Between 1996 and 1998 I was employed by Ragdoll Productions
UK as a Storyboard Artist on a new children’s television series called ‘Teletubbies.’
I was fresh out of Film School and relocated to Stratford–upon-Avon
from London, where I was deposited in a porter cabin and then later my own
green caravan at the back of the set within the lovely Warwickshire countryside.
I worked directly with the show’s co-creator and writer
Andrew Davenport to visualize the scripts and establish a new visual grammar
aimed purely at pre-school children.
Each frame is carefully designed to engage the attention of the very
young. When I think back it does seem
strange that I worked with the writer instead of the show’s various directors,
but Andy was driving the show and had a very clear vision of how the show
should look, with input from co-creator Anne Wood.
Hard at work using a light box made by the art department,
which used to emit the heat of a small sun.
Due to the fast paced nature of continuous shooting and the
fact that we rarely had a buffer of scripts prior to the start of production,
pre-production effectively ran side-by-side with production. As such my drawing style became very
simplistic and cartoony in nature as I tried to convey the energy of the
performance as well as keeping in mind the strict positioning of objects and
characters within the frame.
Post it note king; singles frames showing the simple
cartoony style.
I developed a process whereby I would draw on post-it notes
and stick them to the Live TV show formatted scripts; this was so that
corrections could be made quickly on site after a brief meeting with Andy.
Here are some examples of Andy’s directions for me.
A copy of the first five pages of the shooting script for 'Little Lamb.'
When my employment came to an end with Ragdoll I had worked
on ninety, thirty minute scripts and enjoyed every minute of what was a very
unique period in my life which I always look back on with great affection.
The wall of reference.
Me on
set complete with dodgy 90s hair style and a poor attempt at a goatee beard.
This is so cool to see! plus all those photos of the set mind if I ask you some questions about your time on the show?
ReplyDeleteCould you scan those photos in that wall of reference? I would love to have a closer look at those.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. I'll have to have a rummage around for those photos, many of which are now quite faded Polaroids. I will try to get a batch together and re-create the 'wall of reference' for a later post.
DeleteThese are so cool! Awesome work, I was researching and writing a presentation about the history of the Teletubbies and these are super enlightening! You sir are very talented.
ReplyDeleteSorry just saw your comment. Thank you very much for your kind words. I hope the presentation went well.
ReplyDeleteI really adored those pictures! I'd love to see the full set of the pictures from the wall of reference! By the way do you know what the tubby toaster was made from ^ ^ was it made from metal or plastic :) I'd love to recreate it ^ ^
ReplyDelete