The Fly Who Loved Me (2004)
With his reindeer laid up on the sofa, Father Christmas (with the voice and face - well, sort of - of Sir Roger Moore) despairs of getting presents to the children this year... until a determined fly (with the voice of Olly Smith) from his bin insists on taking over the job. "The Fly Who Loved Me", written by Olly Smith and directed by Dan Chambers, is a charity animation tied in with UNICEF's online shop. The 3-minute film premiered free of charge at www.flywholovedme.com (and also on Sir Roger's official website) on Friday December 10, 2004. It is now available at www.unicef.org.uk/theflywholovedme. The story of "The Fly Who Loved Me", however, goes back to another short made a couple of years before.
As Olly Smith recalls, "Dan Chambers made a short cartoon called 'Roger Moore's Requiem' (2002, watch it at Newgrounds.com) and released it onto the internet. Roger was sent the animation through a series of serendipitous quirks and loved it. He emailed Dan thanking him for the left-field tribute, and as a huge fan of Roger's, I seized the opportunity to collaborate with Dan on our first project with Roger: 'Sir Roger Moore: Spaceman'. We made the pilot for this 10x3 minutes series with the support and kind help of Gareth Owen (Roger's PA). Dan and I flew out to Monte Carlo feeling suitably thrilled and awestruck to record the voice track with Roger and found him to be a magnificent voice artist and a very warm person. We both came away inspired by Roger's dedicated work for UNICEF and resolved there and then that we wanted to support his work in any way that we could. I burrowed into my office and scribbled a script for the new cartoon... The idea for this cartoon is to entertain a worldwide audience and offer a link back to UNICEF's website where they can find info on UNICEF and purchase Christmas cards, wrapping paper, e-cards and a whole host of festive paraphernalia."
Smith continues, "we had great fun recording the voice track with veteran sound engineer David Thomas who has done an outstanding job for the project. Roger gave a magnificent performance as Father Christmas and I performed opposite him as the Fly. A total joy. Dan then set to work working day and night in addition to his day job at Tiger Aspect to direct and animate the cartoon. My thanks to him are just huge, he's an amazing director with a unique vision, a hilarious friend and a privilege to work with. We were helped by Dan's work buddies Tim Fehrenbach and Sam Wooldridge who assisted with the animation. We're very nearly finished the final edit so I'll have to dash to ring Dan and see where we're at."
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