The first interactive animated satire show – phyzog.tv – will be delivered to mobile devices twice a week from early summer. It is the brainchild of former head of R&D at Spitting Image Projects Chris Chapman. He has formed a new company, Fizcast, to launch the show and to exploit the ground-breaking interactive mobile technology that has been developed to make it happen.
“We can place our digital caricatures in a myriad of environments and cover that day’s news for an evening broadcast,” says Chapman, “with viewers becoming participants and interacting directly with the animation and show. If you’ve always wanted to suggest a sketch for David Cameron, or prod him with the arms of ‘the poor’, now you can.” The team making Phyzog includes former Spitting Image caricaturists and voice artists, puppeteers from Harry Potter movies, app builders who’ve worked on Lara Croft titles, as well as new writing talent.
Peter Fluck, co-founder of Spitting Image with Roger Law, comments: “Spitting Image satirical puppets were a new technology for the end of the last century. This could be the new technology for satire in the 21st century and I personally would love to be the first investor.”
Fizcast is also in discussion with TV production companies about giving Phyzog.tv characters a life in ‘normal’ TV. Its technology enabling mobile app broadcasts, has also attracted attention beyond the world of comedy.
“It enables the rapid performance of interactive animation which can be delivered at lightening fast speeds to mobiles. This is a major breakthrough and is already proving of interest to other content producers,” explains Chapman.
To fund this project, Fizcast aims to raise a minimum of £350,000 in exchange for 17 per cent equity using the Crowdcube small business finance platform to invite members of the public to invest in the business in return for a share of the equity. “The people investing in small businesses on Crowdcube love the sort of innovation that phyzog.tv is about,” comments Crowdcube director Luke Lang. “Media, mobile and entertainment are all popular sectors and Fizcast combines all three.”
