shykids.com
shylo is an animated musical feature film from shy kids that follows a ten-year-old narcoleptic, dead set on winning his school talent show.
shylo and his motley crew of creatives – mylo, eggy & whiz, struggle to come up with an original idea in a world plagued with unoriginality and bad vibes.
at an all-nighter before the big day, the group end up sucked into shylo’s imagination. inside his mind, they seek out an original idea in order to escape, play the talent show, and save the world.
the main players
shylo
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he's overly confident, manic, bursting with energy & dreams. shylo is a walking, talking encyclopedia. he knows everything from beethoven to the beatles and can't wait to tell you all about them. but for now, his main focus is taking home first prize at this year's school talent show with a mind blowing musical, multimedia performance.
after last year's flop, shylo can't afford another failure. he's the driving force behind his band, shy kids. his belief in their collective talents is unwavering, however, his inability to sit still, listen & collaborate leads him on a downward spiral of self-sabotage, repeatedly preventing the group from reaching their full potential.
while shylo is brainy, he's not a try-hard or a phony. his demeanor is cool like ferris bueller.
mylo
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he has his head in the clouds and moves to the beat of his own shamanic drum. a neutralizing energy within the group, mylo is the master of zen and is always slipping in and out of some meditative state. he plays acoustic guitar, eats raw asparagus and dreams of long, lazy days on the beach.
whiz
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shy kids' not-so-secret weapon. the whiz is a master magician at all things technology & multimedia. he's one of the few who can keep up with shylo's buzzing mind. creating with shylo is whiz's favorite thing but lately, shylo's irrational behavior has him feeling less inclined.
while he still believes in the ability of the group, his confidence in shylo weins and his attention drifts to video games and girls - shylo's worst nightmare.
eggy
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shylo's loyal friend and follower. good natured, hard working and quick to pick up the slack, eggy loves being a part of the group but can never seem to get an idea past shylo. the breakneck pace of Shylo's mind keeps eggy running in circles day in and day out.
he ultimately grows tired of cleaning up shylo's mess and digs deep for the courage and confidence to make his voice heard and break free from shylo and the nightmare they're all stuck in.
the supporting cast
the story
the film opens with the first of many dream sequences. shylo is performing at a massive outdoor festival, but things quickly go awry as he is pursued and consumed by a violent mass of black goo known as "bad vibes." he awakens to another day, desperately seeking an original idea for his band to perform and win the upcoming talent show. haunted by last year's disastrous performance, shylo is determined to make a lasting impression this time.
despite his intense efforts, shylo struggles to be present for his friends: the tech-savvy whiz, the zen-master mylo, and the eager people-pleaser eggy. he claims to have a revolutionary idea for the talent show that just needs a bit more work - a lie that haunts him as he drifts in and out of sleep every day. plagued by nightmares filled with unoriginal ideas, he searches his imagination for that one elusive spark of originality, all while trying to avoid being consumed by the bad vibes.
during an all-nighter the week before the talent show, shylo leads his friends to a bodega on the other side of town to drink a mysterious elixir known as INSPI-RATION. the ensuing sugar high takes the boys on a hallucinatory journey back to shylo's basement, where a fight over his phone - supposedly containing his great idea - results in all four boys being sucked into shylo's ear and deep into his imagination.
in the long, winding halls of shylo's mind, the group embarks on a quest for an original idea - their only way to escape the bad vibes and return to the real world. but the journey is fraught with challenges. as they explore different parts of his brain, they encounter a menagerie of pop culture characters from cereal mascots to cartoon figures, video game worlds to blockbuster films, unoriginality haunting their every step.
one by one, as they delve deeper, the boys reach their breaking point with shylo's neuroses and separate from the group, leaving shylo with diminishing support. eventually, he finds himself completely alone in the darkest recesses of his mind, forced to confront the person he has become: controlling, impatient, and selfish. by embracing the virtues of collaboration, patience, and listening, shylo discovers that the key to originality was within him all along - trusting his friends and including them in his creative process, rather than shutting them out.
with this newfound perspective, shylo manages to rally his band and escape his mind, just in time to perform at the talent show and reveal to the world the person he always knew he could be.
the intention
shylo is a story about creativity and originality, told through the lens of a child growing up in a world where their brains are bombarded with corporate IP and unoriginal media day in and day out. it's a subject that has always been very important to us, and through this semi-autobiographical story, we're excited that we get to explore it with such abandon.
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the film is unconventional in that it uses and exploits IP from all avenues of media throughout all time. it is integral to its thesis that the film is chock-full of references that make sense to the audience. what is copyright in a world where the very art of storytelling has been plagued by the drilling of these properties into our collective minds? how can someone be truly original in a world so awash and overcrowded with media? it's these exciting questions that drove us to tell this story.
the tone
shylo is a kid's comedy at its core, but we don't want to talk down to or diminish our audience. kids are clever, and they deserve a story to match. it's tongue-in-cheek, ironic at points, and has an emotional core that carries significant weight. not everyone makes it out of this story a winner.
it's john hughes meets charlie kaufman. pixar meets ferris bueller's day off. all with a scrappy DIY animation pipeline that has a kids-in-the-garage feel to it that makes it unmistakably earnest & indie.
where it's at
shylo was funded through the canadian grant system's telefim talent-to-watch program. with this investment, we've begun production in earnest on the film. we have a script, animatic, concept art, character art, background art, a proprietary animation pipeline, a cast, principal voice recording completed, and we're now animating scenes, bringing the film to life piece by piece.
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script & animatic available by request.
our voice cast (left to right):
bailey antzis (whiz), jaxon sadowski (eggy), jonas mccourt (shylo), milo graham (mylo)
the plan
with the exciting & unorthodox subject matter of the film, we are thinking of all sorts of methods by which to monetize and release the film. because the musical will be scored by us, one option is to take the film on the road as a concert experience as we live-score the screening.
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another monetization approach is one of merchandising and toy sales.
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we're currently seeking conversations about additional financing and unique, special distribution opportunities.
