Plasmo

Plasmo (stylised as PLASMO) is an Australian children's science fiction claymation TV series that consisted of a half-hour short film ("Happy Hatchday to Plasmo") made in 1989 followed by thirteen 5-minute episodes made in 1996 which aired on the ABC in 1997, and 24 other countries. The series was certified a G rating.

Plasmo Mega Studios, the show's production company, was founded in 1993 "with the express purpose of producing the stop motion animation series". The company closed down 11 years later in 2004.

Plasmo models were featured in the 1998 Canberra Design and Construction Exhibition Concepts, at the National Film and Sound Archive.

According to Anthony Lawrence, he "devised, wrote, directed, co-produced and co-animated" the series.

Lawrence has uploaded all 13 episodes in a playlist on his YouTube channel, as well as excerpts of his 20 minutes documentary in a separate playlist.

Development

The character of Plasmo was originally developed by Anthony Lawrence in 1981 for a short film entitled "Plasmo versus the Space Bullies". The short was shot on a Super 8 mm film. It became "popular with is fellowCollege students". The second Plasmo film was a sequel titled "Plasmo and the Space Party". It was made in 1983. As Lawrence was unhappy with the quality and format of the Super 8, when he began work on the next Plasmo film, which was called "Happy Hatchday to Plasmo" and released in 1986, he used a newly acquired "second hand 16mm Bolex" instead.

Despite being turned down for funding by the Australian Film Commission three times, Lawrence continued working on the film, and "began updating the ABC on isintentions to create a childrens animation", in the hopes that they would be willing to buy the idea upon Happy Hatchday's completion. Lawrence completed the film in 1988, and sent it to the ABC headquarters in Sydney for inspection. In this film, Plasmo is a young alien who is being sought by the bounty hunters Coredor and Brucho, although by the time of the TV series they have become his (somewhat grumpy) companions.

The ABC told Lawrence about their plans to buy the film a year later. Although Lawrence was "pleased" by this, he was unhappy with the price they were willing to pay, as they were "way under what ewas expecting". He haggled the price up in order to "cover some additional post production expenses" involved in the process of transferring the series to videotape. The film was broadcast by the ABC and was re-broadcast over the next five years. The ABC did not financially back a future TV series "at this early stage", according to Lawrence they said they "would be interested in seeing something". Lawrence started work on the project after applying for script development in 1990 from the Australian Children's Television Foundation. However, in 1992 the project became stalled due to the "need...to show investors and buyers what a new episode would look like".

A pilot, which was funded by Film Victoria, was created in 1993 and shot over 4 months. The short, entitled "Plasmo and the Bookworm", later became the seventh episode of the television series. Despite the pilot winning an Adelaide Children's Television Festival award, the series only became fully funded two years later, after a new producer became attached to the project. The team were restricted to under 30 minutes of animation by the FFC funding guidelines, however the series had a "running time of sixty five minutes". After various appeals and 10BA documents, the funding eventually came from "Film Victoria, an ABC pre-sale, a BBC
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