THE LOOKING BOX

Here’s some fresh talent. Two young Dutch animators, Joost van den Bosch and Erik Verkerk (Ka-Ching Cartoons), have posted a test section of their new film, a clever, well designed CG piece produced to look like paper cut-outs in stop-motion animation. Bosch and Verkerk developed this idea as a concept for a television series during their graduation at the Arts Academy in Rotterdam. According to them:

“It comes from an old tradition in the Netherlands of young children using old shoeboxes to make small theatres from cardboard figures. Through one small round opening on one side of the box one can look at the small motionless stages in 3D. The lid of the box can be used for lighting the ‘stage’. It is called a ‘kijkdoos’, a looking-box. Like a 3D drawing. In our animated series, thirteen short adventures come to life in ‘shoebox’ style.We are both very big fans of the old 30’s cartoons and wanted to make something that was influenced by that era – and hopefully can create films that will be as timeless funny as they are. At the same time we thought it would be nice to combine it with this old dutch tradition of making these lookingboxes which pushed us into the style it is right now. At the moment we are in production on our graduation film, which will be the pilot for the series, and will be finished at the end of June. The producers at il Luster Productions already are making plans to develop it into a real televison series.”

The completed film is going to be about ten minutes (six minutes of animation and four minutes of live action). We wish them luck. More information on their website.