The BBC has joined forces with Bollywood to create a computer-generated imagery (CGI) animation with a budget of more than £10 million.

The animation, called Freefonix, is co-produced by UK-based Cinnamon Entertainment and the BBC and has been made in Trivandrum in Kerala, the southernmost state of India.

The show is an example of how British companies are increasingly utilising artistic talent from the Indian sub-continent.

The BBC is not the first group to buy into the Indian animation market. Two years ago, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group entered a partnership with Gotham Entertainment Group, South Asia's leading comic publisher; Shekhar Kapur, the film-maker, and Deepak Chopra, the author, to launch two companies, Virgin Animation in Bangalore and Virgin Comics in New York.

Virgin Group said at the time that it hoped that the deal, understood to be worth about £10 million, would spark a “creative renaissance” in India and lead to a worldwide phenomenon similar to Japanese “manga” (comics) and “anime” (animation).

This appears to have happened, with Cinnamon Entertainment effectively outsourcing the animation to India.

The scripts for Freefonix were written in Los Angeles and New York, its voices were recorded in Galway in the Irish Republic, the animation was modelled in Cinnamon’s studio on the Isle of Man and the series was then animated in India.

The series, which was written by Magnus Fiennes, brother of actors Ralph and Joseph, has taken two years to produce and will air from CBBC on January 4.

Celebrities from the world of sport and music, such as singer Jamelia, are set to play roles in the 40-episode series.

Freefonix takes place fifty years into the future in the city of Los Bosmos.

It features three mismatched heroes BB, Freezbone and Mostart, who hail from different sides of the tracks.

The trio excel in musical ability and form a band called Freefonix to safeguard the most powerful force in the universe, known as the 13th Note, and to save the world from a dark future.

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