There's a hippo in the bathtub at Halifax's Cage Digital, but this one won't be slipping down the drain out of sight of Canadian children. Cage president and CEO Jan-Peter De Souza assures they'll know all about The Hippo Tub Co. come fall.

The Hippo Tub Co., a 3D animated kids show to air on CBC, coproduced by Cage and Evening Sky of L.A., is based on the popular children's album by Canadian crooner Anne Murray.

"Basically it was born out of an idea of Bob Fortier's [founder of The Animation House, a Toronto production company owned by Evening Sky]," says De Souza. "It's a character-based series, and these characters live in a place called Drainworld where all lost things accumulate. When you lose a sock in a dryer or a set of keys they go to Drainworld. The characters are the guardians and keep inventory. Each story involves them finding a unique item and trying to return it to its rightful owner."

He says there are five principal characters in the series, with about 30 to 50 secondary characters and a number of different sets and environments.

Budgeted at $5 million for 26 11-minute episodes (or 13 x 30), Cage is currently working on the first two seasons of Hippo.

De Souza estimates 40 of the 50 fulltime staffers at Cage are working on the show. He says all the animation is being done in a 3D format in-house at Cage, primarily using Discreet's 3D Studio Max software.

Originally, Hippo was to be 2D, but a few words from De Souza and company created excitement about the prospects of a 3D show.

"It started as a 2D traditional show, but we were able to convince all the players involved that we could do it using 3D toolsets and still give it a hand-drawn 2D look, so the style of the show is very unique," says De Souza. "Even though it is done in a 3D domain, the characters still look hand-drawn and it is kind of interesting that way."

The project was financed mostly by the partnering companies using tax credits and licence fees. The Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation and Shaw Communications also contributed.

MacKenzie gets Deep with Granelli

It's taken seven years, but Colin MacKenize has finally checked his 52-minute documentary Deep Beats - about the life and career of Halifax jazz drummer Jerry Granelli - into post.

Nearly a decade ago, MacKenzie and a friend met Granelli after a performance and were immediately inspired to document his talents and philosophies. The drummer seemed amicable to the idea and work began on a film about the respected jazz musician, whose life and outlook was changed through his discovery of Buddhism.

The pair shot footage of Granelli for about two years, before running out of money. MacKenzie's partner became frustrated and jumped ship, but MacKenzie still wanted to get one more set of shots of the musician.

"I decided there was one thing I wanted to do and that was spend a day with Jerry at a drum kit and talk to him about drums and have him play," says MacKenzie. "So I set up this one-day shoot and shot it all on 16mm. I hardly had any money - about $1,500 - and then parked all the film in my fridge for about four years."