Big boost for Norwich pastor's animation dream

The second episode of a high-quality pioneering animated devotional has been launched online in a project led by Oscar and BAFTA winning animator and Norwich church elder Jonny Hall. Keith Morris reports.

The ambitious Manna Productions crowd-funded initiative aims to produce 365 high-quality animated Christian devotionals aimed at engaging young people with the Gospel.
 
Jonny is a professional animator who has worked on some of Hollywood’s biggest block-busters in collaboration with Disney and Marvel including Guardians of the Galaxy, Maleficent and Gravity on which he was part of the team which won an Oscar and a BAFTA for 'Best Visual Effects'. He is also an elder at Servant's Church Norwich.
 
The second new episode follows the theme of trial and preparation - how God tests and prunes us for his Kingdom purposes, explains Jonny.
 
“It looks at how David rejected King Saul’s armour because he hadn’t tested it - this reflected how Saul himself was an untested King, chosen for his outward appearance and ultimately rejected by God.
 
“David instead chooses five smooth stones, small vessels that have evidently gone through ‘trials’ to make them smooth - this paralleling the trajectory of David, who himself went through many years of testing before becoming God’s chosen king,” said Jonny.
 
A typical minute’s worth of TV animation costs about £20,000 to make and Jonny has launched an online crowd-funding appeal to support the project, which he said was “a big act of faith.”

“Even though I felt the Lord’s leading, you never know what the response is going to be and I couldn’t quite believe that in four months we’d raised enough to do another episode!
 
“I started building the team earlier this year which comprised of members from our first episode plus some new artists. In the end there were six of us, but production wasn’t without its struggles. Nearly everyone was hampered at some point, whether it be chicken pox, major surgery or, in the case of one of the oversees artists, it was fleeing war!
 
“Thankfully everyone is ok and they’ve all been amazing to work with. Christian musician Jonathan Ogden also kindly allowed us to use one of his tracks for the music which was an added bonus.
 
“As a team we’re really pleased with the final result and we hope it can even be a useful tool for homegroups or individual study.
 
“Our short-term goal is to produce three episodes in order to provide a solid proof-of-concept. This will open the doors to bigger Christian platforms and hopefully help secure backing to make a larger bulk of episodes,” said Jonny.
 
“If people have enjoyed our videos and want to help us get to number three then we’d really appreciate you visiting our GoFundMe page and donating to the mission - I still feel we’re just getting started and God has a lot more in store!"
 
To watch the video click here or watch below.

Here is the Gofundme page with some more info: gofund.me/5f235bbd

Read our previous story on this topic.

Pictured top is the new Manna episode and, above, Jonny Hall with his Oscar and BAFTA awards.