Go Canada – Grain Elevators – Pilot Episode

Go Canada is an animation/live action documentary series developed by Cheshire Smile Animation, Kids CBC, and SCN, for 2-6 year old children starring Canada: an inspired, animated map of our favorite country.

Inspired by kids, her audience, Canada travels our nation discovering and exploring entertaining, educational and cool stories about iconic elements of Canadian geography, locations and life. Canada is possessed by an insatiable curiosity for the country where she lives. As the host, Canada, leads the adventure, but she learns alongside the children viewing the show as she discovers, explores and experiences special places within the Canadian Community.

 

 

The Side Show – MIPTV One Sheet Poster

The Side Show - MIPTV One Sheet Poster

 

Go Canada – Theme Song

At Cheshire Smile we have been developing Go Canada a 26 x 3 miniute preschool series that combines animation and documentary footage in a series of vignettes that explores iconic Canadian destinations with our host – “Canada” a bright green map of – you guessed it CANADA. Part of our development process with CBC Kids has been the creation of a demo / pilot episode. Being based in the prairies we decided that we would explore grain elevators as our theme. They are very cool structures.

We shot the harvest and grain elevator footage last fall and have been working to create the pilot since then. We have a couple of animators working right now (Chris and Jason – you rock!) to get the animation completed. Look for a preview of the pilot shortly.

The project is currently at an exciting point because we are finally nearing the end of one phase in this journey, which brings me to the point of this post.

Ross Nikiforiuk of Cosmic Pad Studios in Saskatoon created this wonderful theme song for the show.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

Go Canada, is in development with Cheshrie Smile Animation Inc, CBC Kids Television, and the Saskatchewan Communications Network.

 

Relatable and Aspirational Kids Television

I have been remiss on my blogging of late, and I apologize for that. I seem to have a lot to say but for some reason I have been shy about blogging it up.

Through my wanderings of late, I was at KidScreen in New York, with the purpose of finalizing distribution of The Side Show Christmas, and laying groundwork for the development of new Cheshire Smile animation projects. Overall I think it was a great success. I met some really interesting folks, re-invigorated established existing relationships, and got exposed to some high level thinking on the nature of television for children.

I made an effort to go to various workshops, and 30 minute broadcaster sessions at KidScreen Summit 09. They were great – I found the conference very inspirational – a big THANK YOU to everyone who contributed.

One of the reoccuring themes that I carried away from KidScreen Summit 09 about kids television programming and what the creative needs for a show to be successful in this (Highly competative, economically challenged) marketplace are two core concepts. Relatable and Aspirational.

Relatable – Succesful children’s television programs have core qualities that allow the children watching to relate to the program. What makes a show relatable to kids? All kinds of things but ultimately it comes down to making shows with a context kids understand. Dexter’s Lab, Johnny Test, My Gym Partner is a Monkey, Hannah Montana. These are all great shows with strong characters who are kids. Kids understand and relate to other kids, not only that they love to watch kids.

Aspirational – Strong kids programs are aspirational. They have characters and situations that children can very much identify with, aspire to be like, and would like to be immersed within. Shows like Ben 10, Totally Spies, Star Wars Clone Wars and Total Drama Island have strong aspirational qualities. These shows are filled with characters whom children would either like to be, have as their friends, or hang out with in general.

I am lucky, in addition to acting like a kid, I have two wonderful children of my own who educate me all the time about the nature of kid cool. What’s your in to the world of children???

There you go. A little tidbit without the expense of a trip to NY, but you did not get to sample the Halal at 4th Ave. and 53rd Street – widely regarded as the best in NYC. MMMmmm. Delicious.

Karma Film's Anand Ramayya enjoying Halal in NY just across the street from the Hilton NY.

 

My closet is full of dead babies…….

I am always in the process of development and producing numerous ideas, all of which are in different states of existence, anywhere from idle entertaiment while sitting on the toilette or walking the dog, to full blown fully, financed productions.

The first time I pitched to Canadian Children’s Broadcasters was at the Banff Television Festival in 2001. I was able to get a meeting with TELETOON, and I pitched a show I was working on called “The Legends Of Wesakechak”. No Luck.

The second time I pitched was also at the Banff Television Festival in 2002. I pitched “Legends of Wesakechak” again as well as a series called “Althea”, and another series called “Mrs. Periwinkles Fun Files”. No dice. They were all gunned down and I personally got quite beat up by the experience. There was one broadcaster in particular who just about made me cry. I have come to the belief that “You know it is a good market when you can leave and not feel like you just got stood up at the High School Dance!!!!”

Since then I pitched numerous other shows before I got my first development deal with TELETOON.

Each one of those projects is a dead baby that is littering the floor of my imagination.

My personal feeling is that broadcasters want to see you stick it out in the industry for quite a while before they will even consider giving you a deal. Even if you had the goodest idea on earth there is a good chance it will tank if it is your first experience with a broadcaster who has never heard of you before. Television is expensive to make and time consuming. I honestly get the feeling that a lot of broadcasters want to get to know you before they will spend any money or time working with you on an idea.

Consequentially, It is important that as a creator of Television you have the ability to walk away from an idea and move on to something new, no matter how much you love it.

Every failed pitch provides another layer of compost for your imagination.

You must take that experience of pitching and use it as an opportunity to develop market intelligence so that you are better able to understand what they are looking for in an idea so that 6 months or 1 year later when you pitch the same broadcaster a new concept, they can see that not only have you developed professionally, you can create good ideas, AND most importantly, you can listen and respond to what they need from an idea to work for their network. I am not saying that you will succeed with that pitch either, but what you will have done is to start building a key relationship with both the network and broadcaster.

