Today I present four more recommendations from the bookshelf that should be of interest to anyone developing or producing content for children -

Creating Animated Cartoons with Character by Joe Murray

I first bought this book back when it was an ebook PDF direct from Joe Murray’s site and instantly bought the book again when it got a proper print run. From the creator of Rocko’s Modern Life and Camp Lazlo, this book is another that goes through every part of the process from creation all the way to the screen. Yes, this is full of practical advice, basic steps and lists of “dos and don’ts” that any content creator needs to know but it has more than that. What makes this book different is Joe Murray’s personal point of view. This book in many ways is like the grounding voice of reason that we all need to hear sometimes and that just comes through in how it is written.

Being very much on the small independent side of things, I have actually had an easier time than most but let’s never kid ourselves that this is an easy business. It is not. It can feel heartbreaking at times. Joe Murray knows this and part of the book almost feel like a reflective part of his older self is writing a letter to his younger self – there is much we can learn from this Joe Murray.

G Is For Growing by Shalom M. Fisch and Rosemarie T. Truglio

G Is For Growing summarises thirty years of Sesame Street research. Sesame Street tests EVERYTHING and has done from day one. With testing and how they chose to use the information that came from that research, they managed to create a wonderful balance of entertainment and education that set the template for just about every educational show that followed. While this book, being written by academics seemingly for academics, doesn’t quite achieve the same level of balance, it contains a wealth of information that will be of use to anyone making children’s shows. So much can be gained by looking at the research that led to great shows like Sesame Street rather than just looking at the shows themselves and trying to reverse engineer them. G Is For Growing is like the Sesame Street source code.

Anytime Playdate by Dade Hayes

Offering a look, as the full title states, Inside the Preschool Entertainment Boom, or, How Television Became My Baby’s Best Friend, this book is a great read both from the perspective of a content creator and as a parent. A parent himself, Dade Hayes makes it his mission to find out just what goes on behind the scenes in the children’s television business – the story behind the content his young daughter seems so hooked on every day. This book explores the good, the bad and the ugly of the industry and, even though written from a very personal viewpoint, feels very open-minded, inviting the reader to come to their own conclusions about what he finds out.

And even for those of us in the industry (at least for those of us on the more European side), there is the odd surprise here and there, and not all of them good ones. For the content creators, his exploration into the development of Nick’s Ni Hao, Kai-lan is of particular interest as it, like so many other shows over the last ten years, aims to repeat the success of Dora the Explorer. A very well-written and enjoyable read.

Sesame Street: A Celebration – 40 Years Of Life On The Street by Louise A. Gikow

This is a wonderful celebration of Sesame Street, packed full of information, stories and fantastic pictures. It is a real treasure, exploring the show from its creation all the way to today (well, 2009). Beautifully designed and laid out, it is one of those books that is just a treat to pull down from the shelf and open up on a random page.

And for those of us in children’s television, it is an inspiration. I put Sesame Street up there as the best children’s television show of all time and it still has so much to teach those of us producing content for children. While there are other books on Sesame Street of great value, such as G Is For Growing above, in my view this book is the most enjoyable.

That’s it from the bookshelf for this post. As always, aim to learn and get better at what we do. Our audience will benefit and, if they benefit, we do too.

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Tags: animation, books, business, recommendations, writing

While I stumbled through the beginnings of Fluffy Gardens with a very limited amount of knowledge, it became clear early on that I could only benefit from studying all aspects of creating content for children and, since then, I have made it my business to find out everything I can about other shows, what has worked and not worked and why, and I have sought out the research – and there is a LOT of research out there. This is a well worn road and so, even for those of us determined to find our own path, it makes sense to see what we can learn from others. Not just the odd line we pick up browsing through an industry website. Real research and understanding. Would Fluffy Gardens have been a better show had I done my homework? Absolutely. And Cosmo is going to be a far, far better show for all the experience I have gained and research I have done since diving into Fluffy Gardens for the first time.

With that in mind, I thought I would recommend a few books that I think could really help those creating, producing or directing shows, or hoping to one day make a show. To start with, here are three books I think will help you -

Animation Development From Pitch To Production by David B. Levy

As the name suggests, this book covers animation development from the idea stage all the way to the screen. It uses industry stories to illustrate each part of the process and offers a huge amount of practical advice. Like so much of the most useful advice, much of it is stuff common sense would tell us and yet, in the midst of a busy life, we need to hear again and again. Within industry quotations are many different points of view – you don’t have to agree with all of them but there is plenty to consider and thoughts that may lead to you producing better work.

It should be pointed out that this book is based around the US system of getting shows off the ground. Things work very differently over this side of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of value in knowing why things work that way in the US.

Mind In The Making by Ellen Galinsky

This is not a book on moulding shows. It is a book on moulding better people. Recommended by David Kleeman on Josh Selig’s Kidscreen blog, I found this book to be incredibly valuable. As I have said on this site before, a show needs something special to justify its existence. What can your show give children that will be of real value to them? This book will provides many suggestions. It takes you through seven essential life skills and shows how we can better nurture those skills in children. It is a reminder of the importance of we do, of what we can offer children that will contribute positively in their lives. This book is for the people who are serious about giving children something good.

I recommend building a show with your contribution at its very core, not shoehorned in at the end. This book can help suggest ways to do that. Not the easiest read in the world – I find academics seem to write like, well, academics. But informative and valuable.

