Brendan Grace’s comedy character ‘Bottler’ - who fondly recalls his boyhood adventures onstage, dressed in a school uniform - will make the leap into the world of animation later this year in a new TV3 Christmas special.
‘Bottler’, which is currently in production at Keg Kartoonz, will combine live action footage of the real Brendan Grace with a cartoon version of his younger self, with Grace lending his voice to several characters.
Established in 2003 and based in the Media Cube in Dun Laoghaire, Keg Kartoonz is run by producer Michael Algar and director Noel Kelly, along with technologies entrepreneur Adrian Mulvey.
‘Bottler’ was also notable for receiving €315,000 funding from the BAI Sound and Vision II fund this April.
Mr Algar spoke to IFTN this week about the genesis of the project which is sure to be a highlight of the festive TV schedule in December.
‘Bottler the schoolboy is a character that Brendan originated years ago, so onstage he talks about Bottler’s antics as a kid. So in this 90 minute TV special for TV3, Brendan as older Bottler reminisces about stunts he got up to when he was younger,’ he said.
Although production has been underway for some time, Mr Algar added, they have now received all funding required to see the programme through to completion.
‘I started talking to Brendan about the project three or four years ago. But we only started into production and development work last October. Then we set about finding funding and had all of it together by April. And with section 481 now, all the funding is in the bank since last Friday.’
Keg Kartoonz have already filmed the older Bottler parts and are currently animating the young Bottler parts through 2D Flash animation.
‘Brendan also provides the voice of young Bottler as well as playing the older version of the character and the voices of a couple of the other characters. Then we have a few other actors doing different voices. The programme content will be about 75 mins with space for 15 mins of commercial breaks, and TV3 want it for transmission at Christmas this year. So we’ve got to move very fast!’
Keg Kartoonz have previously produced the animated TV series ‘Fadó Fadó’, ‘The Mad Cows’ and ‘The Freaky Family Flynn’, which is currently in production.
'Bottler' will air on TV3 this Christmas season.