So, when you are holding on to that baby and every conceivable broadcaster has said no (except that one eccentric foreign broadcaster who does not have any development money for Canadians, and unfortunately can not trigger anything within the Canadian system, but loves it), there comes a time when you have to decide put it away in the closet and move on to the next pitch.

At the BBQ wrap up to the 2002 Banff Television Festival, I was feeling kind of dejected, and had the opportunity to speak with Chris Bartleman of Studio B, whom I had to pitched earlier that day.

His advise was to just keep pitching.

He was right.

 

How can you tell if it is a Great Idea?

This year at the Banff Television Festival I had the opportunity to meet many upcoming and aspiring Canadian Television content creators. One of the themes that repeatedly came up in discussion was knowing and understanding what kinds of ideas one should invest in. It takes a lot of leg work to prepare and develop an idea into a pitch for a broadcaster, how do you know if it is a good idea?

I will share my simple secret with you.

Good ideas stay good ideas.

I wake up every morning and generally have 2 – 3 ideas of varying quality while I am in the shower. Most of my ideas (Like “Dude Patrol” an action comedy about a group of kids going to highschool on the Moon who only call each other “Dude”) starts to loose its lustre come lunch time.

It took 3 and 1/2 years to get the idea for “Side Show Christmas” from concept to the first sequences of produced animation.

It is so much work to get a show off the ground that the idea has to be good. You have to be able to live and work with the idea for a long time. At the end of the creators journey, when that story has finally been told and that idea is released into the world, the world gets to decide if it is a good idea. The better the idea the longer the life it will live in the collective conciseness.

So, if you are working to develop ideas to pitch to broadcasters, my feeling is that you have to live with it for a while and look at if from different angles and honestly decide if it really is a good idea. There really is more to it than a cool character design and title. Put it on paper and put it in a drawer and come back to it later. Does it still have value and worth? Is it still something you want to put your heart and soul into?

Not to be overly pessimistic but there is a good chance they won’t like it anyway. Maybe they already have something similar, perhaps you haven’t researched properly the kinds of ideas they are looking for. There are a multitude of reasons your idea will die on a broadcasters desk.

Prepare yourself for the good idea.

When they finally say yes makes sure that it is your best idea because the journey has only just begun.

 

Exciting times for Cheshire Smile Animation in 2008

Well it is official, Cheshire Smile Animation is on the grow in 2008. After working away slugging, it out in producer / director Tim Tyler’s home office (which remains the official world HQ) for part of 2006 and and all of 2007, Cheshire Smile Animation Inc. has set up a new studio for the production of “Side Show Christmas”.

“Side Show Christmas” is a one hour special that will be broadcast in Canada on Teletoon Christmas 2008. The show is written by Saskatchewan writer Jeff Martel and will be produced in Saskatchewan by Cheshire Smile Animation Inc. and animated in British Columbia by Studio B Productions. Blair Peters and Chris Bartleman are Executive Producing.

Animation design is currently underway and is being split between Studio B and Cheshire Smile. I will direct the production of the boards and animatic here in Saskatchewan. The show will then move out to Studio B for animation production in Flash, and then will return to Saskatchewan for Audio and Video post production.

This production was the result of a pitch that was delivered to Teletoon initially at the Banff World Television Festival in 2006 and has been developed in partnership with Teletoon, SaskFilm, SCN and the CTV program development fund to create an original story with vibrant characters.

 

Side Show Christmas – Animation Designs VI

Things have really been hopping for me in the last little while, so I have not had too much time to write any posts.

We are in the final phases of putting together the financing and production deal for “The Side Show Christmas”. It is very exciting right now, if everything goes according to plan it will be produced in 2008 and for Broadcast on Teletoon in English and French, Christmas 2008. More details to follow soon.

Thanks to everyone who has worked on this to date, your great efforts have helped to visualize and make the story real for our production partners.

This is a concept design for Santa’s Workshop.

This is a concept design for the Performers Lounge, or Green Room back stage at the Side Show.

 

Cheshire Smile Animation inks development deal with CBC Kids.

Cheshire Smile Animation Announces Development Deal with CBC Kids on the 13 x 3 minute live action animated series Toby’s Canada for CBC Television and SCN.

14 November 2007 – (Saskatoon, SK) Producer Cheshire Smile Animation announce the beginning of development on Toby’s Canada, a television series for 2 – 6 year old children starring Toby, a digi-savy seven year old who makes and stars in his own short docu-videocasts about his experiences discovering the magic and diversity of Canada.

Toby’s Canada is produced by Tim Tyler of Cheshire Smile Animation Inc. and Mike and Mark Birkland. It features the writing talents of Darwin C. Vickers (Ned’s Newt, Jimmy Neutron, Pelswick), and will be developed for production in the summer of 2008.

“We are excited to be working with CBC Kids and SCN in the development of Toby’s Canada” says producer Tim Tyler of Cheshire Smile Animation Inc., “We have been working for a long time on the development of this property, and it is great to see an appetite at the from CBC Kids for original Saskatchewan television content with a National Focus.”

Toby is an inspired, animated (literally and figuratively) child in a live-action world who is passionate about discovering the many facets to life in Canada. As a roving vid-caster, Toby travels the nation finding entertaining educational and cool stories about Canadian geography, locations and life for his friends watching on television and the internet at home. Children love Toby. They look up to him because he is versatile and talented with computers, cameras and technology and he uses those skills, along with his natural curiosity and good humor, to explore the Canadian places and stories that children want to learn more about.

Established in 2000, Cheshire Smile Animation Inc. combines broadcaster focused development and production of animated entertainment properties with service animation and interactive production.

Toby’s Canada is developed in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the Saskatchewan Communications Network, with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund.

 

Side Show Christmas – Animation Designs V

A concept design for an icicle forest on the journey to the North Pole.