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A little show that’s become a big success, gaining 58 per
cent of its audience share on its original run, Dream Street combines state-of- the-art technology with good old-fashioned story-
telling techniques.The two ITV series of 13 ten minute programmes have proved hugely popular with its target audience of two to seven year olds - and have recently been released on video - vindicating the efforts of the close knit team behind it. Filmed at Pinewood by a crew of eight, the suc- cess story is all the more remarkable because of the early setbacks that the team met and overcame.
“We actually threw away our first week’s shooting,” recalls director Brian Johnson, a double Oscar-win- ning special effects veteran from such prestigious movies as Alien and The Empire Strikes Back.
“We looked at what we’d shot,” continues Dream Street’s creator and producer Nigel Stone, “and even though everyone had worked incredi- bly hard on it, when we watched the rushes we knew it wasn’t quite right. My own son watched it, and he was- n’t interested. He just switched off.”
More formal screen testing was done, and it was felt that the narra- tion was too fast for the young audi- ence to take in. So Stone, Johnson and the team had the soundtrack re- recorded, and then re-examined their visual approach to the programme.
“Our art director had the original concept paintings,” explains DP Stuart Galloway. “In those he used very bright primary colours, and pas- tel colours. And quite soft shadows, but lit up to a bright level so it looked sunny. What we’ve done is to empha- sise the colour in the set and in the models, and really go for a dramatic colourful look.
“Since the set is rotatable we have a bank on the left and a bank on the right, and we also have some lamps at the front in case we end up at 90 degrees to our normal position. Then it’s a matter of using small lamps, and getting in there and pick- ing out little areas to emphasise the colour. That’s where the stock comes
in, we used Fuji 250, which helped bring out the saturated colours and gave us a good depth of field.”
Described by one astute visitor to the set as having an ‘edible’ look, the fantasy world of Dream Street seems so much larger, so much more real than real life. But in fact it occu- pies one of the smaller stages at Pinewood Studios, where the team are currently shooting series three and four on digital. Built on a rotating
system so away we can go. The pressures are the same as in live action. We don’t have the same day to day problems that you might have with artists, but we have simi- lar things in a mechanical way with the characters we have. An artist might have a headache or be diffi- cult, where we might have vehicles that occasionally play up.”
A more literal example of the characters not doing as they were
“The characters’ personalities depend on a number of things,” adds Johnson. “That’s down to the way they’re actually constructed, the way their eyes are set in to their body- work and things. Hot Rodney, for example, is extremely expressive, because he has his eyes moving in all directions, and he has these slightly hooded bits over them.
“There’s a tremendous amount of expression there, he’s a naughty boy, so he waggles his wheels in temper, he runs up and down and spins around. He’s a real full blooded char- acter. Half Pint is this meek little thing, with his big heavy lids that look down when he’s upset. Caroline, our operator, who’s pretty hard-bit- ten, sits there and when he’s talking she goes ‘aaaahh’. Her maternal instincts come out. So I know we’re getting it right on those occasions.”
The construction of the charac- ters and the structuring of the stories around them is significant too. In the early stages of Dream Street’s devel- opment Nigel Stone turned to Sesame Street veteran Lorretta Long.
“The majority of us are parents,” explains Stone, “and I was a brand new parent at the time. The way that we decided to do it was through it being a very fun programme, a very light programme, but also have a moral to the show. So if somebody did something wrong, then Daisy Do- Right the Police Car would give them a Do-Right duty.
“That might have dealt with bul- lying, it might have dealt with not playing in the road or being kind to your friends. But something very light was slipped in, so the child can watch the show, laugh along with it, but also take something away from it.”
With the first two series having exceeded all expectations, everyone involved in Dream Street is looking to the new challenges ahead. With a com- mission that extends to 2002, the prospect of international sales, pub- lishing and merchandise there will be no shortage of those. For all concerned it is a dream come true. ■ ANWAR BRETT
Dream Street is originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
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set, with a motion control rig to one side and all the various elements syn- chronised by high powered comput- ers, the process is a curious mix of animation and live action.
“With the animatronic charac- ters we obviously pre-programme their moves,” explains Nigel Stone. “Then we’ll play back the sound, and when Brian shouts ‘action!’ we’re into live action.”
“The voice track is recorded first as in traditional animation,” nods Johnson, “But our animation is done in real time, as opposed to sin- gle frame animation. And of course it’s 3D. We actually film two-and-a- half minutes a day, which is pretty good. But we’ve got the quality as well, we pay great attention to the detail, we have a superb camera
told came early on in Dream Street’s production, when they encountered radio interference from other produc- tions working at Pinewood.
“We solved that by agreeing to stay off each other’s frequencies, and swapping crystals, because they’re all crystal controlled transmitters.
“But it was a bit weird when the characters suddenly seemed to move of their own free will. You tend to think they have a mind of their own on those occasions, because they look at you, and do funny things. It’s really quite strange.”
That also confirms the convinc- ing design of Dream Street’s main characters, a fact that has communi- cated itself to the show’s young audi- ence and must account for a large part of its success.
Photos above: The Magical Transformation sequence from Dream Street.