Jim Ballantine: Maya the Bee

Jim Ballantine, managing director of Flying Bark Productions, explained that Maya the Bee has been in the pipeline since 2010, and that the company has been particularly excited to enter the field of 3D animation.

The book, Maya the Bee, was written over a hundred years ago. Ballantine describes it as ‘the Bambi of Germany. Back when we were having Blinky Bill written in Australia, and Bambi was being written in the United States, there was a book called Maya the Bee written in Germany, and that became a very popular book. In the 1970’s, it was a German-Japanese co-production where they made 104 episodes. She was sort of the first hippy. She wanted to be free and she didn’t want to live in the hive. It really got taken up the whole generation of kids, and that whole movement – not only in Germany, but all throughout Europe it’s an incredibly popular series.’