When The Simpsons started as a five-minute short in 1987, no one foresaw the show becoming such a huge success. 
 
Now, 23 years later, we have our own home-brewed animation short. Screened on Saturdays on SABC3 since mid-December, Bun & Bunee is a one-minute animation show that is both witty and funny. The characters, Bun (the older brother) and Bunee are obvious results of an artist's doodles on an inspired day. On first sight, anatomically, the brothers look like animated molars with eyes and limbs.
 
"We started the Bun & Bunee idea in 2003," said creator and animator Jason Cullen. "It was a concept I thought of one day and kept drawing until there were enough characters to make a meaningful storyline. The two always get into trouble and try to devise ways get themselves out of sticky situations," said Cullen, who is an animation director at Luma Animation. 
 
Made using Autodesk's software, Softimage, Bun and Bunee are state-of-the art characters with global appeal. (Autodesk is the parent firm responsible for the Maya software used in films like Ironman, Hulk, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo).
 
"After being happy with the designs, we decided to animate the characters with an international market in mind - that is why there is a touch of animè in the feel of Bun & Bunee," explained Cullen.
 
Locally, the snippets have become a favourite with SABC3, which agreed to sign a three-year deal with Luma Animation.While Bun and Bunee run around onscreen for only a minute, it takes a month for an animator to make a one-minute episode.
 
"It is a very taxing job and here we've seven animators working on the Bun & Bunee project so that we can rotate material in advance. So far we have 29 finished episodes and in a year we need 52, so there is still so much to do," he said.
 
The other challenge they face as makers of this short is to make it communicate humorously without using dialogue.(Think Wall-E or Charlie Chaplin). 
 
"They are mime characters so making movements without voicing them is a bigger challenge - you can't tell jokes; you have to show jokes instead," Cullen said. 
 
So will they be the next The Simpsons?
 
"That would be great, but for now we are trying to make the show known so we can push the merchandising side of things." 
 
Cullen adds that while South Africa has gifted artists who can sustain an animation industry, the problem of funding always hinders the hopes of producing a purely South African feature film.
 
"We get people coming to us after watching Avatar and saying: 'Hey, that was a great movie with cool graphics, can you do that?' and I am like: 'Yeah, just give me 300 million bucks and four years and I'll do it'," Cullen said.
 
Catch Bun & Bunee on SABC3 every Saturday at 7pm.

By Munyaradzi Vomo

 source: www.tonight.co.za