Archives for October 2011

Mike the Knight, an exciting new animation about a trainee knight (Mike!) and his family and friends in the kingdom of Glendragon, is about to launch on CBeebies.

Denise Green works at Hit Entertainment, the company that made Mike the Knight, and we interviewed her about this new show...

What do you do on Mike the Knight?



I'm a Line Producer and it's my job to make sure the different parts of the production all happen when they are supposed to. 

What is the order?



The scripts have to be written first, then we record the voices for the characters. We send the voices to the animation studio so that the animators can fit the animation to the character voices. 

Is the voice recording bit hard work?



Alfie Field, aged 12, voices Mike and Russell Tovey voices his dragon friend, Squirt. All of our voice artists have to use their imagination to help bring each of the characters to life. 

What's Mike the Knight all about?



Mike the Knight is about a young boy called Mike who is a knight in training. His father, the King, is away visiting far-off lands. Mike helps his mum, Queen Martha, look after the kingdom of Glendragon, which leads Mike on lots of adventures.

And who else do we meet?



We meet his dragon friends, Sparkie and Squirt and his horse, Galahad. Mike has a mission in every episode and while he’s always keen to do his best, he is still learning and often gets help from his enthusiastic sister Evie, a trainee wizard who loves to use magic whenever she can, but just like her brother she is still in training so, more often than not, her magic goes a bit wrong. 

But things turn out right in the end?



Mike has a rallying cry “Be a Knight do it Right” and with a little help from his friends, Mike manages to rise to the challenge of each of his missions.

Where did the idea come from?



It's an original idea that we saw in 2008 sent in by Alexander Bar who created Lunar Jim, which we immediately thought had great potential as a medieval show for pre-schoolers with knights, trolls, Vikings and dragons had never been made before. 

Did it change much in the planning process?



We introduced new characters and locations and also lost some - originally Mike had 4 dragon friends - that's a lot of characters to keep busy all the time!

What do you think that children will like about Mike the Knight?



The sense of fun and adventure and, like Mike, they’ll learn how to “Be a Knight and do it Right”! They’ll also love exploring the kingdom of Gelndragon and each watching to see what Mike’s sword turns into in each episode (it’s something new each time).

What was the funniest thing that happened to you during the production?



We finished a voice recording session one afternoon and decided to go out for lunch to a very busy pizzeria. Suddenly three people walked in, towards our table. From a distance we had no idea who they were but as they got closer, we realised they were from the post production studio. Not only that, they were all dressed up as medieval knights!



Below, Denise Green of Hit Entertainment

Mike the Knight starts Monday 31st November at 4.05pm

Hello I’m Cerrie Burnell - CBeebies presenter, writer, Mama and, as of last week, cloud spotter.

Just over a week ago my daughter and I made the journey north, leaving behind us the sprawling metropolis of London, and heading to Manchester: The City of Clouds. We named it that because she is fascinated and enchanted by the sky. The moon, stars, sun and clouds are all things which delight her, and as we’ve discovered, the autumn sky in Manchester is forever changing. Perhaps it’s the absence of tower blocks, or perhaps it’s just the wonder of being somewhere new, but the skyline definitely feels closer, as if it’s somewhere we could visit as easily as going to the park to collect conkers, “Today were going to the sky to collect puffs of cloud”.

At first it was strange not to have the hustle and bustle of London on my doorstep, and as we’re no longer in the city centre (we’re in a leafy suburb, which compared to Zone 2 is fairly sleepy) our soundscape has completely changed. The rumbling trains have been replaced by the patter of rainfall, and the noise of night bus has vanished forever, replaced by the echo of footsteps and distant laughter of people wondering home from the pub.

We live in a trendy version of a village, a mixture of charity shops, budget supermarkets, cafes and gorgeously unaffordable boutiques. Our first few days were chaos and I didn’t have the chance to cook (and sadly Katy wasn’t available to rescue me), so we got to sample the eclectic local cuisine. It wasn’t too expensive and everywhere we went the people were wonderfully child friendly - which makes things so much easier when you’re a single parent (the last thing you need if your kid’s kicking off in a restaurant is people glaring at you).

On my daughter’s first day at nursery I discovered that navigating the trams with a buggy is, to my relief, so much easier than the tube. I’m not pushed or accidentally knocked, and because it’s not underground, there’s no fight for oxygen. To my bright-eyed three-year-old, the fact that a tram travels on tracks and the road, is in the same league as the discovery of space travel.

I’ve been a working mum since she was really young, so I’m not worried about her settling in at the new nursery. I’m very lucky that she’s fairly confident/ spirited/ bossy and so as long as I walk in like a beacon of happiness declaring how much I love the place, she is likely to follow. I’m slightly nervous though, in case I don’t like it. I wasn’t able to view it before we moved because it was still being built, but I did research the company online and spoke to the manager in detail. So when we arrive and enter the huge, bright airy space (complete with an outdoor wooden castle), I really am as happy as I look. It’s beautiful, modern, and all the furniture is the kind of stuff I’d buy for my own home. I can see my daughter’s imagination is going to be really stimulated. Within twenty minutes she’s forgotten me and is instructing the lovely staff that she will be painting all day and that she wants pasta for lunch!

