I have been wanting to blog about this for ages!
When I began working at Hullabaloo Studios on what was then a secret project for CBBC – which is now known to be an adaptation of the Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell’s “Muddle Earth” book – I was told in no uncertain terms about another very secret project that NO ONE could be told about. Yep, the Peter Kay single. Over the last four months I have been privy to more backstage stuff than I could have ever imagined: Sitting between George and Zippy, eyeing up FAB 1 and Lady Penelope, being staggered by the real size of a Teletubbie (Tinky-Winky is about 8 feet tall all suited and booted) and actually being allowed to hold one of the Wombles.
It’s been really amazing. We all became acutely aware that something was happening when a muffled medley of original songs began to drone repeatedly about the building. This brought most of us out of our rooms and into the main area of the unit we work in. Imagine our surprise and joy to see an orange head with a zipped mouth and a pink hippo dancing just above a blue wall to this cacophony in front of a small camera crew. No sooner was the recording over than I had the pleasure of sitting between my two heros and, after an accidental impression of Zippy in front of him, getting a swift knock on the head from the zippered one.
Over the course of about three weeks, we got to see Muffin the Mule, the aforementioned Teletubbies, Thunderbirds, Postman Pat and Jess – in Pat 3, not Pat 1 unfortunately, the original Fireman Sam, Bob the builder, Andy Pandy and Tedy, Bagpuss, Little robots and so many more. An awful lot of people did an awful lot of work and produced something magical. I even managed to help out myself in a a tiny way. I created the lava in the lava lamp using Blender’s metaball system made to look like wax thanks to a liberal amount of Sub Surface scattering.
Here are three pictures taken at the tail end of the project when everyone was finishing up. Until this point, only official photographs were available. Apparently, I’ll get the one of me, Zippy and George tomorrow. Can’t Wait!
Pudsey About to Step on One of Andy Pandy’s interchangeable heads!
Big chris showing them all the green screen on his iphone – to be filled in with angelina Ballerina I think!
Paddington in his Cool dudds and Pingu pulling some wicked shapes! – 😉
One Final Word:
GO AND SUPPORT CHILDREN IN NEED AND BUY THE DVD SINGLE AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!!
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