Derry here we come

PUNKY is among four nominees in the Celtic Media Festival's Children's TV awards section alongside two from BBC Alba(Scotland) and one from Wales so I'm hotfooting it to the lovely city of Derry this evening.

Regardless of what happens tomorrow aft, it's a great upbeat excuse to return to the city. But then you don't need much of an excuse to visit Derry... except the five hour EACH WAY by train. Which is why I'm breaking records to try and get as much material to the stage of printing so that I have plenty of work to entertain me en route!

In case you haven't heard and are interested in attending, I'm organising a third networking event for animators, animation directors and writers on April 30th. Same place, same time, but it's filling fast so let me know if you want to come! The group is now officially called the Creatives in Animation Network.

New nomination for Punky

PUNKY has been shortlisted in the Celtic Media Festival! Even better, CMF is being held in Derry, one of my favourite cities, on 18 - 20 April!

The Next Animation Networking Event for writers and animation directors...

Yup, it's a snappy title. I can't help them - they just flood from the keyboard!

Anyway, following on the success and popularity of the first networking event, I'm organising another one to take place on March 12th in Temple Bar.

The purpose of these events is to bring writers and animation directors together and see if we can't start collaborating with each other on various projects from shorts to features to series to, even, books. Who knows? There was so much creativity in the SDGI Screening Room the last time that if I hadn't called it to a close, I suspect we might still be there now! (Okay, slight exaggeration.)

There will be another event six weeks later on April 23rd and I'm hoping that we can get a Facebook Page up for on-line networking after the next one. There is a waiting list from the last event on Jan 31st but if you want to be part of the momentum, let me know.

PUNKY Dresses Up For The IFTA Awards Night....

Gearing up for a big day on Saturday 11th.

With PUNKY up for two IFTA nominations... with floor length gown and tux specified for entry along the red carpet into the new Conference Centre for the award ceremony... this could be one of the biggest nights for PUNKY!

The nominations are for Childrens/ Young People's Programme and for Sound Design. To everyone who voted for us, a heartfelt thanks.

But then it has already been a big nine months for PUNKY between the launch at the end of April, multiple screenings on RTEjr since May 3rd, to the overwhemingly positive response internationally - virally via the web, DVD's being sent overseas and word of mouth - to Gerard O'Rourke winning European Producer of the Year at Cartoon Forum last September and Target Entertainment coming on as distributor to launch the series internationally at MIPCom last October...

So Saturday already feels like a real celebration of all that has been achieved -- and very far from the scribblings of an idea that I had back in 2007!

INAUGURAL ANIMATION NETWORKING EVENT

Animators need writers and writers who like to write animation scripts need someone to bring them alive.

Here’s an opportunity to informally meet your counterpart and, hopefully, strike up relationships that might lead to new, creative and wonderful work in animation

On Monday 30th at 7pm in the Screen Directors’ Guild Screening Room in Temple Bar, The Screen Directors Guild of Ireland (SDGI) and The Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild (IPSG) are inviting writers and animation directors to the first ANIMATION NETWORKING EVENT.

The idea is that animation directors and writers interested in or already writing in animation can meet in comfort, with a cup in their hand and get to know each other. The hope is that various collaborations and partnerships may form that will lead to interesting work in the field. It came about from a Screen Training Ireland gig when I broached the subject of where, as a writer, I could submit animation scripts. There didn’t really seem to be anywhere. Most companies create in-house and if you can’t draw, it can be hard to get a writing paw in the door.

And we need each other. Take PUNKY. I could have rattled around with that idea for years. As I have done with lots of other animation ideas and scripts. But for Monster Animation deciding to put their creative juices into it, it would still be an idea on a page. This, as a writer is frustrating. (Okay, basically, I wish I could draw!) To date, it’s turning into a very successful series that is on the verge of selling internationally in five countries that I know of, won the Producer of the Year Award for Gerard O’Rourke and has been nominated for two IFTAs.

But it seems to be crucial to develop ideas with the animation directors of companies, for the simple reason that if they are employed by a company, they need to be involved in most ideas produced by that company. Bringing a written idea from outside is difficult.

Surely for animators who need new ideas, who haven’t studied screenwriting or find it less interesting than drawing, it must be equally frustrating.

So this new group will meet on a regular basis. All animation directors and writers working or interested in working in animation are welcome; if you can’t make this one, let me know you’re interested and I’ll put your name down for the next one.

Could be fun!! Could be an interesting way to meet fellow writers and animators!! Could be the start of something amazing!!

NEW dedicated PUNKY blog...

http://punkyandhercreator-lindsayjsedgwick.blogspot.com/

I have so many files of articles and pictures and feedback from around the world that I've decided to make a home for it all. Also, she's out there now, knocking on receptive doors and looking for international homes so it's a way of celebrating her progress as she goes.

