Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, Vera Farmiga, and Richard E. Grant are some of the actors who’ve signed on to the new digital animated series - powered by Unreal Engine - based on Lois Lowry’s YA novel of the same name; the story takes viewers on a journey through the world of dreams and nightmares.
BRON Digital has announced the voice cast for its new digital animated series, Gossamer, based on the young adult novel of the same name by acclaimed author Lois Lowry (The Giver, The Willoughbys). The story takes viewers on a journey through the world of dreams and nightmares. The company previously produced The Willoughbys for Netflix, also by Lowry.
Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker is lending his voice along with Thomasin McKenzie; Vera Farmiga; Richard E. Grant; Wilmer Valderrama; Alanna Masterson; and Courtney Rosemont, who makes her voice debut.
Littlest One is an in-training Gossamer, a fairy who is a dream giver. Each night she and her teacher, Bertrand, visit Vera, a human selected for dream receiving who only lives with her dog, Toby. For a Gossamer, part of dream giving is gathering "fragments," memories that lie within important objects in a Gossamer's human counterpart. Once collected, the dream giver uses them to create fantastical dreams. When Vera takes in Frankie, a foster child with a troubled and complex past, Lil is poised to help Frankie find happiness through her dreams. But her spontaneous and sometimes reckless approach to dream weaving triggers darkness in Frankie that the Sinisteeds, terrifying centaur-like creatures, use to create nightmares. Can Littlest One protect Frankie from the Sinisteeds? Or will Frankie be trapped in the darkness forever?
"We are extremely excited to bring yet another one of Lois Lowry's properties to life," commented BRON Digital EVP and series producer Jason Chen. "Gossamer is not only a reimagining of the fairy genre but a real story about relationships and trust."
Gossamer will be powered by Epic Games' Unreal Engine, with an international team of artists across multiple disciplines able to iterate and collaborate in real-time. Chen noted that Unreal Engine effectively weaves together technology with creativity and as a production backbone, immersive worlds emerge in real-time. With the accelerated timeline, digital assets, such as characters, environments, props, and tools, can be repurposed to create online worlds, communities, and interactive games.
Chen added, "Our BRON Digital teams across the globe, paired with an incredible voice cast and the direction of Heidi and Aza, have truly taken words from the page and have translated them into a stunning movie series that new audiences will want to escape back into time and time again."
"BRON Digital has been a pioneering force in real-time animation workflows," noted Miles Perkins, Unreal Engine business director for media & entertainment. "Using Unreal Engine for Fables, and now for Gossamer, BRON is transforming production pipelines, taking advantage of the creative freedom to approach animation just as they would for any other project, animated or live-action. BRON is empowering a diverse range of storytellers who are bringing new ideas to the market and delivering some of the most awe-inspiring animation projects to date."
Beatclub co-founders, Grammy Award-winning artist/producer Timbaland and Gary Marella, serve as executive music supervisors. Aaron L. Gilbert, Brenda Gilbert, Ashley Levinson, and Kevin Turen are executive producers. Associate producers are Monifa Andrew, with Jason Cloth, Suraj Maraboyina, and Richard McConnell serving as associate producers for Creative Wealth Media.
No release date was announced.
Source: BRON Digital
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
