BAFTA award-winning Belfast-based children’s television animation company Sixteen South has launched a crowdfunding campaign for its latest children’s series Frankie and Doris, which will be launched on YouTube in January.
The Emmy nominated independent production company is hoping to raise the last £10,000 of its budget via the Kickstarter platform by the end of September.
Frankie and Doris is billed as a topical sitcom for 8 to 12-year-olds, which takes a no-holds barred look at life through the eyes of two misfits who refuse to conform to what the world calls ‘normal’.
The series’ creative director Colin Williams said the show aims to take children away from ‘the filtered perfection of the digital age’ by focusing on current, real life issues, from politicians who struggle to tell the truth to social injustice or environmental abuse.
“The best part is that the platform is free from editorial constraint, so we are free to make a series that is completely unfiltered and calls out everything that is simply wrong and untrue,” he said.
Mr Williams, who founded Sixteen South in 2007, now employs over 70 people from a four-storey premises on Clarence Street in Belfast city centre.
The company has created over 450 episodes of eight children’s series for distributors such as Netflix and Nick Jr.
In 2016, BAFTA named it children’s independent production company of the year.
Frankie and Doris is the first ever series which Sixteen South will release via YouTube.
