Sminky Shorts creator puts TV series in the frame, like
It’s been an amazing year for Sminky Shorts creator Jason O’Sullivan. To date, his cartoon series has notched up more than 18 million YouTube hits and attracted nearly 100,000 subscribers.
But the 28-year-old Kanturk man has taken a temporary break from Sminky Shorts to concentrate on a new series with TV production company Sideline Productions:
“They heard about the Sminky Shorts and asked if I’d anything I’d like to do.
“I’ve just finished the treatment last month and it will be pitched to TV companies.” While he cannot go into detail about the series, he was able to reveal the title: Where the Sun Don’t Shine.
“They seemed to be really happy with it. It’s a tough business and it would be great to have the backing of a broadcaster but if it doesn’t work out I’ll make the series — it will just take a bit longer.
“I’ve been getting emails asking for a new Sminky Shorts because people don’t know that I’ve been working on this.”
O’Sullivan is celebrating the series’ success with a Sminky Shorts First Birthday Bash at the upcoming Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival in Schull.
There will be a special screening of the cartoons and a sought-after Q&A session with O’Sullivan.
He hopes to have some new Sminky Shorts cartoons done by then — his line of Sminky Shorts T-shirts are going like hot cakes, he reports.
“I never saw myself doing anything like this,” says O’Sullivan who started creating the series during a module on animation in his degree course at CIT.
The five-day & festival in late May plays host to more than 250 short films, as well as children’s films, puppet shows, puppet-making workshops, stop frame animation workshops and storytelling sessions.
The festival, which takes place without a cinema, explores alternatives throughout the village of Schull — from a horse box (with HD streaming) to a micro cinema (with eyepiece), six marquees (with projector & screen), to a bookshop, the village hall and to local pubs and restaurants.
Schull’s intranet network connects, through ethernet cable and wireless, to its own short film archive on a dedicated server and anyone with a smartphone, laptop or iPad can access the server through Wi-Fi anywhere on the main street and watch any of the submission films at any time.
* www.fastnetshortfilmfestival.com
