses and pyjama cloth. We’ve given it a texture like New Zealand handmade crafts.”

Reminiscent of TV shows from the 60s and 70s such as The Wombles and The Clangers, Wiki the Kiwi has been deliberately made with a 1970 stop-frame look. “That look is unique for our time and is one of the reasons for so much international interest. We’ve had a fantastic reception from potential international partners, so much so that when discussion with one has fallen over another has quickly come along. We’ve fought hard to keep as much ownership of the show in New Zealand as possible – after all, what could be more local than a kiwi!”

The launch comes hard on the heels of recent changes to the Government’s Screen Production Incentive Fund (SPIF) for productions with significant New Zealand content. Changes to the SPIF included lowering the qualifying threshold for short animation productions from NZ$1 million to NZ$400,000 per commercial hour. Prior to the changes, Government funding focused largely on higher-budget productions using visual effects.

Brent says: “Now, for instance, we can utilise the grants to help expand our local series of Wiki the Kiwi to 78 episodes to meet international interest. In the past, the high threshold positioned us in the shadow of large-scale projects such as those undertaken by the big production companies, making it extremely difficult to secure funding, even though we were making home-grown animated programmes that Kiwi children identify with.”

The road to Wiki’s launch has been long and hard. Sue says: “In 2012, when after two years our NZ On Air allocation was due to expire, to ensure the production was made in New Zealand Brent and I threw caution to the wind and financed 50% of the first series of Wiki the Kiwi personally – actually the meter’s still running!”

Filled with the eye-catching animation that award-winning Flux’s other successes such as Staines Down Drains, Massey Fergusson, Buzzy Bee and friends and Tiki Tour have been acclaimed for, Wiki and his friends are ready to delight young audiences around the country.

ENDS

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