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First Trailer Released! Watch It Now

The first animated scene

Meredith’s Imaginary World Karland

Participatory writing - the process behind My Secret Country

Participatory writing - the process behind My Secret Country

Check out the participatory writing process bringing My Secret Country to life. Max, Maxine and Doreanna are participants in the film (ages 10 and under), and are also collaborating to write the hybrid (fiction) part of the story where their imaginary friends go on an enticing adventure. As many of us know, the creative process is frought with challenges. Sometimes, the greatest challenge is internal. To represent that internal drama, the imaginary friends in the story confro

Character Design: The Inner Critic

Character Design: The Inner Critic

My Secret Country, the film, is all about world building, because we believe that if you can build alternate worlds, you’re that much closer to innovating in this world. And more than ever, we need innovators to bring solutions to life, for the problems we face. Mark Lewis Wagner is an artist-innovator, writer, graphic designer and teacher. Through his non-profit, Drawing on Earth, he brings art and creativity to youth around the world. He believes that “kids who are nurtured

Character Design for Kudopel

Character Design for Kudopel

The imaginary world, Kudopel (CUHDDA-PULL), was born when eight-year-old Angelica was frustrated. She thought she was on the way to Toys”R”Us, but her Mom had to stop along the way to run a few errands. In her frustration, she decided to take control of the situation in the only way and eight-year-old can, by bending language to her will. She decided to call her Mom, “Bob.” Her little brother, Chris, agreed that “Bob,” was a great word to replace the much more boring word, “M

Character Design - The Goblin King

Character Design - The Goblin King

Another creature who is part of Verasigh, Doreanna’s imaginary world, is the Goblin King. Doreanna describes him like this: “His body shape is muscular, but his legs are not that muscular, they are more skinny. He has a bunch of scars. He has somewhat pointy ears. He has pointed fingers and sharp nails. He has a regular human sized nose. He is very tall. He has dark cold eyes. He has reddish brown skin. He always carries a scythe covered in blood. He doesn’t wear clothing bec

Character Design - Vera

Character Design - Vera

Part of our challenge in creating this film is staying as true as we can to each of the participants ideas of their imaginary worlds and the creatures or friends who inhabit them. In the case of 9-year Doreanna, she likes to write but she says that she doesn’t want to draw.* So we hired an artist, Stellaris, to help us bring one of the characters from Doreanna’s imaginary world Verasigh, to life—Vera. Doreanna has this to say about Vera: She’s not human, She’s a spirit type k

Character Design - Milou, Devil Man & Bem

Character Design - Milou, Devil Man & Bem

Maxine has “billions of imaginary friends,” in her imaginary world. With her incredible drawing skills, she sketched a few of them out for this film. Above is her drawing of Milou. Milou is an imaginary friend replica of Maxine’s husky, who later passed away.Below are some samples of her original drawings and the digital sketch right next to it. We traced over her drawings in Adobe Illustrator, working to be as true to her style as we could. First, on the left are Maxine’s or

Character Design - Scwigee

Character Design - Scwigee

Scwigee is a dragon who is part turtle and part horse. He also happens to be 5-year old Max’s imaginary friend. Max first made this drawing of Scwigee when he was really young (even younger than 5): Then, he explained that Scwigee doesn’t really look like that. First, he’s orange. Second, he doesn’t have two heads. He drew two heads because at the time he really “liked electricity.” Below, Max drew a new head to explain how Scwigee’s head should really look: We sent those two

Kermit the Camera

Learning how to play on San Francisco’s streets

Learning how to play on San Francisco’s streets

Every year, over the course of a weekend, San Francisco’s Civic Center is transformed into a giant playground. Except this playground is for children of all ages who’ve hit the streets to take part in San Francisco’s Come Out & Play Festival. Sandwiched between the library and the Asian Arts Museum, over 20 unique games are on offer. Games like Space Masquerade, Flak, Journey to the End of the Night, Sesame Street Box Heads, Charge of the Rubber Ball Brigade, Spectrum Ops, Or

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