Nickelodeon has narrowed down to the top eight from the near 600 odd submissions from around the world for its 2014 Global Animated Shorts Program. This is only the second year that international submissions were accepted, and the top runner octad represents the talents of artists from across Europe as well as Canada and Australia. Winning shorts will have the opportunity of airing on Nickelodeon’s TV channel, Nick.com, MyNickJr.com and the Nick App prior to consideration for series development.
The finalists are: Crazy Block from Iginio Straffi (Italy; creator of Winx Club), Duckmanboy from Louis Hudson and Ian Ravenscroft (U.K., DICE Prod.), Feebs and Mr. Timmins from Suren Perera (Australia; The Dukes of Broxstonia), Jo Minkus from Ben Anders (Canada), Somewhere Awesome from Eamonn O’Neill and Marah Curran (Ireland), Urchin from Hamish Steele (U.K.; creator of 2013 finalist Badly Drawn Animals), Werebeast from James Lancett (U.K.), and Woodchips from Christian Villacanas (Spain).
One (or more) of these inventive projects will follow in the footsteps of Nick’s fresh hit Breadwinners, which was developed out of the 2012 competition and has recently been renewed for a second season. The winners of last year’s edition included Pedro Eboli and Graham Peterson’s Monster Pack and Mike Scott’s Moosebox.