I grew up with two older brothers and as well as inheriting their 1970鈥檚 polyester school shirts with long, potentially eye gouging collars 鈥� which are probably an illegal fire/fashion hazard now 鈥� I also got my grubby little hands on their massive collection of plastic toy soldiers. I鈥檇 spend hours and hours on my bedroom floor setting hundreds of them up in elaborate scenarios where a bunch of semi-painted Roman Legionnaires would ambush my Star Wars figures and Chewbacca would lead a valiant fight back aided by the Wehrmacht Africa Korp and a Knight on a three legged rampant stallion. During these adventures the pieces of plastic were alive; they had their own personalities and had their own stories to tell. Every battle was uniquely fluid but with a similar structure where sides were set, something happened - the slightly melted gladiator who had been too near the radiator would wind Han Solo up by saying his hair looked 鈥榳rong鈥� - which agitated a full on brawl and led to a grand finale where usually everyone got run over by a second-hand Snowspeeder. The 8 year old me never planned how the story would play out but could fully engage with the plastic protagonists to such an extent that they could tell me what their story was. If you鈥檇 told that little boy that 32 years later he鈥檇 be doing pretty much the same thing with a budget of a couple of million quid he鈥檇 have probably blown a raspberry and if he was being his usual facetious self would have said 鈥榳hat a twonk!鈥� and 鈥榟ave I not grown up yet?鈥� In answer to that judgmental little man the answer is yes... and fundamentally no. As script editor, C大象传媒 Producer and one of the writers on 鈥楽trange Hill High鈥� - which returns for its second series on April 29th - I鈥檓 still playing with plastic people and keeping alive that childlike obsession which is essential to create emotionally engaging dramatic characters.
As a proper adult, like we are all pretend to be, these types of flights of fancy are frowned upon. If your girlfriend asks why you don鈥檛 want to come to Ikea to pick up a new set of mauve coloured roller blinds and you say, 鈥楽orry, I鈥檓 busy contemplating how Templeton would fight off an invasion of cannibalistic Space aliens who look exactly like himself鈥�, unless she鈥檚 very cool the best scenario is she鈥檒l ring her bezzie and tell her you鈥檙e the most immature man she鈥檚 ever met, at worst she鈥檚 going to dump your ass and go out with Big Dave, the rugby player next door; he鈥檚 a proper grown up! The same can be said for working in television. The contemporary TV production process on a show like 鈥楽trange鈥� is very adulty and tough with all the budgets, spreadsheets, media politics, schedules, deadlines and associated stuff, and a lot of pressures and expectations but fundamentally the success or failure relies on being able to recreate and sustain a childlike belief that plastic people are alive and having the ability to honestly listen to what they have to say. He didn鈥檛 realise it but the 8 year old me would have been quite good at this job because he had an instinctive understanding of three act structure with the set-up, escalation and devastating denouement...that was sometimes curtailed slightly when it was time for tea. He also understood that once characters are established they take on a life of their own and the storyteller can be as surprised as the audience by what they do.
Developing the first series pretty much from scratch was fascinating. We set out with a bunch of potential concept drawings for beautiful plastic figures designed by a very talented guy called Gaz Roberts and the creator of the show, Kat Van Henderson. We didn鈥檛 know for sure who these characters were, how they spoke or what kind of stories they would be involved in. We knew the show would be a bit 鈥榮trange鈥� and 鈥榝unny鈥� but we didn鈥檛 even know if it was possible to get lumps of plastic to talk, walk, jump, run, let alone demonstrate any emotion or personality. To this blank slate the exec, Sarah Muller, bought together the likes of writer and showrunner Josh Weinstein (Simpsons/Futurama), voice actors including Emma Kennedy, Ben Smith and Richard Ayoade, the most amazing puppeteers like Tim Jones, and a fantastic group of art department and production people at Factory Transmedia in Manchester. The one thing that all these people had in common was a slightly obsessive childlike ability to project their imaginations onto a piece of plastic and make it come alive. This weird alchemy takes time and patience and has that troublesome but necessary adult production process and 鈥榬eal life鈥� constantly peering over your shoulder.
Working on series 1 was great but it wasn鈥檛 until series 2 that I really appreciated what we had done. Sitting in a writers鈥� room coming up with stories is the closest thing I鈥檝e felt to playing with my plastic toys as that 8 year old boy. We had a much better understanding of all the adulty sensible stuff like what is physically possible with the puppets, the pacing that works for contemporary animation, how many sets we had to play with, but also we were at the stage where these characters were so fused into our synapses that we just had to set up the situation and then let them do the talking. Mitchell, Becky and Templeton were telling us what they would do rather than us telling them. Confronted by a tricky plot point about how we narratively 鈥榝ix鈥� a problem where Mitchell Tanner has cheated at Maths and got 101% in an assignment leading to the unravelling of reality itself. It became obvious. Mitchell is the one person that would confidently state he would get -1% in an exam to bring balance to the world. It felt like it was the character鈥檚 idea. It felt like we had reconnected to our child-like imaginative ability to invest life into inanimate objects.
Now the production of series 2 is drawing to a close and our hard work is about to hit the telly and meet the best and most demanding audience in the world CHILDREN! This鈥檒l be the real test of whether we honestly did reconnect with the imagination that all kids innately possess and is so hard to hold on to when you鈥檙e subject to the adult work. I hope the eight year old me would have liked what we鈥檝e done. I think he would. And more importantly I hope all the millions of other eight year olds 鈥� and older! - across the world where 鈥楽trange鈥� is being shown (in Australia, the Middle East, Africa, and who knows where else the torrents are flying) like it. More importantly I hope it sparks in them the urge to make the mental leap and accept that these pieces of plastic are really living, breathing people with real emotions and a penchant for hilarious adventures. My greatest hopes are that another generation will grow up with their own obsessive relationship with people made of plastic and that they can hold on to a little bit of it through their adult lives ...and also that polyester shirts never come back into fashion. There has got to be a story in there somewhere? Over to you Mitchell Tanner!
The new series of is on C大象传媒, Tuesdays at 5pm.
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