East German animation studio, MotionWorks Halle, approached our studio in 2010. They introduced us to their new TV-series Marco Polo. MotionWorks wanted to tell the story of the young Marco Polo who, together with his friends Shi La Won and Luigi, followed his father Niccolò to China in the 13th century. 
One reason why we got involved was that historians still debate how much of the stories that were written about Marco Polo’s time in Asia are actually true. What intrigued us was the idea to shape the young Marco Polo as an unreliable narrator: a small boy who had to talk himself out of things because the world he lived in was rough. At an early stage of the production our studio got involved and suggested story arcs, character and concept designs.
Our studios split after 4 months. In spring 2010 we just had started producing The Gruffalo’s Child but were also later asked to be part of the second season of The Amazing World of Gumball on a much larger scale. We decided that a third project with a scope of 26x25 minutes was just too much for us to handle.