Next week at Cartoon Forum, 75 teams from around Europe will gather in Toulouse, France, to pitch their animated TV projects, in hopes of connecting with potential buyers, co-producers and other partners. Ahead of that annual event, every day this week we’ll be featuring a different series or special that we believe deserves a closer look. Stay tuned over the next few days to find out more about these special projects. 

Irish studio Sixteen South, a familiar face at Cartoon Forum, is heading back to the pitchfest next week with its first-ever special: This Moose Belongs To Me. 

This is a 22-minute 2D/CG-animated adaptation of the 2012 book of the same name by author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers (How to Catch a Star, The Day the Crayons Quit). 

In the special, a boy named Wilfred finds a moose that he promptly claims as his pet. Wilfred names it Marcel and tries to teach the moose how to be a perfect pet. While Marcel fails to realize he belongs to Wilfred, the boy is absolutely confident that the animal is his. His dreams of moose ownership are shattered, though, after he encounters another kid who claims Marcel as their own.

It sounds like a lighthearted story, and it is, but This Moose Belongs to Me is also an avenue for tackling some complicated, and increasingly important, topics around ownership and greed, says Colin Williams, founder and creative director of Sixteen South. 

The family-friendly special has a budget of roughly US$3.7 million (£2.8 million). Creative Conspiracy in Belgium (which is nominated for a Cartoon Forum Tribute award) is co-producing it with Sixteen South. 

Creating a special—something families can come together and watch for half an hour—has been a career-long ambition for Williams. It took 12 years to get this project off the ground, though, since Williams knew the company needed a story that could resonate internationally, and which ideally was based on a book so it would have a built-in audience. 

So he turned to Oliver Jeffers—who lives just down the street from Sixteen South in Holywood, Northern Ireland. Jeffers and Williams had gone to the same university, and Williams even tried recruiting the now-famous author when he graduated. Jeffers instead pursued a career in fine art, and today his books have sold more than 14 million copies worldwide. 

This time around, though, when Williams approached him to adapt This Moose Belongs to Me, Jeffers was all for it, Williams says. 

Beyond that personal connection, though, adapting Jeffers makes perfect business sense, since the special has to be able to sell worldwide. There’s a global appetite for Jeffers’ work—his books have been translated into 50 languages—so broadcasters are interested, Williams adds.

The studio considered a few different stories from Jeffers, but landed on This Moose because it stands out with its strong art and the sweet relationship between a kid and an unusual animal. Then, of course, there’s the compelling story that addresses universal topics. 

“It’s a very apt story at the moment,” Williams says. “We love his writing because it works on all levels—kids, family. But it’s a story about ownership and control. [It asks] what do we really own, and what can we really control in life? The root of many of the problems we have [in the world are] greed, ownership, control. To tell a story about this will be fantastic.” 

The special both tells a light-hearted story while exploring topics around greed and ownership, says Sixteen South’s Colin Williams.

The book is known for its hand-drawn, painterly art style, and Sixteen South teamed with Creative Conspiracy (Ninja Express, Quentin Blake’s Box of Treasures) to capture that look in the special. Williams had met Creative Conspiracy’s partner Peter Decraene at markets for several years, and they had often talked about needing the right project to work on together. 

Now that opportunity is finally here—and so far it’s been a match made in animation heaven. “We’ve done a bunch of vis dev together, and it really works,” Williams says. “We feel confident that the visuals will pay justice to [the book] on screen.” 

Sixteen South will be presenting the project on Tuesday the 16th at 3:15 p.m. (Toulouse time) in the Blue Room.