The Dream Hat

• The Dream Hat took six years to animate. Gene animated in his spare time while teaching animation full time in San Francisco area art schools. He estimates that if he could devote full time to a feature, he could animate it by himself in a year and a half.
• Gene started out animating it on the Amiga computer using Deluxe Paint and finishing the film on a Mac using Flash.
• The songs were not specifically written for The Dream Hat. Gene had written nearly one hundred songs since high school and he found that some of the same themes were explored in his songs as his story, so they seemed to fit.
•Gene wrote the script, animated the film, voiced all the characters, and composed all the songs and score.

I always loved such animated features as Yellow Submarine, The Point, and The Phantom Tollbooth. I loved Dr. Suess and Shel Silverstein and other books that made kids think. That is the kind of story I was trying to tell and the kind of film I wanted to make. I wasn't looking to create a toy for Happy Meals and then wrap it in a feature length commercial.

If you want behind the scenes secrets of The Dream Hat, go to:
http://thedreamhat.blogspot.com/
You can try before you buy. You can see the complete Dream Hat broken into six lo-res chapters on Gene Hamm's Facebook page. You can buy Dream Hat tee-shirts and hats at: http://www.cafepress.com/DreamHat