Lost Treasure Hunt Seeks Kickstarter Aid
History education is getting a boost from some of the filmmakers who brought you animated films like Shrek, The Iron Giant, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Lost Treasure Hunt, a ground breaking new television series, explores history topics by mixing fast-moving adventure with high caliber historical scholarship. The National Endowment for the Humanities has provided funding for the pilot episode, a modern day adventure that gives children a more complete overview of the Columbus voyage.
WETA the flagship PBS affiliate in Washington DC will present Lost Treasure Hunt as a tie in to Columbus Day 2014. Nearing the end of production, Lost Treasure Hunt asks Kickstart contributors to help raise funds that will ensure that the Columbus special will be broadcast nationally and distributed to school for use in classrooms across the country.
“This series shows that one of the best ways to learn history is through an action adventure story,” says acclaimed Disney animator and Lost Treasure Hunt director Richard Bazley. “When we set out to make a history program, we were told that educational shows are for young children only, and that we would need to water down history to make it work. We completely disagree.”
Nationally recognized educators and leading history scholars came together with animators and filmmakers to present history in a style that would be relevant to children, and would successfully compete for the attention of a young audience with competing media choices.
“Many of us came to Lost Treasure Hunt from feature animation,” says Matt Davis a feature producer who is one of the writers on Lost Treasure Hunt, “because we wanted to bring a new kind of storytelling to educational television — a compelling narrative that makes history essential to the story.”
Lost Treasure Hunt uses strong storytelling and compelling characters to reach out to an audience both young and old. While educational content for “tweens” and older children continues to decline, the creators of the Columbus Day special believe that Lost Treasure Hunt can help reverse negative trends in history and civics education.
You can find out more about Lost Treasure Hunt at the Kickstarter campaign at the following link
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/losttreasurehunt/lost-treasure-hunt-animated-history-television?ref=watched_project_launched
Jake is a Researcher and Interactive developer at Wonky Films and the face behind all of Show Me The Animation’s online platforms and website. So if it breaks he’s probably to blame! Aside from running the SMTA online, Jake make’s interactive things for Wonky Films.
