Archives for July 2011

Hello, my name’s Alison and I’m the Head of CBeebies Production, Animation and Acquisitions – yes, I know that’s a bit of a mouthful! I look after the BBC in-house teams who produce much of the TV, Radio and Online content for the Channel and I also work with the animation companies who make many more of your favourite CBeebies programmes.



This is a very exciting time for us – we’ve started to move into our brand new home at Media City in Salford. The first teams arrived here at the beginning of June, and over the next few months our numbers will grow as more people move from London and we’re joined by new colleagues from the North of England. Not everyone can make the move though, and so sadly we’re having to say goodbye to some of our London colleagues …



As well as moving house, we’re busy making new shows, producing new content for the website and setting up a new CBeebies Radio service online – you’ll have heard about some of these things already, but I have some new news as well!



Let’s start with TV -

• Location filming has begun for a new series of Mr. Bloom’s Nursery

• Later in the summer we’ll start making another series of ZingZillas in the studios at Media City.

• Something Special finished filming this week for the latest series and will be on your screens soon.



And that’s not all – we’re producing two brand new series this Summer.



• Firstly, The Lingo Show, which introduces your little ones to different languages, is coming to television after its amazingly successful launch on the CBeebies website early this year.

• And then there’s Justin’s House, starring …. yes, you’ve guessed it …. Justin Fletcher! This will be a show full of fun, songs and mayhem as Justin is joined by some familiar faces from CBeebies and beyond.



On the website -

• If you have’t tried it already, check out the fantastic My CBeebies Garden where your child can explore different environments, interact with CBeebies characters and even make the weather change!

• Coming soon is a brilliant new website for Something Special, with games, new footage and a library of Makaton signs for you to learn.

• The new Grown Ups site is getting more exciting every day, and when it launches it will be packed with all sorts of fun and interesting stuff for you parents and carers, helping you to get the most out of all our programmes.



Radio on the go –

As of this week, you can now explore new CBeebies radio content via the website, with specially created material for “Little Listeners” aged 2 and 3, and “Big Listeners” aged 4-6. There are stories, songs and more, and here’s the best bit - you can listen with your child online or download content and take it away with you. Play it in the car on your next journey, or just keep it handy so your child can listen to CBeebies Radio wherever you are. Alex has done a great ‘how to’ video explaining it all – check it out here.

You can see we’re going to be busy over the coming months! So enjoy the rest of your Summer, and watch and listen out for all this great new content on CBeebies.



I’ll be back soon to tell you more!



Alison

Hello,



I’m Sally, the Producer on the new CBeebies Grown-ups website. We’re in the process of making improvements to the site so I thought I’d drop by our blog to let you all know how it’s going.



Before I tell you about changes to the Grown-ups site, I wanted to tell you more about me as I’m still excited. I’ve only been at the BBC for four months and came straight into CBeebies HQ. I have a 2 and a 5 year old at home, so, as you can imagine I was a huge CBeebies fan before I even started. When I saw this job advertised I jumped at it. My boss, who interviewed me, still laughs to this day at how overly excited I was when I walked into the CBeebies HQ and saw the famous logo. Although I’m very qualified for this job, I never thought I’d actually get my dream job! I’ve not been disappointed - everyone is truly lovely and to top it all, I met Mr Bloom AND the veggies in my first week. I am a very popular Mum at home!



Anyhow, back to Grown-ups. The current Grown-ups site has been around since 2005 and last year a report was conducted that found parents thought it a little dry and that users found it difficult to navigate their way around. There is a lot of good content in there but we needed to make discovery more intuitive – the hope is that grown-ups will be able to unlock the magic that lives within CBeebies, and use it to its full potential.



We hope the new site will be a favourite for parents and carers to visit when they want to dive deeper into CBeebies and find specific programmes, activities or support for their needs. I can’t give you too much more detail yet without spoiling the surprise, but there will also be a few treats just for us grown-up fans too.



We’ve been very busy consulting diverse groups of parents, grandparents and other carers to ask for their help to shape the way the site will look and work. We’ve also been talking to parents and carers about what supportive features they would like to see on the site. So far, they’ve all been very positive and excited at what we can offer.



Talking of the grown-up fan base – our new facebook page and Twitter feed have already been launched and give us a place to talk to parents and bond over our secret (or not so secret) love for CBeebies. Our social media presence is only new and still growing in numbers but we have already had already some good fun – such as “You know you’re a CBeebies Dad when…” – and the chance to ask the Producer of Mr Bloom some questions.



