An old story from back in 2009 here. I didn’t have this site up then so here it is, a few years late…

As Chairman of the Screen Directors Guild of Ireland’s Animation Alliance, I had to address the Guild at the 2009 AGM. Just an update on what our group of directors was doing and how things were in our end of the entertainment world. I mentioned at the time that, after a meeting with the Irish Film Board’s then Chief Executive, I came away concerned by what I felt was a dismissal of television for young children.

At which point, someone chimed in that it possibly had something to do with children’s television just existing to sell plastic and that the IFB shouldn’t be supporting it.

How does one react to that?

Well, if I’m anything to go by, one initially gets flustered and then explains that television for young children is the most important television of all and cannot be dismissed. Children are learning, they do watch television and the television we make for them can affect their whole world view. And more eyes are seeing our shows each week across the world than probably any other content from Ireland.

As for selling plastic?

What likely rubbed me up the wrong way most about this accusation is that, for portions of the global industry, it is true. It often has to be true because the economics of making a children’s show rarely work on their own.

All the more reason why public funding bodies must get involved in supporting GOOD children’s television. Television that exists to provide children with good quality, enriching age-appropriate entertainment. Culturally-relevant, even better. Educational, better still.

The more support that’s there for local content, the less children’s shows are bought in from elsewhere. The less those shows have to rely on licensing and merchandise to justify their production costs. The less anyone needs to think about selling plastic. Children’s shows selling plastic is precisely why local funding bodies can’t dismiss one of the most important areas in programming.

Today, several years after that little AGM incident, we have a new animation team starting on COSMO. It is going to be a busy day and an exciting one. Because we’re all working together on a show that exists for one reason: to give children the absolute best. We are very fortunate that it can exist for that one reason and, as it happens, we have the Irish Film Board to thank for that, especially Emma Scott and Andrew Meehan. The IFB were so supportive of COSMO and put so much faith and funding into the show that it simply would not have happened without them and it is why we get to make a show right here in Ireland, with an Irish creator, writer, director, all the top-line creative processes being done here in Ireland, the animation team being right here and, from a business perspective, all ownership remaining right here. For all the right reasons, it matters to Ireland and yet it’s a show that can give to children all over the world. If Fluffy Gardens is anything to go by, it will travel.

Right now, our little area of children’s TV is the poster child for Irish production in many circles.

The support makes all the difference. It makes a difference to sustainability, to the types of shows we can make and the reasons we make them. It makes a difference to children here and, hopefully, to children everywhere.

Filed under: General Posts by Jay
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Tags: animation, business, Children, Cosmo, Irish Film Board, licensing

Have you ever sat with someone who just talks and talks and never listens? Or have you ever caught yourself talking not to someone, but at them? There is a part of us that demands to be heard. At times, we just want to be validated – we want someone to agree and, if they don’t, we’ll say it again until they do.

But that’s not a conversation, is it?

To lead to something interesting, the sharing of ideas or really learning, we need real conversation. Real conversation requires that we listen at least as much as we talk. Not just nodding our head while we think of the next thing we want to say. We must engage. Connect. Understand.

For us both to benefit, we must really listen.

Film and television provides a great platform for those who like to talk at people. Many of us think this is how it works: people sit in front of a screen and we present our amazing vision. We bombard them with what we want them to see and hear.

But that’s all wrong. Really, it is a conversation.

I’m finding it is often people in preschool television who understand this best. Dora stops to listen to her audience. Elmo listens to children. Barney, whatever you (or I) may think of him, listens. They are all in conversation. Is it any wonder that children respond to these characters? Yes, technically when broadcast the reality is little more that ‘head nodding’ because your television cannot hear what your children are saying (yet) but the answers of so many children have been listened to, considered and often completely understood before that show was made.

For me, the best of children’s television (Sesame Street, for example) listens deeper and asks their audience what they need. The want and the need aren’t always the same thing but Sesame Street aims to ascertain and satisfy both in their conversations.

It has taken me a long time to really embrace this. It often goes against that part of us that demands to be heard. Just last week, for example, I was working on a Cosmo script that had a contentious story element and my first instinct was to ask myself what was truly important to me in the story. That was the right question but aimed at the wrong person. I needed to connect with my audience and engage in conversation. Having been through many excellent conversations with my audience up to this point, in this instance it was nothing more than a purely imagined exchange, which can be just fine if you do it with honesty and stop talking and start listening. A wonderful clarity comes from conversing with our audience, getting to know them and wanting to give them the best. It allows us to untangle what we’re making from our own ego.

Of course it is something we can apply well beyond preschool.

We can take a break from pushing what we want, our precious ‘vision’, and take a moment to listen to our audience. Try it. Try seeking out your audience or even just create them in your mind and ask them:

a) What do you want?

b) What do you need?

Then listen honestly. Consider. And respond appropriately.

It is a conversation.

Filed under: General Posts by Jay
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Tags: animation, Children, Cosmo, writing

Voice recording for Cosmo begins today and we’ll be recording all week. I have been buried in the scripts to make sure they are nothing less than excellent and I am very much hoping I haven’t missed something. We will also be making decisions on our animation team this week and beginning to put together our systems and libraries for the upcoming production. So it is going to be a very busy week.

The busy times are a test.

Not really a test of our abilities to stay on top of things. Most of us who make shows have to have developed tight management systems, studio pipelines and tricks for dealing with many completely different jobs at once. Being able to keep up really is such an essential requirement that it just has to be a given or else you go and do something else for a living. And, for me, both writing and directing Fluffy Gardens (as I’m doing for Cosmo) taught me lot about juggling.

No, the real test when things get busy is keeping the most important person in your mind at every moment of production, during every decision: that child who, some day, will be sitting there watching what we have made.

