Your Big Break

The Brief

I do not have a script.
To explore the theme of CAPTURING THE SPIRIT OF 100% PURE NEW ZEALAND - THE YOUNGEST COUNTRY ON EARTH I have an idea of spending the first week of production having myself and production assistants visiting primary schools in the main centres of New Zealand and interviewing school-children aged between 5 to 10 years old. This would be possible as the school year starts at the same time as the production timeline given for this competition.
They would be recorded on an audio format (not necessarily on video as we do not have to see them until the end of the film).
They would be asked questions about how they understand New Zealand to have been formed and as to how they think the particular native wildlife emerged in this country.
The children would be asked about how they understand the Maori to have arrived and settled and then the later European colonists.
Other topics would be the about the natural surroundings of the country, the 20th Century history of NZ, and how they see themselves fit into the future of this land.
I would then edit the answers to create an overlapping audio collage covering how the YOUNGEST GENERATION OF THE YOUNGEST COUNTRY see themselves and their country’s past, present and future.
This would then be animated using the illustrations we would also ask the kids to draw describing their answers.

To be honest - I would not want a correct version of New Zealand.
I would most likely choose the replies which went the most off tangent.
For example, I would love for some kids to talk about random things such as space aliens, dinosaurs eating cavemen or All Blacks playing rugby in order to win the America’s Cup.
Just stuff completely untrue but humourous sounding. The weirder the better!

The film would then finish with a dissolve from stick figure drawings of the child participants to the actual children standing on a hill overlooking Queenstown.
The kids then wave to the camera and then run away down the hill as the camera tilts away to view the nearby lake and mountains.
Ideally the film would finish there - but I suppose you could finish with a montage of the usual New Zealand touristy scenery (aerials of the coastline, bush-clad hills and rivers, etc, etc)

Budget for this would definitely be less than the $100,000. Major costs would be for the production assistants and flying the kids (and their adult supervisor) down to Queenstown for the day. I am a Wellington based animator and could do the basic stick animation within the remaining two weeks (or it could be farmed out to other Wellington animators if required).