THE BELLRINGER NEEDS YOUR HELP

We are raising C$70,000 for the first stage of animation on THE BELLRINGER. The total production budget is C$210,000.

We have the story.
We have the artwork.
We have the talent.
We have the vision.

And now, with Oscar-nominated, award-winning animator and filmmaker Bill Plympton bringing THE BELLRINGER to life as an animated film , we are ready to begin the next stage of production.

What we need now is your help to get the animation underway.

The C$75,000 first-stage goal will allow us to begin animation and move the film significantly closer to completion. It is the first step toward raising the full C$225,000 production budget.

We've come this far. Now we need to bring THE BELLRINGER from story and artwork to the screen.

If you love independent animation and original storytelling, you can do more than watch this film when it's finished. You can help make it happen.

For as little as C$25 , you can become a Bellringer supporter, receive a 4×6 colour print from the animation , receive the completed digital film , and become part of the journey of bringing THE BELLRINGER to life.

Your support helps put THE BELLRINGER on the screen.

C$433 raised online so far
C$16,000 raised privately
C$210,000 total production budget

🔴 HELP US REACH OUR FIRST C$70,000 MILESTONE

MEET ALFRED

Alfred is a young boy trying to make sense of a world that often feels frightening and overwhelming.

When reality becomes too much, Alfred escapes on his beloved tricycle, entering a breathtaking world of imagination where his fears and emotions take the form of fantastical creatures and challenges.

At school, he struggles with bullies. At home, he is surrounded by things he doesn't fully understand. In his imagined world, he can escape, explore, and feel free.

Then Alfred discovers a small bell his mother once gave him.

The bell holds a strange power. Each time it rings, Alfred is drawn deeper into a fantastical world where he must confront his fears, uncover hidden truths, and discover a courage that was inside him all along.

But Alfred cannot hide in his imagination forever.

Eventually, he must face the truth that has been haunting him: his father is dead, and the person he feared can no longer hurt him.

The memories remain—but they no longer have to control him.

The Bellringer is ultimately a story about a child finding a way through fear, grief, and confusion toward the possibility of freedom and healing.

WHY I CHOSE THIS STORY

I decided to bring The Bellringer into animation because this is a story about a child who finds a way to cope with a world he cannot control.

It is a story about fear, grief, bullying, family dysfunction, and ultimately resilience. I believe animation can allow us to tell Alfred's story in a way that reaches audiences, particularly children, on a deeper and more imaginative level.

The Bellringer began as an award-winning dramatic short film . Now, we are reimagining it as an animated film, approximately five minutes shorter than the original, while preserving the emotional heart of Alfred's journey.

I was drawn to Alfred's story because children can experience circumstances they don't fully understand or have the words to explain. They can feel fear, confusion, grief, isolation, or the need to escape without knowing how to express what is happening inside them.

I wanted to tell a story that could give those emotions a visual language.

Through Alfred, we can explore what happens when a child uses imagination to cope with a difficult reality—and how that same imagination can eventually help him find the courage to face what has been haunting him.

I also hope the film can open conversations about children growing up around family dysfunction, violence, bullying, fear, grief, and loss.

We don't need to show every act of violence to understand its impact on a child.

We experience it through Alfred.

Through what he hears.

Through what he fears.

Through what he imagines.

Most importantly, I want Alfred's story to leave audiences with a sense of resilience. Difficult circumstances can shape a child, but they do not have to determine who that child becomes.

THE POWER OF IMAGINATION

Children naturally understand the language of imagination.

A tricycle can become a spaceship.
A bedroom can become a castle.
A shadow can become a monster.

For Alfred, imagination is more than play. It becomes a way to cope with a reality he cannot fully understand.

Animation allows audiences to enter that imaginative world with him—to experience his fears, follow his adventures, encounter his monsters, and watch him gradually find the courage to face what frightens him.

We believe the shorter running time will create a more focused experience while preserving the emotional heart of the original story.

Our hope is that children will recognize something of themselves in Alfred's journey, even if their circumstances are very different.

Being afraid. Feeling alone. Wanting to escape. Finding courage.

These are emotions children understand.

FROM AWARD-WINNING DRAMA TO ANIMATION

The original The Bellringer was an award-winning dramatic short film that received recognition at film festivals and from the film and television industry. The film was selected for more than 23 festivals internationally and received multiple awards and honor's, including recognition from the Chicago International Film Festival, Yorkton Film Festival, Columbus Film Festival, and Worldfest Charleston Film Festival , as well as a Gemini Award

Before showing you Bill Plympton's animated interpretation, here's a glimpse of where The Bellringerbegan.

WATCH A SCENE FROM THE ORIGINAL FILM

FROM LIVE ACTION TO ANIMATION

Now see how Bill Plympton is reimagining this same world through animation.

Now, we are reimagining the story through animation—not simply reproducing the original film, but transforming it.

Animation allows us to enter Alfred's imagination in a way live action could not. His fears can become monsters. His memories can become landscapes. His tricycle can carry him from the world around him into the world inside him.

Instead of simply being told that Alfred is afraid, we can see his fear take shape.

Instead of being told that he escapes into his imagination, we can go there with him.

That is what makes animation so powerful for The Bellringer : it allows the audience to experience Alfred's inner world rather than simply observe it.

The original film established the story. Animation gives us the opportunity to take that story somewhere new.

WHY THIS STORY MATTERS

The Bellringer is a story about a child trying to understand a world that has become difficult to make sense of.

