Here’s a question to consider when coming up with your concept or story or even scene. It’s a simple question that isn’t always easy to answer. If the answer doesn’t come easily, that doesn’t mean you have a problem necessarily but it’s certainly something to consider because, when your story offers a clear answer to this question, it can really help engage your young audience.

Here it is: what does this say about the life of my audience?

Now many of us in the younger end of children’s entertainment, me included, often think about what we would like it to say to our audience. We think about the message and I think that’s important too. But that won’t answer this question. This question is about what your content says about the life of your viewer as it is right now.

What will they relate to? What will they see of themselves in your story? How does it reflect their life? And how might it make them feel about their life?

When you have your answer, challenge it. Is it saying more about your perception of a child’s life than about the reality? Will children themselves see what you see in it? Or is it just that you’d like to say these things to children, in which case we’re back to it being a message to kids. Be honest and challenge the relevance of your story. This will help you make it better. If your story connects directly to children and allows them to see their own life in it, it gives them something they can truly feel a part of. Something they feel a bond with. Something that is uniquely for them.

And as audiences, isn’t that what we want?

A while back, someone tried to sell me some system for scoring our work with premade music pieces and some software to make it fit. I apologise if that was you but, from my perspective, that is a HORRENDOUS idea. Sure, library music has its place and I’m not suggesting we won’t all get replaced by software some day but that day is not today and, right now, what the creative process needs is people. Minds, experiences and, most of all, feelings.

We have just finished a pilot for something incredibly exciting. It’s short – just three minutes long – and it is driven by narration so there isn’t much room for playing with the music. Nevertheless, our composer Derek Cronin and I spent a long time talking influences, emotions, flow, beats and much more in order to find the heart of what this pilot needed musically.

We dug out little known bands, identifying instruments and tricks. We went back to the 70s and 80s and discussed the relevance of punk and how one can apply some of that raw spontaneity in an appropriate way for preschoolers. We stripped our instruments right down to create a coherent bed of sound, so that the music in this little pilot might feel like it was actually created by the characters.

It was a huge amount of work for Derek and he tried so many different things but you could hear the exploration in the pieces, the fun and the sense of discovery. And it was work for us too. I guess it would be much easier to just listen to a bunch of software-chosen pieces and select ‘more louder’ or however it works. But in no way could it ever have matched the soul that came from that exploration and what Derek uniquely brought to each moment.

Creation is not just what lies on the surface. Every wonderful piece of entertainment, art, every great story and every feeling we have with it is built on so much more than we can see or hear in that end product. And yet it’s there. That exploration is there. It’s the soul.

It matters.

I can’t possibly say enough how important music is to any show or film but it’s not just music. Every piece of the whole needs that human attention, that love and that care. That experience and history and life that each individual person brings to it. Every person can contribute to make something wonderful…

…if you let them. If you invite them to. And don’t instead think of it as just a problem that you wish you could solve by pressing a button. Creativity is wonderful in every part of the process. It is to be enjoyed and cherished, not by-passed.

Let’s stay thankful for the amazing creative people we work with.

We’re well into January already but any time someone says that they are making a list, my brain follows with “checking it twice”. Thing is, that’s a REALLY good thing to do. Well done, Santa Claus. That’s how you stay on top of what must be an insanely difficult job, especially when it comes to pipelines and management.

For me, I find there are a couple of very different work situations in which this is crucial. One is in a production or fixed delivery work situation. We know what needs to get done, we know when it needs to get done and it is a case of making that happen on time while getting the absolute best quality. Making that list and checking it twice is key to avoiding pitfalls that will mess up your productivity. It allows you to keep a very clean chain of events, so you can know what needs to be done at every stage.

And while you check that list for the second time, remove the non-essentials. Take out the fluff or what is your equivalent of needless red tape. The fewer steps in a process, the fewer places there are for communication errors or blockages. You just need to be careful that the step you’re removing is not the one that ensures your quality control. Keep a simple, clean list and you’ll always know what you and everyone else needs to achieve.

The other possible work situation for me is both easier to manage and infinitely more difficult. It is when I am working on development or exploring ideas in order to find what might come next. Easier because it usually involves very few people to manage and sometimes it’s just me. More difficult because it doesn’t come with built-in deadlines or clear stages and, the truth is, results are not guaranteed.

Where production comes with a need for order to make it work, creating on your own with a small team can be like floating in a huge sea of chaos with many, many stops to make a cup of coffee. And more coffee. It is fluid by nature. And so some clear goals need to be set down so that you have something to aim for. Something to drive you. And something to acknowledge and celebrate when you get results. Make a list of the core steps. Check it twice. And as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, set or acquire deadlines.

When you check your list that second time, watch for the parts that don’t really contribute. Most of all, in this work scenario, watch for the grand sweeping barely-achievable goals that are just too big and vague to be any help. Strike off “make a hit show” or “write a series of novels” and instead stick to the individual steps that might get you there bit by bit.

I’m sure he is taking some well-deserved time off now but, when he gets back to work, Santa will be back to making those lists and checking them twice and we can all learn from what that man achieves each and every year.

I was sad about Carrie Fisher at the end of 2016. Who wouldn’t be? Such a huge part of my life. The night the news hit, I rewatched the first Star Wars movie. Such a fantastic film in so, so many ways. No big surprise that it has endured for so long.

The trash compactor scene? Superfluous. It could be cut or replaced and nobody would ever notice. Nothing builds to it and nothing is affected by it afterwards. It’s just a thing that happens.

Now Star Wars is Star Wars and it’s totally awesome and it gets away with it without a problem. And it’s a good scene, right? If it’s a good scene, we’re going to want to keep it. But we aren’t all as fortunate and excellent as Star Wars and, really, being a good scene or even a great scene isn’t always enough of a reason to keep it. When a scene could be so easily switched out without affecting the story in any way, it’s worth asking ourselves whether we should really have it at all. Wouldn’t it be better to replace it with a scene that actively contributes to where the story is going? That adds a skill or some determination or info that will come into play later? Something that will be paid off? Or something that directly says something important about the characters or the theme?

In screenwriting books, we often read about the need for complications and obstacles and they aren’t wrong. But if they’re JUST obstacles and then they are overcome, you’re just chucking stuff at your characters without really building your story. This is like those old black and white TV serials, which of course Lucas was hugely inspired by. You could miss a bunch of episodes and it won’t matter at all even if what you missed contained fantastic scenes.

But if you can go a step further and add those complications and obstacles in a way that, once they are dealt with, your characters have now progressed clearly in your story, then you’ve got a section that means more. Something that has some real impact. And often the test is: what happens if I cut this? If you have huge holes to patch then you know at least that the section moved the story forward. That doesn’t mean it’s good yet! But at least it progressed the story.

So ideally, there should be two reasons that it’s really hard to cut scenes:

1) It’s an awesome scene.
2) It moves the story forward.

One without the other should be very hard to justify. Fix it or cut it. When someone goes through your story, they shouldn’t want to cut a scene. If someone else suggests it, everyone should be horrified at the thought and instantly shout reasons why it needs to be kept. Make your scenes hard to cut by making them great AND crucial to the story.

Then be prepared to lose them anyway as you refine your story further.