Nickelodeon is turning up the volume up for its newest animated series. “The Loud House” is the creation of animator, writer and director Chris Savino and chosen from the dozen finalists of the 2013 Animated Shorts Program, a farm team of sorts for the cable network to find what new programming proves popular with its audience before committing to a full-length series. The 2-minute to 3-minute short subjects are available on Nickelodeon, the channel’s website and a mobile app. The idea for “The Loud House” – protagonist 11-year-old Lincoln contending with a houseful of sisters – comes from Savino’s background of growing up in a family of 10 children. “What came across in the execution was he was able to give everyone a personality and gave a sense of what the tone of the show would be in just two minutes,” said Jenna Boyd, senior vice president, animation development, at Nickelodeon’s Burbank studio. As a series, “The Loud House” will air in 13 episodes of 11 minutes each that are now in production. The series will debut in January 2016. Savino heads up the writing staff and oversees the creative process. While his past credits include projects at Cartoon Network Studios and Disney Television Animation, “The Loud House” is the first show that he has created from the start. “This has been an opportunity that he was not getting anywhere else,” Boyd said. Savino’s show is the second that Nickelodeon has gotten from its Animated Shorts Program. The first, “Breadwinners,” was a finalist from the inaugural class in 2012 and began airing early this year. Other shorts from the 2013 finalists will likely make it to series, Boyd said. For Nickelodeon, a unit of the Viacom Media Networks owned by Viacom Inc. in New York, the shorts program is a pipeline for content that speeds up the development process by having creators come in with something to show rather than just an idea on paper. Pitches for the program have come from veteran animators, digital artists, comedians, illustrators, cartoonists and other creative types. “The most important thing is to boil it down to a character that will derive stories from for over 100 episodes,” Boyd said. Nickelodeon chose 11 projects as the finalists of the 2014 Animated Shorts Program. Among them are “Francine,” about a strangely brilliant girl who battles a robot version of herself; “Leander, Dre and Cyppy,” a tale of a young boy thrown into a world where magical creatures don’t understand his odd human ways; and “Bad News Bunny,” about a babysitting rabbit entertaining two bored children. ‘Route 30’ Trilogy Studio City filmmaker John Putch has wrapped up his film trilogy about quirky characters in rural south central Pennsylvania with the feature “Route 30 Three!” The film premieres in early August at the Majestic Theater in Gettysburg, Pa. to coincide with the DVD and Blu-ray release. Additional screenings will take place in Iowa City, Iowa and York, Pa. Putch, whose day job is as a television series director (“Cougar Town,” “Scrubs”) didn’t set out to make a trilogy after the release of “Route 30” in 2008. But when asked at the first film’s premier if there would be a sequel, he inadvertently committed himself to make two more films. Fortunately, Putch said he had material that didn’t get used in the first film. Putch shot the original “Route 30” on a $65,000 budget, and doubled that for the sequel. The third film cost $97,000. The cast includes actors from Los Angeles, New York and locals from the towns in Pennsylvania where the film was made. Putch described “Route 30 Three!” as a mash-up of James Bond meets “Blazing Saddles” that will clear up unanswered questions from the storyline. “The production values are topnotch and it is sure to please the trilogy fans young and old,” Putch said. “There’s romance, comedy and plenty of intrigue.” “Route 30” and “Route 30, Too” won multiple awards at film festivals across North America. Tax Credit Crunch Nearly 500 applications were submitted this month to the California Film Commission to receive production tax credit from the state. That is a 30 percent increase compared to the 380 applications submitted in 2013 for the tax credit program. There were 34 projects last year receiving the credits, which reduce the cost of television and film production. That fact that more applications were submitted shows that California remains a preferred choice for producers to make feature films and television series, said film commission Executive Director Amy Lemisch. “The industry wants to base productions in California, but incentives now drive those decisions,” she said in a prepared statement. Twenty-three projects were approved to receive the credits this year, with the remaining applications on a waiting list in the event that approved projects drop out for scheduling or other reasons. The state’s production tax credit program began in 2009 as a response to television and feature films leaving California. The program is funded for $100 million annually. A bill to extend the program another five years and make changes to the types of projects eligible passed the state Assembly on May 28. The bill remains pending in the Senate. Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or [email protected].