Now that she’s happily settled, I can finish the unpacking and start rehearsing the steps for our fabulous CBeebies ‘Children In Need’ song: JUMP UP AND DANCE. Sid and I have already recorded the lyrics to a very catchy tune composed especially for the event. This week myself, Katy, Alex, Sid and of course Pudsey, will shoot the music video in the piazza outside our new northern home. Andy , who is filming his own new show at the moment is going to be keyed on along with a selection of animations, so it will look as if were dancing with everyone’s favourite CBeebies friends. We’ve got our colourful dance outfits sorted and we’ll certainly have our dancing shoes on. Soon you’ll be able to download it and get your little ones jumping up and dancing all in the name of a great cause. I absolutely cannot wait for you to see it.

With the dancing, the unpacking and the exploring of a new city, I’m quite busy. But one new thing I have learnt is that an umbrella can be also used as an accessory. For a London mum, it’s all about how chic you can look with a baby bag and stroller. In Manchester it’s all about the rain wear, such as the colour and print of your umbrella. Of course, I‘m continuously outdone by my three year old. No amount of rain can deter her joy, so whilst I stand getting windswept and rain-battered, she only gets lovelier and lovelier. And when she gazes up at the sky, she’s always on the lookout for storm clouds, because with storm clouds come puddles, and puddles are hours and hours of fun.

 Justin's House, CBeebies brand new comedy starring Justin Fletcher is finally here! We caught up with the show's two runners, Beth and Elliot to find out what it's been like working on the first ever CBeebies show to be filmed in front of a live studio audience...

 So what does being a runner on Justin's House involve?

B: Basically, being a runner involves assisting the production team however we're needed.

E: That can be anything from general fetching and carrying, to sending CDs and lyric sheets to the local schools involved so that they can learn the songs for the show. We're also on 'Little Monster Duty' every other week meaning I get to take part in the show and help our puppeteer, Kat operate Little Monster, who pops up all over the place in Justin's House causing trouble.

What's Justin's House all about?

B: Justin’s House is a slapstick, pantomime style comedy, and probably the closest thing CBeebies has to a sitcom! It's filmed in front of a live audience of 150 children which is a new experience for all of us...

E: In the first episode Justin (messy, prone to slapstick accidents) moves into his new house where he meets Robert, his extremely tidy live-in robot helper, and Little Monster, who the kids go crazy for - especially when she's being chased around the set by Justin and Robert! Every episode Dee Livery, (the delivery lady) comes to deliver the 'Justin Times', Justin's own personal newspaper. It tells him what's happening in Justin Town that day or which special guest is coming to visit - each episode it's a different CBeebies star, prepare yourself for some very funny cameos..

B: Throughout the rest of the series we see them play games, sing songs, cause chaos and throw a few custard pies along the way. .

What's an average day like for you in the studio?

B: An average day in the studio is very busy but great fun. In the morning we rehearse both shows with the cameras for the first time, which is amazing considering that only gives one morning to rehearse both episodes with actors and the camera crew together. We get the audience in and seated (no mean feat with 150 3-5 year olds!) then the filming begins. During the week our researchers Anna and Ellie visit them at school to teach them the songs for each episode so on the day the whole audience can sing along and get really involved.

E: It still really amazes me how much impact the live audience has on the show as their laughter and reaction to what they're seeing on stage really breathes new life into the shows that we've been rehearsing all week.

Do you have a favourite episode?

B: My favourite episode is called ‘The Tidy Prize’, where Chris Jarvis visits to show off about the Tidy Prize he has won for being the Tidiest person in Justin Town. Robert the Robot loves tidying, and is put out by Chris’ Tidy Prize and his top-of-the-range feather duster 'The Featherard 500'. Chris tries to teach Robert and Justin how to be as tidy but, they quickly realise that being tidy is actually really boring and get Little Monster on the case to trick Chris into getting really messy!

E: I really enjoyed 'Get Fit Justin', where Justin, spurred on by Robert and Katie from 'I Can Cook', decides it's time for a healthier lifestyle. There's a sequence where Justin runs to the shops to pick up salad ingredients only to come back each time to discover that they were already in the house. That whole scene really brought home what a funny guy Justin is and his wheezing and panting to the various camera positions showed you just how much stuff he has to remember in a scene.

What have you most enjoyed about working on Justin's house so far?

B: I think helping Kat do Little Monster in the first episode is still my favourite moment of the series. This one of my first jobs in Children’s TV, so it was really warming to be able to see how much the audience enjoyed the show and to hear them go mad for Justin and Little Monster.

E: The evening before we filmed the 'custard' episode with Auntie Justina, the cast and crew of the show gathered in the loading bay of the studio to watch Justin practice the show's end scene. This involved him placing a custard-filled bowler hat on his head that projected a stream of custard into the air. I remember standing watching and thinking that a couple of months before that moment I was working behind a bar and now I'm involved in something where I get to watch Mr. Tumble shoot custard from his head! It was a surreal but very enjoyable moment.