Keep that person in mind at all times and it’s hard to go wrong.

Of course I’m hoping it will be more than just one child. Two or three at the very least…

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Monster Animation attended the IFTA Awards on Saturday night and, while Punky didn’t win, it was a great night and a testament to the quality of Irish productions right now. But that was a looooong ceremony. They don’t even televise the longest section – shame they can’t just do it in highlight form live. Still, we had lots of fun and congratulations to all the winners.

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Tags: animation, Children, Cosmo, Punky, writing

When my daughter Daisy was younger, TV shows were real to her. They were like whole other worlds and the characters existed, albeit behind a layer of glass. At five, she still loves TV but now knows they are created, acted, drawn and produced. She has a pretty clear understanding of the process and what I do for a living. And yet the characters are still alive to her.

The other day, she was watching Punky – Monster Animation’s show about a little girl with Down syndrome – when she came out with a question: “Daddy, why did you make Punky have Down syndrome?”

In a way, the answer was very easy. There are children who have Down syndrome and they should be represented on television and it’s good for children and parents to see a little girl like Punky. But the way the question was phrased gave it a specific spin – why did you give Down syndrome to Punky? Not making a particular positive or negative judgement on it but aware that, if you were Punky herself, this decision would be a pretty big deal.

Not long after, she asked why I made Cranky so grumpy. This question came from a different angle in that Daisy very much disapproves of Cranky’s biting one-liners. This one was a decision that affected Daisy herself.

Of course I could point to creator Lindsay J. Sedgwick and writer Andrew Brenner, who both had a bigger part to play in defining these characters, but that would have been wrong because she could have been asking about Cosmo or anyone in Fluffy Gardens. What was important about the question was the very clear sense of responsibility.

We create characters.

We give them life and we make them who they are, for better or worse. We make decisions on how they’ll act and react, whether we’re writing words to put in their mouths or even just animating a single scene. Everyone involved in the process plays a role in bringing these characters to life. And then we show them to children.

Different people will take away different things from that life we create and some characters, lines and even whole shows won’t suit some children. That’s to be expected and it’s why it is important that parents play an active role in choosing content for their children. Nevertheless, we are responsible for who we create and what we show to the world. We’re responsible for the scenes we animate, the lines we write, the details we add to a background, everything. And what’s more, we’re not just responsible for what an audience might take away from the show. We also have a responsibility to these characters. In some way they’re like teenagers screaming “I didn’t ask to be born!” but we brought them to life anyway. Are we doing that with honesty? Sincerity?

It all comes down to us and the choices we make. That’s what makes content creation so amazing. All of us involved in even the periphery of the process can make a difference and contribute. And then we own that responsibility, both to our audience and the little lives we create.

It seems even a five-year-old understands that.

Filed under: General Posts by Jay
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Tags: animation, Children, Punky, writing

I remember many years ago catching a bit of some show with designers discussing fashion trends for the next seasons. You know, the what would be the new black kind of thing.

And it hit me – these aren’t really trends. Because they are being dictated by the people selling the products. Designers basically tell people what the next new look is, put it everywhere, slap it on a celebrity and then, sure enough, it is the next new look.

What was also fascinating for a season that hadn’t happened yet was the amount of top designers selling the same new looks. I don’t know enough about the fashion industry to know how that works but, to the layman, it almost looks like they get together in a room, decide what they’re going to push and then they all go away and push those looks independently. Then it goes down the chain and the designers who weren’t invited to that meeting see which way the wind is blowing and push those same looks too.

And we have a new fashion next season.

Someone getting in on the action at that point would just say, well I’m giving the people what they want. In fact, ask the public and many will say that’s just what they want too, won’t they? It gets reinforced and reinforced between designers and the public. When the whole industry is pushing the same look, when that look is all over magazines, on every rack, it’s going to sell but is it what people really would have wanted? At that point, who knows. Who even cares? It’s very difficult to pull it apart.

Really though, it’s suppliers dictating demand. They’re designer trends, not people trends.

Great for the industry I’m sure but, when it comes to something like fashion, it struck me as somewhat ass-backwards.

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And now we have Lego Friends. Lego for girls. A topic of much discussion.

I haven’t weighed in on this yet. Why not? Well, to be honest, I have been conflicted. I can see some merit. Lego is a great toy and having a more obvious open invite to girls is something I’d support. They’re good looking sets that go some way towards restoring the balance in a product line that has gone quite dark. And the characters aren’t all bad. One is an inventor. One has a catchphrase about getting to work. We’ve all seen a lot worse when it comes to role models for our girls.

But then… am I to take it now that the airport sets, the police sets, town sets, Harry Potter sets and everything else with blocks of all colours, action and play possibilities, they’re just for boys? It is the way Lego have been marketing them.

And I guess therein lies a problem.

Whatever about my feelings, Lego Friends have their critics. And, as a father of two young girls, I can’t help but agree with much of what I read here at Marketing Media Childhood‘s collection of articles on the subject. So I’m watching it with interest.

But what does this have to do with fashion?

Well, someone in Lego (and maybe even people reading) will have thought, but this pink girly stuff is what girls want, right?

Perhaps.

But when almost the entire toy industry is selling the same limiting narrow view of what girls should be, it’s like the fashion industry – you can’t pull it apart. And yet, really, it’s suppliers dictating demand. How can anyone say it’s what girls want when they’re being sold little else? So Lego are just that last straggler playing ‘me too’ in the girl’s toy aisle. Is it hard to blame them? I guess the thing with Lego is that I’ve never seen them playing catch-up before.

Maybe people just expected better.

Filed under: General Posts by Jay
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Tags: Children, education, gender, lego, role models