Global creative Brazilian studio Spirit Animation has received an Epic MegaGrant from Epic Games on its animated series Celeste. This follows a global recognition of the project’s strength, being among the top 10 most viewed contents in MipJunior (Cannes), winner of Brazil’s competitive Petrobras Production Fund and recently selected for RIO2C’s 2022 international market pitch.
Epic’s MegaGrant will be used to produce episode one of the series, with all voices being recorded at Audioworks in New York. Spirit is talking to potential co-producers to join the animated series (10 episodes of 22 minutes each), following the journey of Celeste and her fatherly-figure Dragon, as they help a diversified kingdom to look at life from a different, brighter, perspective.
Spirit Animation founder and COO and creator-writer-director-and-executive-producer of the show Fernando Macedo said, “This episode will also work as a stand-alone TV Special, leaving audiences curious to explore the other stories of this cute pair.”
“Epic’s Unreal Engine for real-time rendering and animation production is the way of the future, as quality increases day by day, while fastening production’s pipelines and workflows. We’re paving our way to an upcoming feature to be fully produced with Epic’s technology,” added Spirit Animation production partner and show’s co-director Cleber Coutinho.
Spirit’s upcoming releases include the animated series It’s Gonna Be Alright (2022), produced with Brazil’s children’s hospital for cancer Erastinho; Karl season three, Karl Babies season two, and the spooky direct-to-TV feature Mysterious Tales of Ketchup Jack, all part of its franchise Karl, with over two billion worldwide views (Disney XD, Amazon Prime, Wildbrain Spark, Youku).