More information on Friends and Heroes

Following up from last month's post about the new BBC animated adventure series Friends and Heroes, more details have become available, and as the first episode airs in just 4 days (Monday), I thought it was about time I made some more comments. I'll review the episode I was sent as a screener tomorrow.

First of all the broadcast details(with video plus codes) have been announced as follows:

Ep 1: Monday 12th March @ 12:00 noon
Ep 2: Monday 12th March @ 12.30pm
Ep 3: Tuesday 13th March @ 12.30pm
Ep 4: Wednesday 14th March @ 12:00 noon
Ep 5: Wednesday 14th March @ 12.30pm
Ep 6: Thursday 15th March @ 12.30pm
Ep 7: Friday 16th March @ 12.30pm
Ep 8: Monday 19th March @ 12:00 noon
Ep 9: Tuesday 20th March @ 12.30pm
Ep 10: Wednesday 21st March @ 12:00 noon
Ep 11: Wednesday 21st March @ 12.30pm
Ep 12: Thursday 22nd March @ 12.30pm
Ep 13: Friday 23rd March @ 12.30pm

Secondly, it's clear that this project has a good range of talent involved. Gary Kurtz (producer for the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back) is named as the "Supervising Producer". Kurtz has been doing animation for the last 15 years. Other established names are composers Karl Twigg and Mark Topham, who have written a number of UK chart hits for bands such as Steps, Five and Westlife.

It's also really encouraging to see Naomi Jones involved. Jones was involved with the brilliant Testament: Bible in Animation series, as well as The Miracle Maker, one of my favourite Jesus films.

And then there's Stan Berkowitz who has worked on recent animated versions of Superman and Batman. There are various other names associated with the project, although the only one I really know is Stephen Gaukroger a regular speaker at the Spring Harvest conference over here in the UK.

Away from the names and back to the project. As mentioned previously this is the first of three series, and the opening episodes introduce the main characters (Macky and Portia) to us and to each other. Macky is from a family of first century Jewish Christians, whilst Portia is the niece of the Governor of Alexandria - Tiberius.

It's Tiberius's meteoric rise that allows each series to take place in a different city. Tiberius's promotion to leader of the siege of Jerusalem moves the action for series two to the heart of Judea, and finally his move to Rome provides the setting for the third series. So there will be something in this for Roman history buffs too (although how accurate a depiction of Tiberius it will be remains to be seen).

One final point. The animation will be a mix of 2D and 3D, with the 2D animation making up the majority of each episode, and the 3D being introduced for the sections where the biblical stories are narrated. This is an interesting technique. The use of 3D suggests that these stories are more real than those in 2D, but the way they are narrated stresses the importance of them being stories that are owned and identified with, rather than just stories for the sake of it.