Buoyed by the success of our first venture into the world of iApps and iPhone games, and with the added incentive of  funding from CIIF, we have decided to produce another iApp, this time for the Hector: Fat Arse of the Law property. Earlier in the year we decided that the iPhone market was too good an opportunity to miss and thanks to Chris Walters from Intrinsic Development, we were able to train our resident web guru Mr Kevin Beimers, Esq. to a point where he was able to develop, produce and launch our first iApp ‘Keek on a Crab‘, an extension of Lifeboat Luke property.

Kevin has taken to the development of iPhone Applications like a Glaswegian to a bottle of Buckfast, with Keek on a Crab being quite an achievement for his first foray into this area. So the team has now planned to embark upon an even more ambitious project in the Hector game.

Inspired by games such as ‘Day of the Tentacle’ and ‘The Secret of Money Island’, which kept Kevin and Dean out of trouble when they were lads, we plan to develop a series of Hector point and click adventure games that will feature original animated content and will introduce the character of Hector to wider audience who have yet to experience him in all his two dimensional glory.

So the easy part of decided what we are making is over we now only have the small matter of coming up with the script and game-play for an iApp that we think will be compelling enough to generate significant interest when it is launched, but is also feasible for us to produce given the very tight schedule and budget that we are working to.

So for those of you who are not aware of Hector I thought that I would post a little bit of background information on the series to bring you up to speed.

Hector: Fat Arse of the Law, is the new animated crime spoof drama from Straandlooper Animation, the same company who produced Lifeboat Luke. The series follows the adventures of Hector – flawed, misanthropic Detective Inspector with the Clappers Wreake Police Service. Violent, drunken, callous, vulgar, sarcastic, bloody-minded – and that’s on a good day.

The proposed series of animated feature length movies will follow Hector in his struggle to eliminate the plague of warped, perverse killers infesting the damp, sweaty corners of Clappers Wreake, the murder capital of Britain. Well, during work hours that is. After 5pm he is a promiscuous suicidal lush.

The series will be supported by a wealth of additional material across both online and mobile platforms. You can find out more about Hector and what Straandlooper have planned for it at www.thehectorfiles.tv

Back in October of last year, Culture, Arts and Leisure Minister Gregory Campbell, MP MLA along with Roisín McDonough, Chief Executive the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and other funders, launched the Creative Industries Innovation Fund (CIIF). The Northern Ireland Department for Culture and Leisure (DCAL) had successfully secured £5m to establish the CIIF to contribute to the growth of Northern Ireland’s cultural capital by supporting creativity and creative talents in their business activities.

The proposed fund would be open to all creative businesses in Northern Ireland, so at the start of the year when Straandlooper finally heard about he fund, we busied ourselves submitting an application that would see the company commit to creating a slate of new products to further exploit our slate of intellectual properties. In February we submitted our ambitious application which included the creation of a number of innovative and exciting products across three of our current slate of properties – Lifeboat Luke, Small Tragedies and Hector: Fat Arse of the Law.

So today I am delighted to announce that we finally received a letter of acceptance from the Arts Council approving our application for CIIF funding.

I will not dwell on the fact that it took over 6 months for this decision to be made and I will also not dwell on the impact this has had on the company and its cashflow as were in fact hoping to start production on these products a number of months ago but  while I am extremely grateful for the support we have received I will be making it abundantly clear to the evaluators of this fund that businesses in the creative industries need decisive and immediate support to help them survive in these tough economic times.

But while I may come across as bitter and twisted as a lemon in a knot, I will reiterate how grateful I am for the support from the Arts Council and I am looking forward to working with them and delivering a slate of products that will help both Straandlooper and the Arts Council achieve their strategic goals.

Welcome to the new Hector: Fat Arse of the Law Production Blog. This will be your destination of choice for all things Hector over the next couple of months as Straandlooper continue to develop and produce the new animated crime spoof property Hector: Fat Arse of the Law. We will not only be continuing our discussions with broadcasters and potential collaborators for the property but we will also be embarking upon the rather ambitious production of a Hector iPhone game. So bookmark this page and keep checking back for updates on how we are getting on.