TALLINN, Estonia, May 10, 2000 -- It's a bird. It's a plane.  No, it's three dogs in a flying machine.  That's what happens when the animal kingdom unites to help a lost bird find her way south in the animated television serial Lotte, created by Eesti Joonisfilm Studios. Lotte is the first project by Eesti Joonisfilm created with Cambridge Animation System's Animo software.

Lotte tells the tale of Pippo, a tired baby bird who has lost her way as her flock migrates south for the winter. Pippo is forced to make an emergency landing into the chimney of a house inhabited by Lotte, a helpful little girl dog who vows to help Pippo rejoin her flock. With the help of Lotte’s father Oskar’s newly invented flying machine and Klaus, an old traveler dog who holds the map to their destination, the journey south begins. Along the way, the travelers meet many unusual characters, each with their own advice.

Animo played a critical role in enabling Eesti Joonisfilm’s animators to establish a unique look for the series. “Animo helped us improve the technical quality of our pictures, which was an important goal,” says Kalev Tamm, Eesti Joonisfilm’s managing director. The studio wanted to retain the hand-drawn quality of the original images so that the final product would look more like traditional animation. Animo contained technical options Eesti Joonisfilm was seeking, including the ability to transfer drawings to cels in clean-up, coloring and shooting, and a capacity for transferring digital material to film stock. These capabilities helped Eesti Joonisfilm eliminate the problems most often encountered in manual production.

The series of 13 five-minute episodes finished production at the end of March.  It has been pre-sold to numerous television buyers and will air initially in Europe.

Eesti Joonisfilm Studio was founded in 1972 and has a long line of animated work in author films, serials and commercials.  The studio completed its first television series, Ramses's Tricks, in 1987.  Eesti Joonisfilm is widely recognized in Eastern Europe and has received numerous awards for its animation work.

The Animo line of products was developed and is marketed exclusively by Cambridge Animation Systems, with headquarters in Cambridge, U.K.  Animo, now with 3D integration, has with an installed base of nearly 2,000 seats in more than 50 countries.  It is used for feature films, animated television series, commercials, games and multimedia development by leading studios worldwide, including Warner Brothers, DreamWorks SKG, Nelvana Limited, Pentafour Software, Tape House, Telemagination, Praxinos, and Colorland.