British animators take on Hollywood

First came Woody and Buzz Lightyear, then there was the giant tread of Shrek. Now, as tickets go on sale for Hollywood's latest digital blockbuster, Monsters Inc, British animators are priming their pixels for a slice of the action.

In a modest studio in London's Covent Garden, work has begun on Water Warriors, the UK's first wholly computer-generated feature film. The £14m science fiction epic concerns a colony of cuddly frogs who are forced to save the Earth after their pond is invaded by an army of brutal bug-sized aliens.

Meanwhile, Crust, a surreal black comedy filmed using a combination of live action and animation, will see Ulrika Jonsson teaming up with a 7ft boxing shrimp.

And even the BBC is taking its first tentative steps into the realm of digital animation. It has just commissioned a pilot episode of Furry Story, an adult "cartoon" series about an emotionally abused young girl who befriends a "furry goblin".

In Water Warriors, producers Silver Fox Films believe they have a project with the potential to become as big an international success as previous CGI hits such as Toy Story and A Bug's Life.

Producer Graham Ralph, whose earlier credits include the classic animated TV commercials for Home Pride flour and Kelloggs Frosties, said: "We don't want to push the boundaries by trying to develop new techniques. We want to use existing technology to make an enjoyable film that has the production values you would expect from a big international animated movie.

"I am a big fan of John Lasseter [the director of Toy Story], because I think he entertains people brilliantly, and that's what I want to do."

Like Toy Story and Shrek, whose computer-generated protagonists were voiced by well-known actors including Oscar winner Tom Hanks and Austin Powers star Mike Myers, Water Warriors will feature a "cast" of household names. Patrick Stewart, best known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Next Generation, will play one of the malevolent invaders, while the doughty frogs, whose characters will be modelled on those in Dad's Army, will acquire the tones of, among others, Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes and Antoine de Caunes, presenter of cult Channel 4 show Eurotrash.

Mr Ralph, who had a £2m grant from the Film Council to help make Water Warriors, is recruiting animators via his website. It is hoped the movie will be finished in time for release in early 2004.

In Crust, a bizarre tale described by producer Nick O'Hagan as "David Lynch meets The Likely Lads", two men and a woman are "offered" a 7ft boxing shrimp by a mysterious man with a Transit van. "Mr C", the crustacean of the title, is achieved through a mix of conventional animatronic effects and CGI graphics. Much of the film, which stars Kevin McNally and features a cameo by Jonsson, is set in a budget hotel near London, where the shrimp gets addicted to watching Richard and Judy on daytime TV.

Mr O'Hagan says the story has a serious point. "It's ultimately about a man trying to come out of his shell," he said. "The original idea came from a David Attenborough documentary about stomatopods, a shrimp that boxes its prey."

Furry Story, the brainchild of Belfast company The Brothers Dimm, was composed using home computer technology. With the help of Arts Council and National Lottery funding, it has germinated into a pilot for a possible BBC2 series. The first 25-minute episode may be screened as a cinema short.