Production Checklists, Rules and Assumptions

Abstract

As the first producer above indicates, determining what will work in children’s or preschool television is difficult because programme-makers are not part of that audience any more, but producers do need to get ‘down into the child’s world’. As we learnt in Chapter 6, in the United States this anomaly is tackled by marketing and developmental research. In Britain research has traditionally been less formal and more ad hoc, but the importance of the American market is focusing attention on incorporating educational goals into programme proposals, which presupposes more concern with the audience’s needs, parental concerns and the concerns of society in general. For example Waybuloo (2009—), RDF’s hybrid live action animation series for CBeebies, is promoted as a show that encourages ‘emotional intelligence’ and ‘emotional literacy’, showing children how to be happy and how to get in ‘touch with their feelings’ (BBC, 2009) — in much the same way as Dora the Explorer was promoted in the United States as a show that encouraged emotional and social development as well as visual, language and mathematical skills, in keeping with the latest psychological theories (see Beatty, 2002; Gardner 1993, 2006).

When you work in children’s you’re working for an audience that you’re not part of and you can’t be part of. You might have been once upon a time, but you’re not part of that anymore. (British Producer, 2008)

We wanted to take this programme and focus it down into the child’s world. That’s why everything you see on the set is nearly twice life-size. [… We’re under the table. We’re right down at their level. We’re looking at what they’re doing and it’s all about that, their knowledge and their understanding of the world. (British Producer, 2008)