Life in South Africa: A Background on the Series

A new series begins on ryancalder.co.za, which will take the form of various stages… and we at the RCB are inviting you along for the ride.

We want your input, your ideas, your feedback… rate it, comment on it, share it – whatever you do, we encourage interaction on whether you think it rocks or whether it sucks. Tell us.

As you know, I am a budding animator and am looking to create a series for this website called “Life in South Africa”. The central character is Doodle – who you may or may not have met before, and essentially, it is him who will be narrating each webisode.

Stage 1: The blog
Each week, we’ll publish a new blog on various topics related to life in South Africa. You might even share them with your friends (which we’d encourage you to do). Some of the topics will be more generic but with a South African twist (like “Exercise” and “Traffic”), while some will be specific to our context here in SA (like “The Braai”). Of course, we invite your ideas and input and the best ideas, we’ll use. The blog will, essentially, form a script.

Stage 2: Comics
Once the blogs have been written and you’ve interacted with us on each blog and what your thoughts are, we’ll hone the blogs/scripts and start the process of creating short comic strips. These will be the storyboards for the new animation series… basically they tell the blog in picture form. Again, we encourage feedback on the storyboards – do they work or don’t they? Do they do justice to the original script?

Stage 3: Recording soundtracks
This is where we invite guest voice overs for the animation. That’s right. Your voice could be recorded for the animation. You may read about or a character in one of the blogs or storyboards and think, “I could voice that!”… well then, let us know! And there’ll be lots of characters – African mamas, coloured ous, darkies, whiteys, celebrities, normalities – they’re all in the pipeline. Plus, of course, anything you offer. Again – interaction… tell us if you think we should include a certain character in a certain blog and that you can voice him/her/it.

Stage 4: Webisodes
Once the soundtracks have been laid, the process of animating begins and each month, we’ll publish a new animated webisode based on the original blog idea, which will have morphed and changed based on your interaction with us. You’ll be credited, of course, however big or small your contribution to each webisode. Again, we invite interaction – could you direct a webisode? Could you co-produce?

That’s it. Interaction starts now. Tell us what you think.