Creating Screen Based Materials for Children

Yesterday I attended another presentation from the Digital Media Consortia. The guest speaker at this event was Curtis Jobbling, best known for his work on Bob the Builder. He is also known for having worked on A Close Shave and Mars Attacks.
During the session we were shown the original pilot episode of Bob the Builder and told that after the BBC saw it they never wanted anything more to do with Bob! It was easy to see why the BBC had said this. The characters were unappealing, the story was boring and didn't really flow plus the pace was way too slow so it was easy to lose interest quickly. That was before Curtis had been brought on board. After he joined the team working on the show at HIT Entertainment it evolved into what it is now. It was later picked up by the BBC after they saw it at an animation festival.
We were also shown a series of very short animations made by Curtis called Curious Cow that were aired on Nickolodean. The first set we saw were made using stop-motion techniques and the second set were made using 3D computer methods. It was explained that this change was made because, with how short the animations were, it made the process less expensive as there was no need to buy materials to make physical models or sets. It also made it possible for Curious Cow to be put into even more outrageous situations that wouldn't have been possible with a physical model.
Finally we were shown some initial work from a new series coming to the BBC later this year called Frankenstein's Cat based on a picture book by Curtis Jobbling. He brought with him a model of the cat, Nine (so called not because he has nine lives but because he's made from bits of nine cats) in question although the finished series will be produced in Flash. He explained how the design of Nine had to be altered from the original design in the book. It was a concern that because Frankenstein's Cat looked so much like Pilchard from Bob the Builder small children may get upset if they saw it thinking it was a dead Pilchard. The shape and pattern of the tail got altereded for this reason.
Before the talk ended Curtis tried to show us a clip from where the project was up to currently as he had explained that since the previous clip he showed us had been produced, the design of the girl, Lottie, had been changed to make her a little bit older in order to appeal to a wider audience. Unfortunately the DVD he brought with him wouldn't play on our system so we didn't get to see that but I shall be looking forward to when the show airs on the TV.
I always find it beneficial to see how entheusiatic these people get about their animation projects as it gives me a positive boost.

Curtis' own blog can be found here: badablingthing