Steve Roberts is a writer and illustrator at Radgoll Productions. Amongst other projects, he acted as lead creative on the CBeebies series Twirlywoos, and he very kindly agreed to answer some questions about the making of the progamme.
Could you briefly explain the process of how an episode of Twirlywoos is written?
The first thing we did when writing an episode of Twirlywoos was agree on a schema that we wanted to explore. We made sure we identified and understood the appropriate schema clearly. To do this, we worked closely with Professor Nutbrown of Sheffield University. The second thing we did is work out what we could do to make children laugh.
Each episode of Twirlywoos is split into two sections.
At the beginning of every episode, there is a live-action section, where the Twirlywoos venture out into the real world. We set this first part of the story in the real world because we wanted to reflect back to a child a situation they may recognise. Everything in our world is new and exciting for the Twirlywoos.
Whilst out and about, they observe an activity that would clearly illustrate the schema that underpins that particular episode. For example, in Up and Down, we decided that the clearest way to show the schema was to have a child bounce a ball up and down. Once we had found this, we could have fun thinking of how the Twirlywoos could interpret the schema in silly ways. The Twirlywoos would start off simply replicating the action, but then it would escalate until it became ridiculous.One of the most challenging parts of the writing process was coming up with a funny and surprising ending to these live action parts of the show. The Twirlywoos' action always needs to change the real world in some way before they headed off back to their boat.
The second half of each episode is the fully stop-frame "Back on the Boat" section. At the beginning of writing this segment, we would choose which Visitor we would use to illustrate the chosen schema. This could be the Very Important Lady, the Stop-Go Car, the Box, etc. The Twirlywoos' life runs to a regular routine. We would use the Visitors to disrupt this in funny and unpredictable ways.For Up and Down, it was decided that Peekaboo was the best character to illustrate the schema.Peekaboo’s house was a useful device. The objects Peekaboo took out from the hole in the wall would always have a nautical theme, so in Up and Down, Peekaboo pulls out some stretchy rubbery seaweed. If the Twirlywoos bounced up and down on the seaweed like a trampoline, it would illustrate the schema clearly.
In this particular episode, the two main ways in which the schema is shown are with the bouncing ball and with the Twirlywoos bouncing up and down on the seaweed. But then we would think of other fun ways we could show examples of the schema throughout the episode. So the schema is also shown by the Marching Band’s trumpet-like hats going up and down, Peekaboo jumping up and down as the rubbery seaweed is pulled across the boat, and also when Chickedy and Chick bounce up and down on GreatBigHoo’s tummy.
The narrator would comment on some of these instances of the schema after the action as confirmation, to allow the child to make the connection first. However, for some we left the narration off, for the child at home to spot and develop their thinking and hopefully comment on the schema when it happens.
The same schema (pattern of movement) is reinforced in different ways throughout the episode (Twirlywoos, "Up and Down," 2015)
There were not a lot of re-writes on the show. Right from the beginning of the writing process, we would share our ideas and philosophy with CBeebies.Along with storyboards, we produced thorough black-and-white animatics. The timing and action of these animatics were very close to the finished programme, so they proved to be very helpful for checking whether the story was working well. This was a critical stage, allowing us to be be confident of the story before any animation was created.
Stop-frame animation can be notoriously expensive. Was there a particular reason that Ragdoll chose to use it rather than say, CGI?
We chose stop-frame because it is a fantastic form of animation. I’ve always been a massive fan. Most of my favourite programmes from childhood were stop-frame animated. We wanted the Twirlywoos to look as warm, soft, squishy and real-looking as possible: the hand-made puppets used in stop-frame animation were perfect for this. The Twirlywoos and their world needed to look warm, cosy and tactile, and having sets and puppets built seemed the best way to go to achieve this.
And finally, what do you think is the key to Twirlywoos' success? Hopefully it has been successful because it has entertained children and made them laugh. We hope that children engage with our work because it reflects back to them – in an imaginative way – conditions that they can relate to in themselves and in the world around them.
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I am very grateful to Steve for his highly detailed answers.
ANONYMOUS. "Steve Roberts". Manchester Animation Festival (2017). Available online at http://www.manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk/guests/steve-roberts/ Accessed on 24 April 2018.
Twirlywoos. Season 1, episode 10: "Up and Down" (2015). UK: Ragdoll. Broadcast on CBeebies, 6 March 2015, 09.25.
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