Tridragonal Set ...Gone! - Welcome Otto!

It has been a while since I appeared to do anything, but I have had a period of change. A sabbatical of sorts. I have been separated from creative partners but walked in beautiful places and had many distractions removed. It has invigorated my creativity and ideas are starting to flow faster than I can do anything about them. (Time is always a problem.)

There once was a project called Rainbow Dragons that first appeared during a course on fantasy writing. It first took some form with the help of the Key Frame scheme and some talented animators in training. It took a slightly different with the help, enthusiasm, hard work and skill of Buddhi of Beyond Motion. But....

Right now it is reforming again.

I got some feedback from an important source, just a little with a hint of encouragement - but it was enough what with my little sabbatical and space from things too see the truth in it. And despite all the hard work in some aspects of the project (hard work is never a waste) Rainbow Dragons that was, which became Tridragonal Set Go! has been stripped back, simplified, given a dynamic boy lead and has been reborn as Otto + the Oobly Dooblies. And boy does it work.

I thought "what is at the heart of the project" - that only took a millisecond to answer - The Oobly Dooblies - fun, colourful, acrobatic number representations.

I thought "what is important about this project" - the integrated multi platform nature and the highlighting of maths in the everyday and in story.

I thought "what is the problem with this project" - too high concept, too hard to explain, some people get it and others just really don't, too much in it. But most importantly I realised I was asking preschoolers to swallow too much (make too many leaps of imagination and faith if you like.)

I suspect that underlying all this is some wisdom from the Little Airplane Academy Preschool Intensive that I attended back in February in a snowy New York.

Anyhow must get on, I have a couple of other preschool projects asking for work and a photobook idea....

Why Are the Rocks All Different

I have had an intensive period of developing up some TV concepts. Nothing particularly new and nothing I can blog about yet. I have gone back over some old ones and revitalised them and got excited about them all over again.
However all these concepts will take many people and a long time to realise. I decided I wanted to create something that I could do all by myself!
I have used some of my own photos and created an early science and maths book for young children (3-8 years) through Lulu.com This was a lot of fun. These are my favourite photos from those moments when I noticed an interesting pattern or play of light and now I have been able to use them to develop children's 'looking closely and thinking' a useful pre-reading skill to say nothing of the concepts introduced through the questions. The pictures are all from nature.
The book is for sharing and discussing with children and encouraging their observation, figuring out and pattern recognition. Here is an example image and text.
Can you see the spiral, the zigzags and the stripes?

You can see a book preview here; http://www.lulu.com/content/2893610

or make my day and buy a copy...

Rainbow Dragons 1

The project I am currently concentrating time on is The Rainbow Dragons. I think it has real potential to be a ground breaking, entertaining, educational and even commercial. The Rainbow Dragons could be many things but I think the core of the project is the interactive stories, toys and computer games. All these components I feel are inter-related and therefore should come together - but being realistic they could be developed one at a time - but which first?? I am exploring all the options like- what funding might be available, who might want to get on board and be part of it.

I had the opportunity to develop the CGi at the Animation Centre at the FTI through the Key Frame programme at the start of 2006. I got teamed up with two great guys Dave Ronnert and Bryce Jones who worked incredibly hard over just three months to realise my designs and concepts and do some awesome animations. The wonderful composer and percussion guru David Pye created sounds for the Oobly Dooblies, Fijity Wiks and Scatterbats and wrote (and sung) the theme tune.

Chris Hunt made a promo for the interactive stories and also laid out a treatment for the project. As some time has passed since then, some new ideas of how to progress it have bubbled up making this treatment a little out of date but if you want to take a look email me on rainbowdragons@jellyjym.com

The Rainbow Dragons are Goo, Rhomby and Tina. Basically equivalent to five year old kids. They do the sort of things five year old kids do, like baking cakes or playing tag and come across the same problems such as how to measure ingredients or to decide who has won a game. In the photo at the top they are being surprised by the Scatterbats which are a chaos causing whirlwind akin to baby siblings or parents on the tidy up. Rhomby is a 'steady eddy' - ponderous, cautious, sensible but also playful and determined. He occasionally accidentally breathes fire which has a tendency to get everyones attention. Rhomby has smiling and grimacing Fijity Wiks (aka shapes that tesselate) in his hands that can be called out to help deal with problems of a spatial nature.


Tina has 'ants in her pants' and is highly excitable and silly but has flashes of pure inspirational genius.

Tina has a pouch full of helpful Oobly Dooblies (aka numbers) that bounce and creep and beep and squeak into action to illustrate number in action. There are all sorts of games and programmes about counting and sums but Rainbow Dragons really tries to help kids build a strong conceptual understanding of number instead of just the abililty to count (recite words in order!) The Oobly Dooblies all have a different texture, sound, movement, colour and size to appeal to different sorts of learners. The plan is to have these for real in kids hands when they are watching stories. The kids can then choose to 'be' an Oobly Doobly and get right inside the problem solving. When the kids then hop onto the computer and get into the virtual world to play games, they can customise their own set of Oobly Dooblies (unlimited number) with hats, spines, feet, eyes, tentacles and so on.

I am going to SPAA fringe in Sydney at the end of this week and I have had a T-shirt printed up with half a customised set of Oobly Dooblies and the words "What are your Oobly Dooblies called?" There is so much snigger snigger stuff in writing for preschoolers - if you can't beat it, use it! I will let you know how it goes!

And Goo - I haven't forgotten him - he is the incisive and proactive one the plus or minus or multiplication action in a sum. Yes he is a little bossy and a bit of a trophy collector ie everything they do or make is his, but they wouldn't get anywhere without him. Here is Goo in another one of the four uncluttered locations full of space for action and problem solving.