Imagination Movers to shoot Disney series pilot

New Orleans-based band Imagination Movers have announced that they will be shooting a pilot for the Disney Channel this December.

The band reached a deal with Disney this April to distribute their music through Disney Records, after a year of negotiations. The series is set to debut on Playhouse Disney in 2007. Since September, their music videos have been on rotation on The Disney Channel.

Nancy Kanter, the senior vice president of programming for Playhouse Disney, first discovered the movers at the Kids Tent of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. "We sat in the hot Kids Tent and were just blown away to see the response to them. We'd heard their CDs, but when you actually sit there with a couple hundred preschoolers and, in some cases, older kids, and see the way they react to the music, we thought, 'This is for us.'"

The Movers launched Playhouse Disney's concert series, playing at MGM Studios' ABC Theater from 18-24 September. The band is playing a Halloween concert on 21 August 2006, in New Orleans.

Imagination Movers are a kids band formed in 2003. Indie Kids Rock reviewed the group in May, saying they were "the U2 of kids music with a big anthemic pop/rock sound, catchy lyrics, & of course, imagination." The group includes Rich Collins, Scott Durbin, Dave Poche and Scott "Smitty" Smith. While all four members had at least "dabbled" in music, Durbin was a computer instructor, Collins worked in online journalism, Poche as an architect, Smith as a firefighter.