Please comment - and let me know your own personal story - if you have one - of PUNKY.

And if you're looking for another animation series, let me know cos I may just have the perfect one for you!

Punky's producer is European Producer of the Year

Gerard O'Rourke, the producer of the series I created, PUNKY, has just, in the last half hour been awarded European Producer of the Year at Cartoon Forum in Poland on the back of Punky! RTE got the Broadcaster of the Year award for young people's programming - I'm sure I have the terms wrong - and Punky's part of that too.

But fantastic news for Gerard - he pushed so hard to make this series and it wasn't easy!

Punky is in The News!!!

Tune in to tonight's Six-One News on RTE1 to see Punky officially launched.

Put together a packed room of adults, children and adults who are still children at heart; add a few short speeches, a blue rabbit called Oggie; present with a couple of episodes of what we believe is the world's first mainstream cartoon with a central character who is not only fun and loveable but also has Down syndrome - and stir gently ... The result: a wonderful, quite fantastic celebration of what can happen if you are lucky enough to get that germ of an idea before anyone else, to be pushy enough to create the world around that idea and believe it has to be made, to get support when you need it - (Irish Film Board Development Loan, such a lovely pre-Christmas bit of news in 2007) - and a producer - Gerard O'Rourke of Monster Animation who truly believed it had to be made ...

It was a fantastic event, so much absolute and happy positivity in one room!!! It was on Radio 1's lunchtime news too - don't think I'll ever get used to hearing my own voice on radio though but this is such a wonderful whirl and I could get used to that!!!

Now it feels real...

The first three episodes of PUNKY are finished their sound edits beautifully; the title sequence is perfect, and now all the other episodes - at different stages of completion/ development are all falling into line behind.

They look fantastic, so congrats to all involved, especially to Monster Animation and the fantastic animators, and very especially to producer Gerard O'Rourke who had the vision to know this series would work...

Waiting for the call...

In twenty minutes, I'm due to be interviewed by Skype by a New York based network called Family network about the origins of my series PUNKY.

I'm as nervous as a kitten and it's ridiculous! It's not as if I don't know the answers - I only spent three years developing Punky and her world!

Fortunately, I don't even have a webcam - I barely have Skype! - , so I don't have to worry about what I look like. And I am so happy to have an opportunity to talk about this idea that I lived with and sweated over and fought for and which is finally in production.

So where did it come from? There were germs sown when my sister Karen, an occupational therapist in the Central Remedial Clinic would bring children home that had special needs. One autistic boy smashed my little red kettle. I couldn't understand why the rules were different for him than for me.

Then there was the fact that my mother made no secret of the fact that she worried all through the pregnancy that there might be something wrong with me. She had seven other children. She was 46 and a quarter when I was born. She was told I'd be a fool or a genius. She always said she hadn't made up her mind yet!

In more recent years a friend of mine told me stories about her younger brother, David, who had Down's syndrome. I loved them. I loved his perspective of the world. The way he interpreted it and could make the mundane, make things we take for granted, fresh and new.

My partner has a son who is severely autistic. My daughter was six when they met and she really didn't know what to expect. She tried to make him notice her, to talk to him, but she was a child and under his radar. It's only in the last ten months that he has registered her and she has been so thrilled every time - when he stopped after she called him, when he almost-sort-of 'hugged' her! -, when he pointed out that we were leaving her behind. He knew she was one of the family.

But the relationship he and his sister have is really special. I've never seen anyone so loved as he is and he is mad about her. It's probably because of her that he hugs and loves to be cuddled - on his terms.

But it's not easy being the sibling of a child with special needs and I decided I wanted to explore that relationship. Honestly, with humour and in a way that would make children more accepting of difference. They begin that way. It's only as they get older that they become judgemental.

But I also wanted to tell stories, to create a world, from her perspective. I wanted her to be the lead, I wanted her to decide how we interpreted the world and what was happening in it.

And so Punky, albeit in a slightly different incarnation, began. She emerged in a very funny animated short that hasn't been made yet. Then she dived into a live action/ cgi film script but there were too many stories in it for it to work fully. When I started toying with the TV series element, I knew I wanted it to be funny, to be honest, to be imaginative and to fell real, albeit as a cartoon. As children enjoyed the entertainment, they would be learning to accept difference.

The Irish Film Board weighed in with their support in the form of a Development Loan in 2007. I worked with Barbara Slade (Rugrats, Angelina Ballerina) as script consultant and then worked with Aidan Hickey for a while. But it was a hard one to get right - to work as a commercially attractive series a producer would feel able to make, and yet live up to everything I wanted from it.

Gerard O'Rourke of Monster liked the sound of it and the talks began. He supported it long after another producer would have turned tail and run because he really, really believed in it. Jason Tammemagi liked it too and came on as Director and so the saga began to roll towards the full scale production that is taking place now.

