HANSPERI THE HAMSTER

Japanese text, please scroll

IN DEVELOPMENT

Stop motion puppet animation series / season 1: 13 x 7mins / for 7 – 11 yrs boys and girls & families

PLATFORMS: cinema / tv / SVOD-VOD /single short films / books / social media apps

When you bring your first pet home, a lot of ambitious hopes and expectations are involved, but not everything goes according to plan when the pet happens to be a greedy and stubborn hamster.

HANSPERI THE HAMSTER is a surprising and fun romp about the hamster HANSPERI and three siblings, little brother LEO (5), sisters IRIS (8) and JASMIN (10).

Children have high expectations for their first pet. However, Hansperi will not be a social media star or agility champion. It is a species-typical hamster, greedy, tenacious, and resilient.

Everyday life turns into fantasy and the atmosphere becomes strange when the hamster moves from the modern children’s room into the dollhouse that has an air of a bygone era. Absurd humour is born as the girls’ high expectations clash with the cruel reality. A cute but uncontrollable hamster is really the gremlin of the stories. It is both amusing and chaotic at the same time.

Similar character is the careless Tootletubs in stop motion animation series Tootletubs & Jyro (orig. Turilas & Jäärä, sv Turo & Jerry) and the evil penguin in Wallace&Gromit film Wrong Trousers.

The story is about the importance of cooperation between children. In addition, it gently handles the theme of an animal’s right to simply be an animal and not comply to a human’s every whim. In series, the world is mainly seen and heard from an animal’s point of view.

The series is narrated without dialogue. A near-sighted hamster waddling on the floor sees things in his own way and hears the girls’ speech as gibberish. The same style of characters’ speech is used in Shaun the Sheep movies.

All scenes are executed as stop motion animation. The setting of the series will be created in a studio. The lighting creates a three-dimensional atmosphere. The film gives a feel that the image is three dimensional and the characters are almost tangible. This has a specific value. The characters and story have a more immersive feel, it is compelling and provokes an emotional response.

The writer & director is MARIKO HÄRKÖNEN. See the trailer of her reference puppet animation film series “TURILAS & JÄÄRÄ” (aka Nico&Patou, aka Tootletubs&Jyro), produced by HANDLE FILMS Finland

WATCH DRAFT DEMO (1mins): “WELCOME HANSPERI“