Sarach Muller and Andrew Burrell from CBBC

Aside from designing my own concepts, I have always enjoyed writing out my ideas, and Sarah Muller and Andrew Burrell's visit was an extremely interesting, insightful and helpful one. There was just so much that was discussed upon that it was really hard to keep up (Because with there being so much content to share in such a short period of time, it was expected of them to rush through some slides...), and so it would probably be also better if I left most of my notes in bullet form instead of trying to write them into proper paragraphs.

Sarah Muller is the Head of CBBC, Drama Development. She is responsible for CBBC Acquisitions and Drama submissions form credited TV writers without backing from an Independent Production Company.

• Most popular thing right now with children is still Minecraft (Hey, you have to admit that building things is pretty fun)
• A good time for animation, considering what attracts the young ones these days.
• There are 34 channels dedicated to kids in the UK
• 30% CBBC
• Still not the most favourite
• Audience still prefers Youtube
• Disney lost its audience for the time being
• But will get back up there with the Frozen franchise
• CBBC is the number one kids channel in the UK for 6-12
• 196.4 million iPlayer requests for CBBC programmes over last 12 months
• Huge request for playability on mobile devices like tablets and phones, aside from TVs
• Most popular animation on CBBC: League of Super Evil, Strange Hill High (A genuinely all British animation), How to Train your Dragon, What's New Scooby Doo, Dennis the Gnasher
• New battle grounds are drawn around brands
• Scooby Doo remains pretty huge in the market
• Looking for LOL (Sort of like Disney's "XD"), to stand out, but to still fit with existing shows and get kids talking
• The subject of the paranormal is often used in most pitch ideas
• Too many people copying off Adventure Time though when it comes to their 'original' ideas, what was previously so unique is starting to become overdone.
• Kids love naughty characters, of course they wouldn't overdo it
• Strange Hill High chainsaw scene, instead of moving such scenes completely, try to find a way to still apply it properly within the show, you might come up with something pretty clever (Like the censoring joke they did with this one)
• Comically large, strange colours, approach it differently to show your intentions
• Why bring back old shows? Money

Andrew Burrell is a writer, script editor and producer for CBBC and is presenting working on Strange Hill High, Danger Mouse and Wolfblood Series 4.

• When considering some of today's most popular BBC children's characters...
• Shaun the Sheep beats out Postman Pat, Paddington Bear and Sooty and company
• All puppet shows
• Never talk down to kids, they are smarter than you think
• Cartoons, teens and tweens sitcoms
• Other Channels tend to focus on action adventure, movie tie-ins, big commercial brands, boy skewed fighty stuff really well (Star Wars - Rebels, Avengers, Ben 10, Kick Buttowski) Cartoon Network and Disney XD
• Want jokes lots of them
• Tips fo writers: premise, character, setting, stories, pace, tone and visuals
• Could this story be told in another media? why animation?
• Have your world and characters got enough about them to generate 52 episodes to
• Make characters flawed
• Love your characters, don't write them cynically
• If you don't love them, why should anyone else
• The weirder the world, the simpler the stories (Eg, Adventure Time, Spongebob Squarepants, even The Simpsons)
• Storytelling (Can refer back a little to write up on Strange Hill High panel at BAF)
• 3 Act Structure
• Character driven
• Coherent within the rules of the world
• Weirder the world the simpler the story
• Follow the character and the story without blindly pursuing the gag
• Pacing has to be quick
• 1/2 or 1 page max. is a good rule of thumb
• Eg, Modern Family and Parks and Recreation
• Smash Cuts (Family Guy)
• Tones: No guns, knives and punching in the face! No cynicism!
• Huge variety of visual styles: anthing goes, 2d, 3d, CG, puppets, mixed media, etc.
• Writing:
• From writing conferences...
• Springboards are paragraph length story ideas
• Outline/Premise - 2-3 pages, breakdown of story, whether the structure works
• Scene by scene/outline- 2/3 length of script
• Drafts - up to 6 pages but varies
• Polishes (Done by another writer, pretty much a beta reader) and shooting scripts (Between head writer and script editor)
• Script editor's job: manage relationships, be the confuit of all notes so writer has one coherent message, generate ideas
• Notes from executive producer, series producer, production manager, head writer, animation producer, do listen to them, at least properly take into account what they want from you, though of course don't blindly follow every command they give
• Good notes help, bad notes confuse, at least consider the meaning behind those notes
• You have to feel what you write
• Simple questions: Whose story? What do they want? What obstacles can we put in their way? What do they learn? Who is the audience?

BBC writers, great reference for scriptwriting:

• Scripts vs board-driven
• Depends on the individual
• If what you are basing on isn't polished enough, the rest isnt going to work out, and those issues are going to grip people
• Kinda like the Misadventures of Flapjack and Captain Knuckles, it was a gorgeous piece of animation with so much potential, but there were many times when its writing just fell flat on its face
• if the story is crap, everything else will be