Interesting Times...

From feeling quite flat after that period of major productivity, things are looking up again. Next Tuesday, I see the rough cut of the first episode of my animation series, PUNKY, animated by Monster Animation under the directorial hand of Jason Tammemagi.

How many series are being made, in reality, in Ireland this year? To have one doing just that, thanks for the tenacity of the producer Gerard O'Rourke, is phenomenal and I can't wait.

On Wednesday, I get to see my latest great-nephew - my tenth great niece or nephew! (Scary, but true!) And on Thursday, I meet the director/ producer interested in putting my play - A Fresh Gale and Cold Chicken - into production next year. I had been told he required chasing; he himself told me to "hound him" and yet he was the one who made first contact looking for an early opportunity to meet. Which feels fantastic.

So I'm all spurred on again, juggling the different projects in my head that I want to get my teeth back into and thinking about my next play. There are a few I had to put on the back burner but are any of them the right one now? Would I be better coming up with something utterly new that captures the energy of this latest one? Or a children's play? Or a comedy?

I want to write so many things! Where is the time, and what should I really focus on?!

I can list at least five projects I really, really want to get back to.

Meanwhile, my daughter only wants me to play Littlest Pet Shop. We have worlds laid out in the sitting room with doll's house furniture, even if upside-down tables are doubling as beds, and each of us has a business. Mine is a book-store, hers is a magical park that covers a table, a shelf and a stool.

I've sneaked out to the office on the premise of collecting a new range of books for my characters - one hamster, one bird, two cats - to sell to hers. So long as I keep creating little books, I get to write a little more...

Nope, the idyll is over. She has informed me that my book-store is too full of books and it's time to take up the reins again. Sob!

School's back on September 1st.

PUNKY, the new animated series

The first episode of my TV series, PUNKY is now being animated by Monster Animation. There should be rushes to see - though I'm sure they're not called rushes in animation - by the middle of August.

I left the series as writer a few months ago. Hence the radio silence on the subject. The target market for the series had switched from the 9-11 year age group to pre-school (3-6 years). Try as I could, the pre-school market is one area of writing for which I don't seem to have the knack. The scripts I wrote and rewrote were being honed from larger stories, from a larger canvas, from a more complex series and I wasn't sure at the end what it was that I was meant to write. It wasn't a pleasant experience, despite the wonderful relationships I had with Monster, and was quite heart-breaking.

The writer they brought on board after this is Andrew Brenner, who created and wrote HUMF (78 episodes), which is also pre-school. He makes it look easy and maybe it is easier, if that's an age group for whom you want to write. I hadn't, but I fought that and came a cropper. Learning curves, don't you just love 'em!!

Once I'd come to terms with it, the pressure came off. Once I'd seen the first script, which is sweet and lovely and has the spirit I was trying to capture in my proposal, I knew it would be a fantastic series.

Now, I can't wait now to see my adorable Punky come to life. I invented her back in 2007 and yes, the project changed and some aspects that I loved, were lost en route to a series that would work and would sell.

And now she is finally being 'born'. How cool is that!?

PUNKY, Pettigrew the snail and the challenge of writing for pre-schoolers

The snail Pettigrew, is behaving herself. She now has a nice shimmer of purple (nail varnish) and sunset kiss (lip gloss) on her shell and seems to be adapting well to life in a flowerpot.

That the selfsame flowerpot got flooded at the weekend while my daughter was at cub camp and despite my being given strict instructions on The Care of Snail Farm While I’m Away this doesn’t seem to have fazed either it or my daughter. She just shook it out, touched up its shell and put it in another pot. Makes me wonder what these poor snails did in a previous life.

Meanwhile, I’m adapting to Punky. Writing for 3-6 year-olds is a challenge. Yes, we are aiming at the top of that age range but I’m not an animator and this, I’m learning, is a big disadvantage when writing for this target group.

For a start, stories have to be simple, which is good. (Forgetting for now the great stories that worked when Punky was a longer form for an older age group. Muffled sob stage left). In addition, this age group tend to listen more than watch, so everything important has to be said as well as shown, in case they miss it. So I’m writing lines that in any other form would be redundant and ‘on the nose’. But they work.

Events have to be perfectly linear. If Punky decides to do something – aloud – then she does it and then we have to see the result in the next scene. There’s no opportunity to let several events build up and bring everything together in a climax. It has to be cause and effect every step of the way or they’ll miss it and it won’t make sense.

Transitions are another one. Time passing, location hops that an older audience would comprehend, just don’t work. For example, if a character is upstairs, they can’t then be downstairs in the next scene. Either we see them leave the room and head down or, if there is a significant change in time, we have a transition. This means, we show time passing.

