What is Jamari Animated?

I wanted to explain the project for any new guests to the blog.

Jamari Animated started out as an idea for a birthday present for my nephew Jamari.  I wanted to make a little cartoon for his birthday.  Well, I started talking about it in the notes section of my Facebook page and I got offers to help from my friends and family.

The story:  During a little game of kickball, a bunch of kids discover a little guy wearing a raincoat in the playground without a cloud in the sky.  They make fun of him.  Suddenly, the kids get blasted by the raincoat kid, who surprisingly has weather related super powers.  Raincoat makes it rain and washes out recess.  It’s up to superhero Jamari to save the day.  He uses his super powers, including the Bible, his faith and the power of God to save the day.

Storyboard from film.  Jamari's Bible powers activate.

That’s right.  This is a “Christian Action” cartoon.  It’s based on an idea I had back in college about a show called Bibleman.  I didn’t like the show, but I liked the concept and thought it deserved a makeover.  So I’m giving the Jamari character the superpowers from my makeover idea.  The faith power works like this:  Bible verses glow on the front of Jamari’s armor.  Then, powers based on the Bible verse happen.  For example, if Jamari’s armor glows with Matthew 7: 26 (And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand), then the ground will turn into sand and the bad guys will sink down in the sand.  Cool, huh?  If the film ever becomes an animated series or series of videos, I think it would get kids excited about grabbing their Bible and checking those verses out… and of course, certain verses would be used as super powers over and over and kids could get favorite Bible verses.

I’m creating the film with the computer program Flash.  The film will also be stereoscopic.  That means that it will be the kind of film where you wear the 3-D glasses and the characters pop off the screen. 

The film will be the first festival film from my production company Studio Luke 15, LLC.  It’s also the first film from the Amazing Space Films project, which is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, an arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Amazing Space Films may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.  Anyone who donates to the Amazing Space Films project for Jamari Animated gets a credit in the film!  We definitely need to raise funds to create the 3-D effects and get the 3-D glasses.  If we raise enough money, we may be able to upgrade to a better animation production computer program, like ToonBoom.

You can make a donation here:

Next blog post, I’ll talk about the CINEviews Film Festival.  I’ve already registered for the storyboarding workshop with Tuck Tucker, Lynchburg native and supervising storyboard guy on SpongeBob SquarePants.  I read his bio and he worked on He-Man and She-Ra in the 80’s!  I’m SO bringing my He-Man video for him to autograph!