Apr 18, 2023

Watch: "Secrets of the Sunflower Valley" The pilot "is for a kid who has grown beyond "Postman Pat" and now wants to see him crippled."

Australia's Pixel Zoo Animation, recently acquired by MGA Entertainment, has released a new pilot of the series "The Secrets of the Sunflower Valley" and the accompanying making video, which targets adolescence.

Secrets of Sunflower Valley According to the producers of a series of short cg animation shows aimed at mimicking the look of a classic children's stop-motion animation show, the idea was to create something like Postman Pat meets Happy Tree Friends.

Sunflower Valley's target audience are children who have aged from the first show but may not be ready for some of the second themes. You rarely see anything carefully animated to mimic a shiny, big studio kids show.

Check out the pilot here:

Pixel Zoo also has a fun behind-the-scenes video that shows a bit of work that went into putting the pilot together

Pixel Zoo has a strong history of adapting real-world commodity characteristics to animated films and series. In MGA Entertainment, "L.A."O.L.He has worked on films such as "Surprise." Movies and L.O.L.Surprise. House of surprises as well as Rainbow High, Mermaze Mermaidz, Let's Go Cozy Coupe, L.O.L.Series such as Surprise. The winter fashion show, the latter landed on Netflix on May 10 last year.

The secret of Sunflower Valley, however, is its own original property, and the company is currently looking for a possible distribution and broadcasting partner.

We recently spoke to series director Jordan Higgins and producer Sebastian Gonzalez about giving the show, its intended audience, and a sophisticated look to the show using Unreal

Comic Brew: If you already have a connected platform or network, you can use it to create your own. - What are the plans for distribution beyond the pilot-

Higgins and Gonzalez: Currently we do not have any distribution agreements for Sunflower Valley Secrets. We've developed the show in-house and once it's finished we'll gradually release more episodes on Youtube and keep an eye out for the next episode coming out later this year with a comi that we can watch and enjoy as much as we've made it. But we are still actively looking for partnerships and opportunities for other platforms.

It's rare to see a clip of this quality and it looks like it's real, like a big network kids show, but it's definitely not intended for toddlers.

Higgins and Gonzalez: Well, thanks so much for the kind words, it really means a lot. This pilot is a testament to the absolutely crazy talented team we have here at Pixel Zoo. Most of the service work we do is for children's content, especially for the toy industry.

So we already had a wealth of knowledge and experience to get that sophisticated look and feel we were after. As for the audience, we targeted the demographic of 8-10 years old. It has some spooky/horror genre elements to it, but the action and violence you see in old Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes Epi we've seen a bit of a hole in the market for content like this – growing beyond the postman Pat and now it's time to stop him from being maimed. Both parents and children who have watched can watch together in anticipation of how this crazy horror action will change – and satisfy that there's still a healthy ending that's somewhere between Pui Pui Molcar and Happy Tree Friends.

There was basically nothing about pushback. Our own studio executives loved the concept and completely trusted us to make it happen. It was a great feeling to have a project that really felt like it belonged to the team. We first started showing it at the Kidscreen Summit on May 2, and the reception was great, certainly keeping most people off guard, but in a good way. Since then we have had quite a few exciting conversations.

What were some of the major challenges you encountered while working on this project and how did you overcome them-

Higgins and Gonzalez: In the end, time and budget were the main challenges. We were given a modest budget and an end date, and everyone in the studio working on it had to find time between work quotas for existing services. Fortunately, with a 6-month schedule, we were able to make it happen just in time. Some items we wanted to include and we had to cut the extra story beat to get it done, but overall I think we avoided a real compromise. We are all very proud of this episode and have already entered the production of the 2nd episode.

How long have you been working with Unreal - and what has become the right engine for rendering this project-

Higgins and Gonzalez: We've been using Unreal as a rendering engine for several years. Using it for the secret of the sunflower valley has made some items really easy. All things like fire and smoke effects are iterated and adjusted very quickly and easily, and you can tweak them in real time. The set and characters of the show are very stylized, the shaders and lighting are intended to mimic the actual stop-motion set and the actual material, while the unreal ones are really great to achieve. Getting that final look just kinda fell into place. Everyone just clicked and got the right idea of what we wanted it to look like right from the bat.