Idea for a new medium

[crazyartistchipmunkguy]

How about a classically animated educational series about a time traveling mouse and his friends using a device to travel through wormholes to various eras in history in order to correct "glitches" in the "Time stream" while teaching the kiddies a bit about world history (but hopefully without all of the ridiculous stereotypes of most history based kids shows).

[C. Siemens]

I don't know, how about that?

Put together a pitch bible containing an outline of where you want to go with the whole thing, who you want to reach and how, recurring characters' profiles, some sample stories and ideally some designs and a sample script for a pilot. (Maybe even an animatic of the pilot if you're ambitious and artistically inclined that way.) Then try finding out which broadcasters might be interested in such a format and who to turn to to present a pitch.

Be prepared for lots, and I mean LOTS, of rejection letters. The saying in the business goes that less than ten percent of animation material ever goes into production. As I see it, an educational time travel show starring mice will be a hard sell because similar material has been done before. Often. You'll have to work hard to convince potential takers of you ideas' uniqueness.
Keep in mind that a naysayer rejecting something isn't likely to get blamed for doing so whereas the guy who greenlights a stinker puts his or her job at risk. When in doubt they'll tell you, 'no thanks'. Be very convincing.
Sorry I can't really tell you how to do that because if I knew I'd have my own show today.

[jeremyhopkins]

I thought this video satirizes and sums up the development process quite well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...na51wqk#t=172s

[arenakkg]

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images to create an illusion of movement. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although there are other methods. This type of presentation is usually accomplished with a camera and a projector or a computer viewing screen which can rapidly cycle through images in a sequence. Animation can be made with either hand rendered art, computer generated imagery, or three-dimensional objects.



Thanks
David
brandmantra.net

[Rodney]

recently animated storytelling has become rather superficial for lack of a better term. Many of today's animated shows have become a random camaraderie of completely random and obnoxious characters doing a series of completely random and obnoxious things

I'm quoting you here because you've summed up very nicely what is wrong with 2D animation. The problem seems to be that this stuff (apparently) sells. That is something that is difficult for me to fathom. Worse yet I believe we can see the trend expanding.

There are glimmers of light however. It was recently reported that Nickelodeon was losing audience interest (translation: they are losing a lot of money) and one could hope they have someone on staff with an eye for actually solving the problem (lack of interesting stories and characters that engage an audience) versus reaping short term profits.

Turning to your original topic.
I think we are entering into a new age of experimental animation.
While this will result in some really wonderful animation it will also produce some really terrible stuff. The terrible stuff will likely gain just as much if not more attention than the wonderful stuff... but it's important not to focus too closely on what is terrible (that'd only make people think they need to make more lousy stuff!) but rather on the folks that are producing that stuff. Out of limelight is likely where the next generation of 'Walt Disneys' will begin to learn their craft.