“Oscar and Friends” is a 26 x 5 minute clay-mation series made in Wellington New Zealand for kid’s aged 3-6. The series was produced by Gnome Productions Ltd. The show was funded by NZ on Air and Southern Star Entertainment. Southern Star Sales are the distribution agent for “Oscar and Friends”.

After working for the TV3 Network in New Zealand for some years Cameron decided it was time he made his own television programs. Cameron came up with the basic concept for a show about a young boy who was bored on his own at home. When his two imaginary friends appear they take the young boy off on an adventure into an imaginary world.

Initially Cameron considered realising the concept as a live action show using his background in puppetry and SFX to create the imaginary characters and fantastic settings. But after budgeting a series based on this approach it soon became apparent to Cameron that it would never be financially viable to produce the show for television in this way.

Cameron experimented with stop frame animation and could see the possibilities in using this medium to produce the action adventure series. Turning to his friend and award winning animation director, Euan Frizzell at Gnome Productions for support together they applied for funding and were successful in gaining the finance required to produce the show from NZ on Air in New Zealand.

Executive producer Shaun Bell managed to bring Southern Star sales onboard to distribute the series and invest into the production enabling the series to grow from 13 x 7 minutes into 26 x 5 minutes, which Southern Star Sales believed would better meet international format requirements.

While Cameron and a small group of technicians in New Zealand at the time had gained some experience in Clay-mation techniques Cameron felt the “Oscar and Friends” crew needed further training. Cameron traveled to England and met the Aardman animation director Richard Goleszowski creator of the Aardman production “Rex the Runt” and director of the clay-mation series “Creature Comforts”. Richard agreed to come to New Zealand to help train the crew for “Oscar and Friends”. Input from Richard and Australian stop frame animator Norman Yeend proved immensely helpful and enabled the New Zealand team to produce the high quality results that Cameron felt necessary to ensure the series would hold up against international competition. Cameron and his team went on to complete the series building a small clay-mation industry with in New Zealand in the process.

Wanting to create a new fresh look to the show Cameron experimented with a mixed media approach. Using painted backgrounds and stop frame model characters the show has a unique appeal. The puppet characters were constructed using a simple wire armature held together with a brass section socket system. The bodies were made using foam latex with resin cast heads. Replacement mouths were used to create the illusion of speech and facial expression.

Some of the animation was completed on a rostrum shooting the painted backgrounds and puppet characters together while other shots were completed using a traditional model set or against a blue screen. The series was shot on 35 mm film using five hand made stop frame cameras built by SFX technician Stephen Greenwood. The cameras used Nikon still lenses. With a built in video split the animators used a computer and simple line test software to help guide them through the animation process.

“Oscar and Friends” has screened all around the world including Fox in USA, ABC in Australia and ITV in UK where the series rated number ten for kids in its first year of release.