Lottery Funding for Grime City

by Emma_Chappel on 27-Nov-09 12:08

GRIME CITY P.D.

Lottery funding supports new animation series

Bristol-based Sam Morrison is following on from the success of his black and white short Rocket Science (runner up for best comedy at the British Animation Awards) with a full-colour 11-minute series pilot of the same characters entitled Grime City P.D.

The animation series is one of the projects awarded Lottery funding from South West Screen this year, and harnesses the talents of Bristol’s exec producer and animation consultant, Helen Brunsdon, producer, Katie Daniels, writer Andrew Endersby, animator Ian Hickman and sound designer Jonny Crew. UWE is also involved as animation degree students from the University of the West of England, Theo Jones and Kayleigh Gibbons will be contributing to production.

Based at a backwater police station in the USA (which, despite the presence of Twitter, Facebook and Frappacinos appears to be stuck in the early fifties!), Grime City P.D. centres on xenophobic paranoiac Captain Jack Hersey and his cohorts; specifically forensic scientist Patricia Murdoch and trainee officer Billy Sherbet.

In the pilot, which will be finished by March 2010, Jack’s boss and mentor Chief Thrower is sacked for an accounting discrepancy and Jack resolves to set matters to rights - until that is, he finds out who the new chief will be. While Jack leafs through the executive toy catalogue, it’s left to Patricia and Billy to find out what’s really going on…



Creator, Sam Morrison, says he was drawn to the style of 1950s B-movies and wanted to borrow the retro style for a modern drama:

“With many old-fashioned views still prevalent these days, we thought we could have a series with a 'fifties' type protagonist (Jack Hersey) in the present day - being heroic in a reactionary, insular and generally unpleasant manner. And as such Jack is great to write for because he commands complete respect despite being, basically, an idiot.”

He says Lottery funding was crucial to the series’ development:

“With funding getting harder and harder to come by for short films and budgets shrinking in television, I think it's fantastic that South West Screen are putting their weight behind an ambitious project like this. Public funding for the arts is hugely important at any time, but especially when cultural and creative opportunities in the media seem to be shrinking.”

In addition to the pilot, Grime City P.D. will have a website that is currently being developed by designer Sam Bartle – this will be a home for the comics, guides to Grime City, character backgrounds and more. And animator Ian Hickman is keeping a blog of production at http://grimecityproduction.blogspot.com/.

Next year, Helen and Katie will be taking the pilot to market where they hope to make the series a reality; bringing further work to the south-west in what will be a Bristol-based production.

Grime City is one of the projects supported this year by Regional Investment Fund England (RIFE) through the UK Film Council and South West Screen.

Tagged:Grime City, Sam Morrision, Lottery, funding