Dreamworks’ animated movie Puss in Boots was a big deal. It won an Oscar, and its swashbuckling, sloe-eyed kitty was voiced by Antonio Banderas.
The meticulous computer-generated animation took four years and something like $130 million to make. But another cartoon, Puss In Boots: A Furry Tail, was hand-drawn in six months for less than $1 million. It went straight to DVD — one of the many low-budget productions riding the coattails of Hollywood blockbusters.
Animator Darrell Van Citters once worked at Disney and Warner Bros. He’s also the co-founder of Renegade Animation, which produced the Puss In Boots knockoff and others. Van Citters admits to openly piggybacking on the buzz of major studios.
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