Children And Television Fifty Years Of Research by Norma Pecora, John P. Murray and Ellen Ann Wartella

There is over fifty years of research into children and television. You might think you will do fine without knowing any of the results but why would you want to? This book is a gold mine of information. What works, what doesn’t work, what content affects children in what ways, how educational television affects children as they grow older, the effects of violence on your audience, how children process ads and so much more. This book summarises all of the results and, in doing so, provides a guiding voice for what to do, and what not to do, if you have the well being of your audience in mind and want to engage them positively.

This book is like the anatomy of what we do. With drawing, for example, you can copy a drawing of a person and it might look okay, but not great. But if you have a working knowledge of human anatomy and structure, your drawing will be so much more solid because you aren’t just copying lines – you have a real understanding of what you are doing. Many people making shows just copy the surface of what they see on TV (I was guilty of this myself at one point). But the great shows often had years of research to get where they were at. You won’t get the same results copying the surface. You need to know how they reached all their decisions.

This book is the starting point. From here, you can look up the studies and dig deeper and deeper and I guarantee you that it will make your work better. 

So there you have it, three books to start with. If they sound interesting to you, seek them out. Read, take notes and make your work excellent.

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Tags: animation, books, business, recommendations, writing

I’ll admit, as a parent, I had some reservations about Yo Gabba Gabba.

Having a very sensitive daughter, prone to nightmares, I’ve wondered about the designs of some of the main characters and the dreams they inspire. I’ve wondered if some of the familiar adult faces and bands aren’t just a little bit self-indulgent. I know my daughter didn’t get Biz’s Beat Of The Day whatsoever and, when I tried to get her to take part, it just freaked her out. And I wondered about the age-old pace/attention span issue that has been talked about since the dawn of children’s television (though only wondered, because research does not seem to back up that concern).

I enjoyed it but I wasn’t all that sure my little girl was getting as much from it as I was.

But Yo Gabba Gabba totally won me over.

The show is colourful, has some great songs, is very playful and who couldn’t love DJ Lance? But the show won me over on something far more important than that – the messages.

Yo Gabba Gabba covers messages to children that I simply haven’t seen anywhere else. Don’t just take stuff from your friends. Don’t throw stuff at your friends. Don’t bite your friends. Seriously, don’t bite your friends. Just don’t do it. This is something that some young children do and yet I can’t think of another show that just comes out and says don’t do it.

The messages in Yo Gabba Gabba are relevant and, importantly, different to the messages children are getting elsewhere. For such a seemingly wacky show, it tackles subjects far more grounded and real than many other shows. As a father of two, where an older child can terrorise a younger one (or vice versa), I appreciate those messages. The show can actually be a useful parenting tool – working with parents. Any reservations I once had have long since been put aside. And, now, their ‘Be Nice To Everyone’ song is one of my favourite songs from television.

I love the show. And, as my daughter got a little older, and was joined by her little sister, I found she began to get as much from it as I did.

So, Yo Gabba Gabba, I salute you!

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Tags: Children, education, Messages, parenting, recommendations, Yo Gabba Gabba

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The new Winnie the Pooh movie is out in the cinema. Did you know that? I totally recommend it for you and your children. Now, it’s not that Disney need me pushing their movies for them. And, really, should I? Disney who pushes princesses AT my girls, who is now trying to brand babies from birth? Well, sure, there is all that.

But I was talking with my good animation friend, Andy, about the movie and I’m the only other person he knows who as seen this new Pooh film. And he’s the only other person I know who has seen it.

And it deserves to be seen. It’s a really good movie.

Not only is it really good but, for me, it’s one of the most fun and child-friendly movies in years. It goes totally against the melodrama of so many children’s films, the need for ridiculously heightened ‘AGH WE’RE ALL DOOMED!’ sequences, the need for that naive, paranoia-inspiring yet seemingly ever-present scary ‘bad guy’, the Pixar ‘let’s hit ‘em with a tragedy at the start so they’re at an emotional disadvantage from then on’ trick, and even against the fart jokes.

It is more true to the lives of actual children. True to fun. Yes, there’s fear in places but in a totally child-like and child-friendly way.

Winnie the Pooh is about play.

It’s very faithful to the spirit of the Pooh classics and yet with nothing so dated that it doesn’t play to today’s children. It pulls Pooh back from being that weird grumpy old man he seems to have turned into in recent years to a naive and innocent child’s toy. The humour is safe and yet far from bland (safe does not equal bland). And, somehow, it actually makes Rabbit kind of fun. The animation isn’t always top notch but it’s mostly good and, at times, lovely. Owl in particular is really well animated.

Most of all, the movie has a soul.

It doesn’t feel overworked. You know when you watch a movie and you know a sequence has been rewritten a hundred times and it works great but you just know there was an energy there once that is now gone? Yeah, this movie doesn’t do that. It’s whimsical and just goes with its ideas.

A lovely 2D classic and a great first cinema experience for my sensitive daughter Daisy, who loved it.

But when it comes to the numbers, I fear Disney will see that just me, my girl, Andy and his girlfriend are the only people who watched it. And I can’t help feeling that execs will be saying, well, I told you 2D is dead. I told you we need an evil bad guy. I told you we need to murder someone in the opening sequence.

Well, films don’t need that. Children’s films definitely don’t need that. They just need play. And that’s what Winnie the Pooh has plenty of.

And if nobody goes to see this beyond the four of us, it will actually be because Disney, with all its marketing power, barely told anyone it was out.

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So, I’m recommending you go and see Winnie the Pooh. Not because Disney need me pushing their movies. Not even because I’d like it to do well to show that we’d love to see more of this type of movie. But, really, just because it’s a film you and your children are bound to enjoy.

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Tags: disney, recommendations, winnie the pooh