After three successful books and the cool interactive adaptation of BOOKR Kids, Róbert Farkas once again dreamt big during the lockdown and started to transform his kids books on astrophysics, starring a fox family into an animation series.
As a child, Róbert Farkas aspired to be an astronaut, and has been fascinated by space, planets and physics ever since. Unlucky for him, he grew too tall (almost two meters,minus two centimeters), and neither did he excel at natural sciences in school. He ended up being a graphic designer, and the idea of combining his profession and interests into a book for kids came around the time her daughter was born.
The first volume titled „Clever Fox’s Tales about the Universe” went viral in an instance. In 2016, he came up with the idea, drew it, and then owing to a successful crowdsourcing campaign, he published the first volume in English, via a private publisher in 300 copies. Seeing all the buzz, Kolibri Kiadó publishing house contracted Robi for three books in 2017, and so the tales are also available in Spanish, Slovakian-English and Slovenian versions.
And now, Robi’s stories based on the conversations of a fox-dad and his cub – the tale of the birth of the universe, lightspeed and Einstein’s theory of relativity – will soon come to life in a motion picture version. The idea is approximately of the same age as the book.
“I had an idea already when the first volume was published that perhaps an amination movie could spread more easily amongst kids than a book, and that the two formats could complement each other perfectly. In the beginning, I was very eager to collect money and people for the project, but after a time, I felt it was too much for me. Never start something you couldn’t finish on your own – something I regularly say to myself. Three years have gone by, I’ve written three stories and considered the Clever Fox series done for my part, and I already started a new trilogy. However, due to the epidemic, my publisher postponed the release of my youth adventure novel, and I started to think about what I should do. My 3D animation skills improved a lot over the years, this is where the idea of trying to create the movie in a slightly different manner than I originally thought came from” – Robi told us.
Originally he wanted to create the film with stop-motion technique and hand-made puppets, with the help of animation director Péter Vácz. According to Robi, however, this would have required a lot of funds and a good amount of luck, too. And then in the past few years, in the course of his projects done for the television, Robi upgraded his knowledge of Cinema4D and Octane Render, and with these programs, he can create the various characters in an almost completely life-like manner.
“I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson’s animated movies. The Fantastic Mr. Fox and the Isle of Dogs are may favorites. I was thinking about doing something similar and clean, where visuality does not steal the attention from the message” – Robi adds.
Robi’s main aim is to have a brief, 30 seconds trailer or pilot produced this year which would introduce the series. Even though the project is still in a quite early phase – the experiments and brainstorming are currently in progress –, the animated pictures already made show that an amazing and noteworthy animation is underway. In order to complete and release his film, however, he will need sponsors.
“The same as in the case of the book earlier, I started this project on my own, but I will need to involve external resources for implementation in this case, too. I think approximately 3-4 million Forints is necessary for the first season to be completed, which would cover the work of three people plus the costs of renting the render farm. If I manage to get the necessary funding, perhaps this dream of mine too can come true next year” – Robi told us.
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