As our new social media offering is proving such a popular way to talk to you all and we are getting so much positive feedback and comment on it, we’ve decided to close the current message board so we can concentrate on talking to you grown-up fans on these more dynamic social media sites and this, the grown-ups blog. This approach is being used across BBC Online – you can read more about the approach here. If you’ve not done so already, join in by ‘Liking’ our Facebook page or 'Following' us on Twitter. (Just go to Facebook.com/cbeebies (CBeebies TV Channel) or look for ‘@CbeebiesHQ’ on Twitter.) Don’t forget to let your friends know too!



We’re really excited about the changes and we’ll be keeping you updated with improvements we’re making to the CBeebies Grown-ups site on our Facebook and Twitter pages. For starters, we’ll be asking what you think of the existing Grown-ups site, and whether you’ve used it. Why not join in the excitement?



See you soon,



Sally



X

So, it’s that time of year again, July is underway. Time to roll up your sleeves, don the wellies and get out in the garden for a spot of good old... Television making!?! Yup, that’s right we’re going back to the Nursery for a second series and I cant bloomin’ wait!

The news that we were going to get ‘another go’ with The Veggies this year was fantastic. By the end of filming the last year there were lots of excited thoughts floating around about improvements, developments, elaborations that could all be made IF we got a second series. Well as of Monday 4th we’ll be implementing those pipe dreams so please, if you want to do ‘Sunshine dance’ over the weekend to ward off any looming bad weather, we’d much appreciate it. (In fact, if you could keep it up for the next 4 weeks, that’d be even better...)



In addition to 25 brand new episodes of top Veggie action, there’s also a wild card been thrown into the mix as a cheeky 26th. It’s a ‘Mr Bloom Special’ and features Mr B and the Veggies going out into the wilds of the North West to visit the Tiddlers. The premise involves transforming an unused public area into a spanking new community garden and it’s pretty exciting. Work began on this last week, where we shot the initial scenes. It’s a great project that requires a completely new format for everyone to get their heads round, so it’s all hands to the pump, but fingers crossed it’ll be a fantastic addition to the new series.



As for the remaining 25 Episodes, you can expect everything that featured in the first series, as well as a few next extras. There are two new Veggies in the nursery (more news on them later..), Compo seems to have undergone a bit of an upgrade plus, there’s a whole lot more to be heard from Sebastian, the debonair Aubergine. This time round it’s been an even greater pleasure writing and devising for the show. Knowing how it looks, how the characters / puppets respond, how the Tiddlers can be involved it’s really allowed us to push the boat out creatively. In addition, now, when the Tiddlers roll up to the TV set, they’ll be bringing expectations and preconceptions of what they’ve seen on the box at home. I’m really looking forward to this. Now they know the veggies, their characters and also Mr Bloom it will be interesting to see how this may affect the show.



Harking on about this point, when we were filming the special episode last week we were working next to a school. Naturally. at the end of the day a veritable tribe of infants surrounded our location to see what was going on. Usually I don’t get spotted as Mr Bloom, but given I was dressed in the costume and that there were camera’s all over the place, there was little choice but to own up. However, it was really inspiring to hear their responses to the show and it’s characters. Admittedly, there was a fair amount of heckling such as , ‘Can you autograph my forehead?’ and ‘Is that your real hair!?!’ but also impersonations of the characters, song singing / chanting and insight into what they were enjoying about it all. One child asked me, (with a completely straight face) ‘Mr Bloom? When are you going to take your mask off?’ That’s it I thought. It’s out there now, in the public realm. Anything could happen. Be prepared!



Thanks to everyone who posted questions for me - I think I'm going to be grilled with the rest of them at a later date but here are a couple of choice ones I've been given:

If you could be a vegetable, what would you be and why?



If I could be a vegetable I would want to be Spinach. It’s fab word, the leaves look super comfortable and it’s not buried down deep down in the ground, (wouldn’t like that). That said, when playing this game with others I have been told that I’m much more like root ginger!?! Not sure what that says about me, but there you go.



Do you find yourself singing the ‘Meet the Veggies’ song when you're not in the garden?



Yes. I sing Meet The Veggies everyday. There’s no avoiding it. It’s inevitable. I usually try and sing it in the morning, with a view to getting it out the way, leaving the rest of the day ‘Veggie Free’. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t and I end up with a refrain in the late afternoon. Either way, it hasn’t driven me over the edge which I think is testimony to the superb composer. He’s done a proper good job there!



Ben (Mr Bloom)