Children can experience grief, fear, bullying, loss, violence, and difficult family circumstances without always having the words to explain what they are feeling. They may carry emotions that are much bigger than their ability to understand them. Sometimes fear becomes anger. Sometimes grief becomes isolation. Sometimes a child escapes into imagination because the real world feels too difficult to face.

Alfred's journey gives those feelings a shape.

Through animation, the fears inside Alfred's mind can become fantastical creatures. His imagination becomes a place where he can confront things he cannot yet explain in the real world. What might otherwise remain invisible—fear, confusion, grief, loneliness—can be seen, experienced, and ultimately faced.

This is important because children need ways to understand that their feelings are real, even when they don't yet have the language to express them.

The Bellringer does not suggest that every child experiences difficult circumstances in the same way, or that imagination can make painful experiences disappear. Instead, Alfred's story explores the possibility of finding resilience when circumstances are beyond a child's control.

At the heart of the film is the idea that what frightens us does not have to control us forever.

Alfred's journey is about confronting the things that haunt him and discovering that he can move forward. His imagination gives him a place to face his fears, but ultimately it is Alfred himself who must find the strength to understand what has happened and reclaim his sense of freedom.

The story also invites adults into that conversation.

Parents, educators, caregivers, and other adults may recognize the ways children sometimes communicate through behavior, imagination, silence, or fear rather than through words. The Bellringer can open a door to conversations about what children may be carrying inside when they are dealing with grief, bullying, violence, loss, or instability at home.

And while Alfred is at the center of the story, the film is not only about childhood.

It is about resilience.

It is about the human need to make sense of experiences we cannot control.

It is about the power of imagination to help us confront what feels frightening.

And it is about discovering that even after something has changed us, we can still find a way forward.

That is why we believe The Bellringer is worth bringing to the screen.

We want to create an animated film that entertains, but also stays with people after the story ends. A film that gives children a character they can recognize, gives adults something to talk about with them, and reminds audiences that difficult experiences do not have to define the rest of their lives.

Alfred's story begins with fear. But it is ultimately a story about resilience, imagination, and finding the freedom to move forward.

WHY BILL PLYMPTON?

This is where the project becomes especially exciting.

Bill Plympton is creating the animation.

Bill is an Oscar-nominated, award-winning animator and filmmaker with a distinctive hand-drawn style that is uniquely suited to Alfred's journey between reality and imagination.

We want Alfred's animated world to feel unexpected, emotional, strange, and alive.

Bill can take the things that exist inside Alfred's mind and turn them into a visual experience for the audience.

His tricycle becomes a vehicle into another world.

His fears become creatures.

His memories become part of the landscape.

The world inside Alfred's imagination becomes something audiences can see, feel, and experience.

Bill has also created a personal video for this campaign to share his involvement with the project and invite supporters to become part of bringing it to life.

THE MUSIC OF THE BELLRINGER

The music for The Bellringer will be composed by John Welsman , who wrote the music for the original The Bellringer , which won a Gemini Award for Best Original Score for a Mini-Series for Drama . He has created many award-winning scores for film, television, documentaries, and theatrical features.

By bringing John Welsman's original music into the animated film, we are carrying an important part of The Bellringer's history and emotional identity into this new version. The music that helped define the original film will continue to connect Alfred's story to its animated future. Welsman has composed music for more than 50 documentaries, 14 television series, 14 television movies, and 9 theatrical features , including Road to Avonlea , Franklin and Friends , My Friend Rabbit , The Mighty Jungle , and Nurse.Fighter.Boy.

A five-time Gemini Award winner and recipient of multiple Genie and Canadian Screen Awards, Welsman has also arranged and conducted for internationally recognized artists including Loreena McKennitt and The Canadian Tenors with Sarah McLachlan .

His experience creating music for film and television, combined with the original score he created for The Bellringer , brings an important creative connection between the award-winning original film and its new animated incarnation. The music will help carry the emotional heart of Alfred's story into animation, while Bill Plympton's distinctive visual style brings that world to life in a new way.

WHERE YOUR SUPPORT GOES

BRINGING THE FILM INTO PRODUCTION

Creating The Bellringer requires more than an idea. It requires the time, artistic talent, and production resources to bring Alfred's world to life.

We are beginning with a first-stage fundraising goal of C$70,000 , with a minimum target of C$55,000 .

Total production budget: C$210,000
This campaign: C$70,000
Minimum target: C$55,000
Purpose: First stage of animation, actor voice recording, and associated production costs

Reaching our C$70,000 first-stage goal will allow us to move into production, including beginning animation work with Bill Plympton and recording the actors' voice performances, along with the production costs required to move the film forward.

This campaign is not the entire financing of the film . It is the first major step toward getting The Bellringer into production.

Reaching this milestone will allow us to create meaningful completed material that demonstrates the film's progress and helps us continue raising the remaining funds needed to complete the approximately C$210,000 production budget .

Every contribution helps move Alfred's story one step closer to the screen.

Your support doesn't simply help fund a film. It helps move The Bellringer from development into animation—and helps make the finished film possible.

HELP BRING THE BELLRINGER TO LIFE

We have the story. We have the artwork. We have the talent. And we have Bill Plympton ready to bring Alfred's world to life through animation.

Now we need your help to take the next step.

Your support will help move The Bellringer from development into animation and bring Alfred's journey to the screen.

Help us reach our first C$70,000 milestone.

Help Bill Plympton bring The Bellringer to life.

Become part of Alfred's journey.