|
|
|
A brand new children's television series called 'The Storykeepers,' which has been top of the American video charts for nearly all of last year, is being broadcast by RTE at present and is set to be screened from this Sunday, 12-01-97, by UTV.
The 13 episode series of animated stories from St Mark's Gospel has been the brain child of English Methodist minister, Rev Brian Brown, but has had significant input from the Irish business community and film industry. The business expertise to make the project happen has been provided by a group of businessmen from both sides of the border including Sir Eric McDowell from Belfast and Don Tidey, managing director of the Quinnsworth Group. The programmes have been made at Shepherd Studios in Dublin produced by Michael Algar whose earlier films include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and directed by Jimmy Murakami who animated The Snowman.
Churches worldwide including the four main churches in Ireland have backed the project and Professor Cecil McCullough of Union Theological College, Belfast, has been involved in checking the biblical correctness of the scripts.
'I never in my wildest dreams expected to be involved in film production,' explained Sir Eric McDowell. 'However about 5 years ago I was asked to see if I could help with the project and when I saw the pilot episode I took what was probably the most risky decision of my business career and got involved. But now that I have viewed the programmes I'm delighted that I did and having seen the reaction of my own grandchildren I'm convinced 'The Storykeepers' conveys the original bible stories in a way that will make them come alive for children today.'
The storyline centres around Ben the Baker. Ben as a small boy was the one who gave Jesus the five loaves and two fish with which he fed five thousand people. Now he has grown up and runs a bakery in Rome around 60AD. The Romans are persecuting the Christians and the story tells of his escapades along with his wife Helena and four children Anna, Cyrus, Justin and Marcus to keep the stories of Jesus alive while avoiding being caught by the Roman Guards.
Television rights to the series have now been sold all round the world and publishers Cassell have reproduced the stories in book form with two versions for younger and older children, a work book is also available and 'The Storykeepers' will be released in video form later in the year. In the USA where the videos went on sale last year each episode has topped the video charts selling at least 75,000 copies in its first month of release and the books have gone into a second edition.
'The Storykeepers' can be seen on UTV from this Sunday, 12th January, at 10.15am. and on RTE Network 2 at 10.00am also on Sunday mornings.
PCI Home . . . Press Office . . . News Archive