Frances

Frances is a brand new-ground-breaking children’s series produced by The Jim Henson Company. Henson partnered with HIT Entertainment to bring the storybook character of Frances, a young badger from the book series by Russell and Lillian Hoban, to life.

Each episode of Frances is made up of three stories all about "taking on the challenges of childhood" Frances sings and dances her way to a solution of any problem with the help of her Mom, her Dad, her little sister Gloria, and her best friend Albert.

Henson produced a one-shot special, in early 2005. After seeing the results of the new technology and characters, executives and viewers at Henson, HIT, and the industry were decided to turn the production into a continuing series of home videos.

Cast

 * Julianne Buescher: Gloria, Albert

Technology
The show uses the Henson Digital Performance System, which allows puppeteers to control computer gerated characters in real-time. Unlike traditional computer animation, the show uses computer puppetry to bring the characters to life. Brian Henson, director of the Francis pilot episodes, has openly talked about the technology and process behind the ground breaking show: "The technology we’ve developed allows a puppeteer to puppeteer/perform a character that is being animated in real time...If you go into one of our puppeteer-animation sound stages, which there is only one of, you would see what feels like a real operating live-action set, and the puppeteers are performing – one puppeteer is performing the body, one is puppeteer is performing the head and voice – and what we’re getting is these wonderful organic performances. The computer is not doing any animation. The computer is not allowed move anything; only people can move anything. So there’s a camera operator, moving our virtual camera, and there are performers who are puppeteering the bodies and the heads of the character."

"we’re having, I got to say, so much fun; because we can improvise...What’s great about puppets are that they are spontaneous, and what we’re trying to do in our 3-D animation, is to really be spontaneous. So we’re really working the material in front of the camera. And we have big projectors, so they can see what [the computer] sees. We’re doing performed animation, and it’s a lot of fun."

Release Status
HIT Entertainment originally stated that fans would be able to "get in touch with your inner-Francis", in January 2006 with the release of Bedtime for Francis and Bread and Jam for Francis on DVD and VHS. The DVDs of the two produced episodes went up for pre-order on many online stores, however the titles were not released. After the products were dropped, HIT customer service responded "the Frances series has been cancelled from our release schedule at this time. No further information is currently available."

It has been stated that Frances was originally planned to be released as a series of direct-to-DVD products. However after the great reactions, Henson and HIT decided to try to sell the series as a TV show. A firm TV deal has not been announced and it is assumed that Henson decided to wait to release these episodes after they air, or in conjunction with a possible TV debut.