You know what advice I LOVE? It’s the advice that has me nodding my head and thinking, yeah, that confirms everything I have thought about my work and my life and the world. This advice makes me feel good about myself and I should remind myself to keep on doing what I’m doing and everything will turn out just fine. Oh look, a butterfly! Isn’t life wonderful?

The problem, however, is that the advice we really need isn’t always as fun to hear. It’s the advice that challenges us, means we might have to change something in how we do things, makes our life harder. Seriously, who wants harder?! Certainly not me.

But that’s the very advice we might need sometimes. Here’s the thing – improvements require change. And change is hard. Keeping that change up is even harder.

I saw one of those videos about how finished is better than perfect. That’s good advice. You’ve got to finish and deliver and faffing around forever, no matter how lovely your unfinished work might be, is no use to anyone. Some people really need this advice.

I was just about to share the video when I thought of some people I have encountered over the years who would watch this and nod their heads and think, yeah, this confirms everything I have thought about my work and my life and the world. I’m going to just throw this work down, shove it in an email, might even stick some words in that email and I’m going to hit send. Finished is WAY better than perfect. When actually, the advice that those particular people need is the harder advice to hear – that they need to spend more time with their work, really push themselves to get it better and better and build up their own sense of internal quality control. Because while finished is better than perfect, great is much, much better than sloppy.

Different people will benefit from different advice. We are not all the same. Not even close.

So listen for the advice that is harder to hear. We may not like hearing it but it might be exactly what we need to hear.

We’ve added some new colours to our Mooshku logo. Yes, that’s pretty exciting but not as exciting as our new showreel! This gives a really good look at what we do at Mooshku, with a particular focus on our animation because that’s usually what you do with a showreel. I can guarantee you that there are some things in here you haven’t seen yet.

So check it out below!

Like it? Feel free to pass along the link and share it and show all your best friends. We’re pretty proud of it.

What is harder to show in something like this video is all the development and writing work we do, especially as most of that happens on new projects that haven’t been launched yet. We consult on concepts, help write and put together show bibles and pitch work, define early scripts to set the tone for a show and work out the kinks and answer the inevitable questions and we do this on many types of shows. And not just shows too – the formats are different but the various forms of children’s media often share common goals.

What’s great about doing this is that a) we’re really good at it and b) we love making good stuff for kids. So it is hugely rewarding to help others give their good stuff for kids every chance it can get. Next month, Mooshku turns three years old. Because I’ve been doing this for decades, it’s quite odd to think about how new that feels – it’s barely older than my dog! But really, as a company, we’re young and I was doing a little stock take recently and all those services we decided to offer when we set up our company we have managed to do for people over the last few years. So I’m taking that as a victory.

It’s not an easy business. Anyone in it knows that. But it’s fun. It’s rewarding. It’s always changing. And, as I say in the video, if you can put smiles on the faces of kids… well, you know the rest. If you ever need our services, get in touch.

One last thing to mention. That music track you hear in the reel is a song called Electric Isle by Dream Fiend. You should check out that whole EP and more HERE! Beautiful dreamy happy synth. It brightens up my day.

Now go on. Have a good day and show off our showreel somewhere!

The world is divided into two groups of people – those who will read that heading and say “Hammer Time!” and those who will say “Collaborate and listen!” As it happens, this post is not about MC Hammer or Vanilla Ice. It’s about creative careers.

Here’s a thing: creative careers aren’t easy.

I started as an animator many years ago in the days when everything was pencil and paper. I remember seeing older people in their thirties, maybe some in their forties, travelling the world as they moved from production to production in search of animation clean-up jobs or whatever. Even back then, I got this feeling that I didn’t want to be that person. At some point, I was going to want to settle down. To stop having to chase that next job.

I looked ahead and, even just starting out, I knew that continuing exactly what I was doing probably wasn’t going to lead to a place I wanted to be.

I worked hard over the years. Not always focussed. Not always knowing where I was going. But I still amassed a good set of skills and, now, each role I can play in this business helps inform and support the other roles. So I have been very fortunate. I need the work and that is often dependent on productions, just as it was back then. But it’s easier to do from here, settled with my kids, and I can often create my own work in many ways.

And yet it is still true for me that a creative career isn’t easy. Even now, I have to project ahead and look at the path I’m on and try to figure out where that will lead me in the next 10 years. Or 20. I have to stop (no, not Hammer Time or Collaborate and Listen). Stop that day to day, to-do list to to-do list motion that just keeps me on a fixed path. Stop and review – where I am, what I’m doing, whether it is working, where I want to be and how I might get there.

It is a little time out to assess directions and I think it is hugely important. Probably in every career but definitely in ours.

My advice is that you start this early. Not all the time. It might only be once every few years. But do it. Stop. Take a look at where you are. Take a look at where you want to be, keeping in mind that it might not be where you thought you wanted to be the last time you did this. And consider how best you might get there.

Stop and review.

We can deconstruct a script, point out the plot holes, wonder if the structure is really hitting the beats in the right place, explore the character dynamics, question the motivations, tut-tut at the typos, throw out the designs, play with the composition, alter the pacing, pull out the examples of what worked and what didn’t and suggest changes throughout hoping those examples apply in this case (they often don’t) and we can, bit by bit, torture over every element, large or small, in what we’re making. And we should. All those elements will help you as part of the process.

BUT the proof is in the reactions of your audience. The smiles, the laughter, the gasps, the cheers and the tears. When everything is finished, that is what counts.

At the weekend, I was at the premiere of the live-action children’s feature GRÅTASS GIR GASS in Stavanger, Norway. I wrote other films in the series but I didn’t write this one so I had a little more objectivity while watching the audience, taking in what hit and what really grabbed the children. The kids had been playing around the Gråtassland theme park all day and so I wondered if the energy would really be there. It was. And towards the end, there was (SPOILER) a chase sequence that revealed one of those crucial audience feedback moments we look for. The loud laughter and cheering from the kids was all the proof anyone would need on whether this movie hit or not.

They were invested. They were entertained. And yes, they laughed. The proof was in the laughter.

I’m sure many of you have seen articles attempting to knock Frozen through theory – how the villain comes out of nowhere, why story parts don’t work as they should and so on. All it takes is going to just ONE screening of that movie with a cinema full of kids to understand why that movie is a hit.

Sure, by all means question the details and try to learn from them. All those elements at the top of this post are important. But never lose sight of the fact that it is the audience reaction that counts. Arguing theory to a room full of cheering kids is a total, utter waste of your time. Listen to your audience. Learn from them. Know your audience and learn how to entertain them. That is paradoxically much more simple and far more complex than what you’ll generally read in a book about writing.

Listen to the laughter and aim to entertain.

Gråtass Gir Gass opens across Norway this Friday the 9th of September. If you’re there, bring your kids and listen for that laughter. Well done to all involved!