Danica Zimmerman has joined animation and design studio Creative Capers as VP of development and will oversee live-action and animated projects for television and film. Sue Shakespeare, president of the California-based shop, says she brought Zimmerman on-board following the end of the company’s five-year deal with Disney to help develop Capers’ original properties and ready them for market. Now focusing on original concepts, Shakespeare sought Zimmerman’s proven ability in both story and character development.

‘Creative Capers had so much business with other people’s work that there was no one to focus on original development,’ says Zimmerman. Her portfolio of experience includes TV series development at Film Roman (Hairballs), supervising programming production at Fox Kids Network (Casper, The Tick), and feature film development at Universal Studios (Clockers, The Air Up There). With her contacts and experience in the industry, Zimmerman is also integral in identifying key creative folk to put on the projects, such as appropriate directors, writers and producers.

Cherry-picking through Capers’ property stock, Zimmerman is currently working on various kids projects. Tikis is a CGI film with a Polynesian, mythical love story flavor, set in a world of real-life Tiki dolls. It will also be pitched as a children’s TV series (13 x 22 minutes). Lily Travels is being developed for TV as a 26 x 11-minute or 13 x half-hour series targeting two- to five-year-olds. It’s about a little girl and her brother Mark, whose adventures start when they shrink down to mini-size using granddad’s magical bumbershoot invention. The Studman Brothers is a very kid-oriented live-action/CGI film that centers on ‘the three greatest mechanics on Earth.’ Zimmerman is pitching the comedy to studios with a new treatment she helped develop.

Capers’ latest video game concept, Intergalactic Bounty Hunter, is being developed as a series (13 x 22 minutes) targeting boys nine to 13, and as a feature film set in a futuristic world where bounty hunters sweep the galaxy clean of scumbags. The hero, Wolf Journey, has the tables turned on him when he becomes a fugitive in space after being set up for a crime he didn’t commit.

With production completed on CGI series Sitting Ducks, Zimmerman acts as a liaison between Universal and marketers. At press time, the show had been picked up by CiTV in the U.K., with domestic interest percolating at Kids’ WB! and Nick. With Sitting Ducks expected to debut somewhere in the U.S. for fall 2001, Zimmerman believes Capers will be signed on to do another 13 eps shortly. Creative Capers was also pursuing an undisclosed new children’s book from Simon & Schuster at press time.