Only we can’t have anything written because this is for children aged 3-6. So we have the classics of a sun moving across a sky, a clock's hands spinning or, ideally, someone going to bed and waking up but that takes longer.

Oh and scenes are more static, of course. At its simplest, every angle is a different drawing. You can’t turn the camera around and look upstairs so the less of this that is needed, the better.

Scene set-ups need a visual clarity too. You can’t simply have

INT – PUNKY’S ROOM

The alarm goes off, startling Punky. Her hand reaches out to turn it off.

You have to say at the top of the scene that Punky is in bed, not assume they will know. This comes down to not being an animator. If I was, I’d think in terms of the visual set up and what we need to see drawn, and then create the flow of the scene from this. One suggestion has been to make a little set and move the characters around to give myself a sense of what the animators need to see on the page. Everything they need to draw for the scene to work has to be spelt out at the very top of the written scene.

So the word now is that we really only have story room for Punky and her dog; yes, there are other characters but the focus has to be her point of view. Insistently so. Because this is what makes it original. It is also what I always intended for the series. It’s the old adage – let your main character drive the story.

So, at its most basic, I am being driven by Punky back to the root and core of all storytelling and all screenwriting.

Punky, an update, and snails

The first batch of scripts are gone despite a birthday party for my daughter which lasted 24 hours. Did we ever have them?

Overheard were snatches of "truth or dare" and "it's okay, we can watch Glee here and your parents will never know" and something about setting the alarm for a midnight feast. Fortunately the dog snored through it all, my daughter believes her alarm clock broken and so they slept through and the worst 'truth's that seemed to emerge were to do with fancying a boy years ago and "once I wore yellow lipstick but I don't know why". They're eleven.

The struggle to write when you have kids, and I have only one, is sometimes exhausting. Just rewriting one seven minutes script - I thought they'd take about 20 minutes to rewrite; they took about 70; I'd swear it's harder than writing a feature! - involved seven interruptions.

My daughter wanted me to adopt a snail. I kept fobbing her off, thinking that the work would, as I said, take 20 minutes max. Initially, I was gentle but firm. Then I explained that the more she interrupted the longer it would take me to finish. She finally drew her horns in when my response to the repeated question - are you ready yet? - became an anguished and angry roar reminding her how she hates to be interrupted when she's doing something and THIS IS WORK!!!!!

And then felt immensely guilty. It was Sunday afternoon and she only wanted company. But I still finished the work. A deadline's a deadline. I'd hosted her friends for the guts of 24 hours, making sure they had a fantastic party, sleepover, excursion to the Science Museum - go, it's brilliant! - and this was why at least some of the work needed to be done on Sunday.

My daughter has decided to keep pet snails in various containers in the front garden. She varnishes their backs so you can tell them apart and takes them for walks on a string. I had to go through a similar procedure to the one we recently took when we got our rescue dog.

I named my snail - Pettigrew, just to be awkward, got the adoption form officially signed (looking suspiciously like the dog licence), purchased the habitat (a blue flower pot), the cover (a broken tile) and the food - a bag of dry rosemary needles - but postponed the varnishing, vet visit and decision on insurance.

I have a feeling men are better at separating work and family. Either they draw the boundaries more clearly and demand that separation. Or we keep the kids away, maybe that's it? As my mother put it, she was protecting us from him, not the other way round.

But if I could maintain that division, I wouldn't now be the proud but somewhat bemused owner of an embarrassed snail name Pettigrew.

PUNKY, the new animated series

Started work on what is to be the template script for the series last week. It's a challenge. When conceived, pitched and sold, PUNKY was for 4-7 year-olds and there were going to be 13 x 11 minute episodes. Now it's for age 3-6 and there will be twenty episodes of 7 minutes.

This means I actually only have 6 minutes and 20 seconds, after credits and opening sequence, in which to tell my stories. Locations have been reduced from school and home to home and surrounds. Stories have to be far simpler and told at a more gentle pace. Everything is in the air, most of the stories I developed no longer work - too complicated - and I have to find a way to achieve what I set out to do on an entirely different canvas.

The wisdom now is that kids over six don't watch cartoons, hence the age change although we will not dumb it down and are aiming at the top end ie the 6 year-olds. Despite the fact that my child, nearly 11, adores them, as do a large portion of her friends. As do I. I suspect this opinion has come from America, from the policy and money-making machines that are the big corporations. In the UK there are 21 children's channels available now, mostly American.

But the first script is done now and I'm awaiting feedback. I suspect that while fun, it is still too busy for the new age group. Once it works, we should know what we want the show to look and sound like now. Trouble is that every book I can find on writing for animation talk about the longer versions of scripts and older age ranges. So, apart from watching too many cartoons in the early morning as research, it's guesswork and instinct. Wish me luck!!