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.

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Tags: animation, Children, Punky, writing

Punky, Monster Animation’s animated show about a fun little girl with Down syndrome, has been nominated for two IFTA awards: Best Children’s Show and Best Sound. Seeing as there’s only so much I can say in a 140-character tweet, I thought I’d give the nominations a little mention here to let you know a little about the show and those involved.

Punky is the creation of writer, Lindsay J. Sedgwick. She took the show through a long development process, supported by the Irish Film Board, and eventually the show landed on our desks at Monster Animation. My first thought? Are you serious?! No way. You can’t make a cartoon show about a person with Down syndrome because a cartoon is, by its very nature, a caricature. Even with the absolute best of intentions, this would go horribly wrong.

And, sure enough, one of the primary concerns from everyone who heard about the show was – how will you show her visually?

It wasn’t easy.

But just because something isn’t easy doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be attempted. In fact, maybe the closer it is to going horribly wrong the more chance it has of turning out to be rather special if it works. Because many others would have backed out earlier. Our producer, Gerard O’Rourke, didn’t back out. Of course, he wouldn’t have to design her!

As it would turn out, designing Punky was really only the first of many challenges in making the show work. It would take the wonderful children’s writer, Andrew Brenner, to craft the funny, honest and often touching stories for Punky and her family. It would take design work and early direction by Ciara McClean and fantastic visual storytelling for each episode by director Simon Crane to bring those stories to life. It would take Aimee Richardson’s perfect voice. In many ways, Aimee became Punky. It would take support from the Irish Film Board and broadcaster RTÉ. And it would take Creative Director Jason Tammemägi getting over his initial urge to flinch.

Through all that, the show still had Lindsay’s soul.

And eventually… it worked.

So now we have a fun little preschool show that is really just about a girl and her family. It’s about what she does, what she enjoys, what makes her laugh. She also happens to have Down syndrome. Due to the lack of main characters like that on television, that makes the show important. Important for children and parents, regardless of whether they have someone with Down syndrome in their lives.

And now a couple of IFTA nominations. That’s nice. Will it win one? Who knows. The IFTAs are what they are. But I guess, for me with my head deep in Cosmo right now, the nominations are just a reminder of what we made, why it’s important and those fantastic people who made it what it is.

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Tags: animation, IFTA, Punky

I’m presenting Cosmo to the Cartoon Forum in Poland this week, to broadcasters, distributors and peers. It’s a pretty big deal. Right now, it feels like everything has been leading to Cosmo. Not just the close to two years of solid development I have put into the show, but the years getting there.

I have been Creative Director of Monster Animation for over 10 years now. In that time, with some incredibly talented colleagues and friends, I built a studio, creating and refining production systems that would work for me and the types of projects I make.

Through commericals, short films all the way to children’s television, leading the creative vision has been a journey. Not always an easy one and it took quite some time for me to really find where that vision was going. Some of the early stuff that we did along the way? It’s not great. The truth is, I didn’t really know where it was all going until I got to direct the 39 episodes of the wonderful Roobarb & Custard Too.

Then I knew. And I created Fluffy Gardens.

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Fluffy Gardens was a whole different experience. That was my show. The words, the look, the feel, production methods. From empty page all the way to television.

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And it worked. Everything came together on that show. I found myself working with some amazing creative talents, each one adding a layer of their own to the show – reminding me that I was not alone. I didn’t do it alone. Every single person on our team brought something wonderful to that show.

I found myself striving to do better. Better quality, better storytelling, better content for children, better systems.

With Ballybraddan, 40 more Fluffy Gardens episodes and then Punky, the methods were put to the test, refined further, streamlined and polished. Meanwhile, I studied children’s television, broke down the shows, dug up the research (and there is a lot of research), looked at what worked and what didn’t and why, questioned, prodded, looked deeper, beyond the accepted wisdom to find real understanding.

All to create a better show. Not just better, a special show. A show that children would love. A show that would be good for those children.

Right now, that show is Cosmo.

Cosmo still has some way to go. It’s going to require people sharing the vision. And, yes, there will be other stories, other shows. There are some simmering away in the background. But, right now, Cosmo is that special show and, if we can make it happen, I think it’s going to be excellent. Of course, I’m biased.

If you’re at the Forum, please do come along to our presentation. I’m hoping it will be fun.

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And to everyone who has worked so hard on Cosmo with me over the last few months, you who delivered above and beyond, who brought brilliance and were striving for excellence every step of the way, who made the whole process a pleasure – thank you. You all rock.

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Tags: animation, business, Cartoon Forum, Children, Cosmo, Fabulopolis, Fluffy Gardens, Punky, Roobarb, writing

While I have been busy working away on a new show (more on that soon), Monster Animation has not been quiet. Far from it. The crew at Monster have been producing a brand new, and rather important show called Punky.

Punky is a preschool show about a little girl who loves to dance, loves music, hugs and, of course, her family – Mum, her brother Con, and her rather cranky Grandmother, appropriately yet lovingly called Cranky. Punky also happens to have Down syndrome.

As far as I know, that makes it the first broadcast television show in which the title character has Down syndrome. Punky, however, is not a show about issues. Having Down syndrome is simply one of many, many elements that contributes to who Punky is: a fun-loving little girl.

Created by Lindsay J. Sedgwick, the show is beautifully written by Andrew Brenner, creator and writer of the preschool hit, Humf. Now, anyone who knows Humf will know instantly why Andrew was perfect for Punky. With Humf, Andrew managed to perfectly capture a child’s perspective, giving children lovely stories in the way they see life. But, more than that, Humf has a wonderful honesty about real life. Andrew has brought the charm and the honesty to Punky. And, with that, plenty of humour.

And with the perfect voice (Aimee Richardson) Punky comes to life as a very real little girl.

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I am not directing Punky. In fact, it will be the first Monster television show not directed by me, demonstrating that I am not half as indispensable as I thought I was (dreams of Godhood shattered) but also demonstrating the talent we’ve built in Monster over the years. The series is being directed by Simon Crane, a good friend, long-time colleague and very talented animator/artist/director. He took the beginnings and designs (by Ciara McClean) and is very much making the show his own.

Of course, having been the creative director in Monster for as long as the company has been in television shows (and longer), I have been helping out where I can, working with Andrew on the stories (must be said that that really just amounted to me reading his stories and writing him a mail telling him how much I liked them), offering advice on animatics and the various aspects of production, working with Jonathan Atkinson on the music (again, listening and writing nice emails) and generally keeping an eye on things.

Seeing as I’m listing off the credits, I feel one of the largest credits of all has to go to my long-time (well, always) producer, Gerard O’Rourke. Gerard championed the show. He saw the potential. And, I’ll be honest, the show was a tough prospect at the start but Gerard believed in it every step of the way.

And he was right to.

It has been lovely watching a show form around me. Letting the visions of other people shape it and watching what I would have done differently. Or what I would have done exactly the same.

And letting it happen like that has given me the time to work on something completely new. Something I’ll introduce here soon.

Punky goes on air in Ireland on the 3rd of May on RTEJr. Doubtless, other countries will follow after that. Look out for it.

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Tags: Punky