Food Module: Visiting Professionals - CBBC

CBBC Talkers - Sarah Muller

I gained quite a lot of insight to the animation industry through how animations are chosen for television, the regulations and process that goes with it. With British Animation obtaining more funds, animations now have extra money for production - Sarah explained that now is the time to get your ideas out there as more channels and companies will want innovative animation. It was interesting to hear her tips on submitting animations, especially towards the backgrounds and the narrative. She explains that - It must be different, avoid paranormal story lines as there are too much that are submitted much like Adventure Time - They want something like Family Guy, The Simpsons or Futurama, largely in 2D with realistic esk backgrounds with straight lines, no photo realistic styles - Focus on family comedy however there is room for drama comedy (it would have to be extremely good to be chosen).

Boys are interested in animation for longer compared to the Girl audience - you need to consider how kids would think - if you find something funny then they will most likely will too. The kids are your boss - they are smarter than you think - shorter animations, other channels add fighting animation aimed at the boy audience.

All rules can be broken - remember the premise, character and narration etc:
+ Premise - could this story be done in any other medium? It needs to be a good reason for it to be animation - what does it enhance?
+ Characters - you must love your characters! There needs to be a connection - characters can be flawed, its how you control this.
+ Worlds - are really interesting. The weirder the world the simpler the stories will be.
+ Storytelling - Follow the character and the story - 3 act structured character driven.

This talk made me think more about the animation we were creating for this module. I felt that we had quirky and memorable characters that the audience would remember as well as the world that the story is situated in being one that is mysterious with the use of the Cake Man Character. With this premise, as a group, we all agreed that this could be a taken into a series of short animations that reveal more facts on all types of food, not just desserts, with the possibility of more characters being introduced. Storytelling wise, I felt that the narration and the use of Johnny helped to tell the story and with this visual storytelling, this could work really well with a young audience and would hopefully work well after animations that would be played on the CBBC channel.