Ballymoney couple Bernard and Patricia Sparkes, have teamed up with an online competition company, www.humraz.com, to offer one lucky fan the chance to be the voice of a cartoon character.
The competition will raise the production costs for the Shelltown cartoon series and it will be the first time in the world that the budget of any production will have been raised in this way
The winner will receive a two percent share in the Royalty Rights of 'Shelltown' and the opportunity to voice a character in the animation.
Shelltown is the production of many stories written by Patricia for her 14 children when they were growing up. Proving to be such a success with her own children, who's imagination made them dream of seeing the characters on television, gave Bernard the idea of making that dream a reality.
"My wife's been writing stories for years but this is the first one we've looked at taking commercially," said Bernard. "The kids eyes lit up as soon as they heard it, and of course me being in the marketing mode that I am decided to take it forward and go with it. We've been working on the animation, which is based on the story of the Meggabike, since 1999 but the problem is raising the finance to put the project together, it's huge, absolutely huge!"
The amount of money needed to get the project off the ground may be huge but that's nothing compared to the expected success of Shelltown. The response so far has been phenomenal, Ronan Keating has become a shareholder in the company and is lending his voice to the lead character and the theme tune.
"It's fantastic to have Ronan on board," added Bernard, "being a father himself he saw the appeal to children and instantly loved it. Along with Ronan we have Johnny Vegas, Julian Fellowes and Sir Kenneth Branagh lending their voices to characters."
The Shelltown competition takes the form of an online auction; bidders, using live data, compete to place the lowest unmatched bid at auction close. To take part you pay a small charge to reserve a virtual 'seat' (entrance fee), which allows each and every bidder a chance to place up to 50 bids – it is a completely level playing field. The only amount it will cost anyone is the cost of the seat. You do not even have to pay the successful bid price when you win; the winning bid is simply used to identify the prize winner.
Auction seats are available now at an introductory price of £1. From 1st July 2009 a seat will cost £5.00, so the earlier you book the cheaper the seat.
The competition will also raise £75,000.00 for charity. This amount will be split equally between UNICEF, The National Autistic Society and the Marie Keating Foundation.
The charities that will be benefiting are close to Bernard and Patricia's heart's as two of their children are autistic, and with children being the main focus of their lives UNICEF was a also natural choice. Finally, as cancer took the life of Ronan's mother so the foundation he set up in her name was also very fitting.
For further information contact competition@shelltown.co.uk or to enter the competition visit www.humraz.com