Tue, Feb 26th 2008, 10:59
The series we worked on in 2007 has aired on CBBC (25th Feb 08, 4:30pm). The series was conceived by BBC assistant producer Phil Cooper. We worked with the BBC to realise the idea, with Greg designing the series, Myles voicing and singing for some of the characters, and the pair of us writing the music, co-writing the episodes and directing the excellent animation team until it was all in the can just before Christmas.
Thu, Jun 12th 2008, 10:28
CBBC's Pedro and Frankensheep are screening as part of the official programme at Annecy 2008. The episode selected is 'Fool Moon' which sees Pedro and Frank fiddling with the tides with disastrous consequences. The series was created by Phil Cooper at the BBC. We directed and co-wrote the episodes, with Greg designing the look, and me doing the voices of Frank and Hugo. We also wrote the music. Watch an episode on YouTube now or nine of the ten at CBBC.
Tue, Jul 1st 2008, 13:16
With the fourth season of Doctor Who drawing to a close, I would just like to point out that this series was even more special because I was in it. Sort of. In Steven Moffat's opening episode about the library, the little girl is watching a cartoon - Pedro and Frankensheep - as designed by Greg and as voiced by me (Frank)!
There was Pedro full screen replacing the Doctor's image - nice! And there was Frank's voice chuntering away in the background. So in a very real sense I am a prime time actor and writer. Sort of.
Fri, Jan 30th 2009, 09:20
Received an email from an old friend this morning that Pedro and Frankensheep were there on the BBC front page. And indeed they are - though probably not for long as they update the front page about 3 times a day. Great news though!
Mon, Jul 6th 2009, 08:26
Coming as we do from the guerilla school of filmmaking we have a tendency to try and do as much as we can in one of our films. That means the story, the design, but also the voices and the music too. Perhaps we are Jack-of-all-Trades, or maybe just control freaks?
In The Moon Bird we made a decision early on that we would make this a non-dialogue film. There were three main reasons: (1) it immediately makes the film more international which is important when you're entering loads of film festivals (2) it presents a challenge to us as filmmakers - we have to create a story that can be followed through visual storytelling alone and (3) initially we thought it would be nice to get a big name actress to do narration and voices, but they were going to cost a third of the budget.
So... this time we're not doing the voices, and neither is anyone because there's no actual talking. But what about the music?
Sometimes we're quite instinctive about our soundtracks and we'll go into the studio quite late on with some ideas and see what emerges on the day. But other times we'll start looking at the music a long time beforehand and try to take a more considered approach.
This was how it worked with Pedro and Frankensheep. We talked with Exec Producer Gillian Scothern and Producer-Creator Phil Cooper about the kind of music we needed for the series. There were titles and credits songs, background music and then feature songs sung by Hector and Hugo the sheep ticks. In this case the music was created over a series of weeks and months. You can listen to some of the Pedro songs on our music player.
And this is also the approach we're taking to The Moon Bird. We've already created seven basic themes for the film. Over the coming weeks we'll test and develop more themes, and work some of them up to finished tracks. The test themes are useful for adding flavour to the animatic which we're creating at the moment.
We've found that music and soundscape should not be underestimated in a film. Sometimes in a comedy, you might have been working on a scene for so long you're not sure if it's funny anymore. Add the sound effects and music and suddenly it comes alive again. And in a piece like Moon Bird, which is darker, we hope that the music will convey a powerful sense of mood and atmosphere.
The music we've created isn't song-based as such. We have gone for a much more expressive form of soundtrack which is really using a few simple sounds and instruments together to create a sense of wonder, or dread, or discovery, or discomfort. Here's a sample of one of the themes we've produced.
To polish the music, we always head down the road to Bidford on Avon to see our friend Paul Johnston at Rhythm Studios. He's been mixing the sound for our films (and bands) for years. He gives that final touch of magic, plus he understands Midi which is like some kind of weird alchemy.
Tue, Dec 1st 2009, 15:37
Pedro and Frankensheep has been repeated on the digital CBBC channel about a million times since it's debut at the beginning of 2008, but last night 30 November 2009, the crazy scientist and his lovable robo-sheep finally made it onto BBC One. Wahoo! Follow the rest of the series on weekdays at 4.10pm.
