South Africa’s Triggerfish gets a walt Disney Licence
The South Africa-based, pan-African focused Triggerfish Animation Studios is releasing A Dogshow with Cat, a South African animation short that has been licensed by The Walt Disney Company.
A Dogshow with Cat is the first animation to come from last year’s Triggerfish Story Lab, established by Triggerfish with the support of South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry and The Walt Disney Company. A Dogshow with Cat is set in South African and is about the madcap antics of a sophisticated dog and his best friend, a feral, obsessive-compulsive cat.
The three-minute short is part of Disney XD FC (#DisneyXDFC), a series of football-themed shorts commissioned from leading animation talent across Europe, Africa, Latin America and the United States. A Dogshow with Cat is the only short included from Africa.
Users can log on each week to Disney XD’s Youtube Page (youtube.com/disneyxduk) to view the original productions. Mike is best known for his animated music videos for South African DJ duo Goldfish, which have over 17 million views on YouTube.
A Dogshow with Cat is Mike’s second collaboration with Triggerfish, following on from Moosebox, which was part of the 2013-2014 Nickelodeon International Animated Shorts Program.
The Story Lab’s continent-wide search for animated African stories received nearly 1400 entries from 30 countries across the continent. Triggerfish selected four features and four TV series for development, after input from Disney and the likes of Aardman’s Oscar-nominated co-founder Peter Lord and The Lion King writer Jonathan Roberts.
Stick Man in competition at Annecy
Triggerfish was also at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Market, which ran until 18 June 2016 in France where Stick Man, Triggerfish’s collaboration with the Oscar-nominated Magic Light Pictures, competed at Annecy in the TV Films category. Based on Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s much-loved children’s picture book, Stick Man is the story of a happy-go-lucky father’s epic journey to make it home in time for Christmas.
Voiced by the likes of Martin Freeman (The Hobbit), Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), and Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous), the short film screened to nearly 10m people on BBC1 at Christmas 2015.
Stick Man was recently named Best Animation at Shanghai International Film and TV Festival. In March, it also won two British Animation Awards. Triggerfish is currently collaborating with Magic Light Pictures on another Christmas special BBC adaptation, this time of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes.
At Annecy, CEO Stuart Forrest, head of production Mike Buckland, and head of development Anthony Silverston represented A Dogshow With Cat and the other three TV series being developed through the Story Lab.
