flattenme

Not long ago, a little girl was caught on film eating a gobstopper – 15 photos taken over 24 minutes and 10 seconds. The photos were arranged in a book and given to the girl as a special gift. It was love at first sight. The little girl slept with it, ate with it, took it on road trips. Love-worn and long-admired, the book slowly fell apart, just like the fur on the Velveteen Rabbit.

Our lives are defined by stories – stories of childhood, of triumph, of loss. Even wild stories of the imagination. When a child pretends to be a pirate or a princess or a fairy, she truly believes she has changed, become part of a different world for that moment in time. She has invented a new story of her own.

It is in this world – one of imagination, inspiration and gifts of the heart – in which flattenme was born. We seek not only to spark the imagination of a child, but to take a story which starts as a moment in time – a photograph – and then becomes something entirely new.

So, storytelling first. And then, what? Wonderment and delight is not the sole domain of children. We all have the chance to find magic within ourselves, allowing our own stories to unfold. As Arthur Clarke says, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Stay tuned.