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cover story
Bob’ll Fix It
Bob’ll Fix It
complete lowdown on TV’s latest kids phenomenon
ular culture. Even if you don’t have kids and certainly don’t watch chil- dren’s TV, you’ll probably have heard of Postman Pat, The Teletubbies, Pokémon and Mr Blobby.
Bob The Builder is the latest kids’ phenomenon, watched on BBC by more under five year olds than any other TV programme. With its monthly maga- zine boasting a circulation of 100,000, £60m worth of products (books, toys, videos, games, clothing, accessories) have been sold in the UK.
Then there’s that theme tune, Can We Fix It?, sung by Neil Morrissey, who voices Bob, which achieved the prized Christmas No 1 spot, helping it become the best-sell- ing single of 2000.
The colourful antics of builder Bob and his machine friends are just start- ing to take off in the US as well, one of 100 countries to have bought the rights to the show from HIT Entertainment, which set up HOT Animation in 1997 to create new
children’s animation programmes.
So what is it that sets Bob The Builder apart
from any other British children‘s TV show? Director Sarah Ball decided that Bob should be more dynam- ic than other animations like Postman Pat.
“Generally on a pre-school series, everything is kept very simple,” she says. “The pacing of the action is quite slow and camera moves are used sparingly. I felt that kids today were used to seeing more dynam- ic and faster paced images as they play computer games and watch TV from a very early age.”
American cartoons also influenced Ball: “Although Bob is model animation I wanted it to have the feel and energy of a 2D cartoon. The char- acters move in a snappy way and we make use of key poses. I wanted Bob to give a new look to pre-
school shows and bring it up to the times. I made the action more pacy, the cuts quicker and the camera angles more extreme.
“We made a lot more use of motion con- trol shots and even built a special rig that would allow the camera to drive along with the machines.”
According to Director of Photography Angela Poschet, this ‘skateboard rig’ was cre- ated for the opening sequence when all the machine characters arrive at Bob’s yard. The improvised dolly looks like a small skate- board but is just the right size to accommo- date a Bolex camera.
“This small rig can be moved by the ani-
mator’s hand directly on set, so that you get the feel- ing you are moving directly behind a character. In other scenes, a motion-control rig is used, and the Bolex camera sits on a pan and tilt head with a Panther-Dolly on track to do dynamic tracking shots.”
Bob The Builder, which utilises stop-frame ani- mation, taps into the fascination that many kids, big or small, have with gadgets. Builder Bob works with
The Every now and then a children’s TV show comes along and enters into pop-
All photos courtesy HIT Entertainment/Hot Animation
EXPOSURE • 16 & 17