Fantastic Forres author Ewen Watson and illustrator Sathya Schlösser are producing an animated timeline of the town

THE CREATORS of a children’s book about Forres are now making a cartoon about the history of the town.

‘Fantastic Forres’ author Ewen Watson and illustrator Sathya Schlösser are using £5,848.90 from the Berry Burn wind farm Community Fund to produce an animated timeline of Forres, with additional contributions from everyone involved in making it.

Ewen said: “We’re delighted to have received the support from Berry Burn to produce a short animation that outlines the history of Forres from 12,000 years ago to today.

“The project was an idea we had after delivering book talks in schools. We tried to think of other ways that the information in it could be further shared.

“The video will be a free resource for children to learn in an exciting and accessible way.”

The funds will be used to cover the costs of animation, voiceover, music and promotion of the video.

Professional animator Sathya confirmed the animation style will be a mixture of frame-by-frame and 2D via Procreate and Adobe After Effects software.

She said: “We had a lot of great feedback on the book’s timeline in particular and thought it would be great to turn it into a fully animated video.

“It will be around 6-10 minutes long depending on how long the voiceover is. The finished cartoon will be available on platforms like YouTube for everyone to watch for free.”

The video will be narrated by professional actor Alec Westwood who Ewen and Sathya have worked with on other projects. He has acted in TV shows including ‘Shetland’ and eighties children's classic ‘Knightmare’.

Be Like Pablo lead singer and guitarist Ewen is composing the music for the soundtrack. As well as for the band, he has previously composed music for video games and online adverts.

“The animation will be based on Sathya's illustrations in Fantastic Forres,” said Ewen. “The pictures will be brought to life!”

The pair hope to finish the project by June.