Darrall Macqueen’s Billy Macqueen

The U.K. independent production company’s co-founder talks about the new iteration of Teletubbies.

When DHX Media was looking to bring back Teletubbies with an updated and upgraded version, it turned to British indie Darrall Macqueen to produce the new episodes. Known for such preschool hits as Topsy and Tim and Baby Jake, the company, co-founded by Billy Macqueen, reinvigorated the perennially popular series using CGI and future-proofed the show in 4K to be enjoyed by generations to come.

TV KIDS: How did Darrall Macqueen become involved as producers on the new Teletubbies series?
ImageMACQUEEN: It was off the back of [a show we produced called] Topsy and Tim, which is still the number one preschool series in the U.K. DHX picked it up to distribute globally. They thought we had a really interesting and different creative viewpoint. They asked us what we thought about doing Teletubbies as a CGI series. We went, You don’t want to mess with it! [Laughs] We had concerns about CGI Teletubbies replacing the costume-character Teletubbies, that we’d lose the tactile nature of the show and the immediacy between director and performer and, of course, the overall dynamic of four Teletubbies physically playing together. We proposed a refreshed and very modern approach that protected the costume-character performance. We were scared stiff when DHX went for our approach because Teletubbies is such a fantastic iconic series and we knew we would be under the spotlight. My business partner [Maddy Darrall] came up with a great line: It was a privilege to be able to polish the crown jewels.

TV KIDS: How did you approach the show with a creative focus that pays homage to its original heritage?
MACQUEEN: We worked with a lot of the original team who worked on the first series. Our director of photography was the original camera operator on the first series. One of the original performers was our movement coach. [The person who played the original] Po did some script consulting for us. We brought back some fantastic key creatives. Niki Lyons was the original costume designer. She also did the costumes for the feature film Where the Wild Things Are, which were just stunning. We were delighted to get her back, at 73 years old, to design and make brand-new costumes.

We knew that we wouldn’t be able to film outside because of the unreliable U.K. weather, which would put pressure on our shooting schedule, so we moved production inside, creating a model of the Teletubby green hills that gave us a magical and believable landscape.

TV KIDS: What does the use of CGI bring to the show?
MACQUEEN: We applied a mix of visual effects and CGI in two areas. Cutting-edge visual effects enabled us to composite 3-meter-high live-action Teletubbies onto 3-centimeter model hills with fantastic contact shadows and freedom of movement for our cameras. CGI enhanced this magical land further; there were around 60,000 digitally printed flowers on the model set, each smaller than the size of a fingernail. As the Teletubbies run past them, the flowers can turn and follow. There’s another lovely element of CGI, when Laa-Laa hugs a tree it bursts into blossom.

We tried to use the latest technology to complement our stories but not to distract in any way from our storytelling. The CGI work was very complex and very painstaking but we were focused throughout the process on an end result that looked visually simple.

TV KIDS: How did the experience of working on the new Teletubbies differ from other projects Darrall Macqueen has worked on?
MACQUEEN: We attracted people from the feature-film industry to Teletubbies when they heard about our approach. The team at Lola Post Production, who won an Academy Award for visual effects for Gladiator, looked after all the visual effects. A digital printing company called Propshop, which worked on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 3D printed the Teletubbyland model. There were a host of technicians from the feature-film side. It was really fun seeing people from feature films getting excited and saying, You’ve pushed us on to something new! We haven’t tried this! They were coming off feature films and dealing with how to make beautiful tactile 3-meter-tall Tinky Winky look perfect when performing on a little 2-centimeter model hillock!

TV KIDS: What other projects is Darrall Macqueen working on?
MACQUEEN: We’re in development on two projects. One is a preschool project that we are developing with DHX. We’re just going out to market with it now and will be sharing more details soon.

The other one is called Hello Tickle Monsters. It’s a preschool and family sitcom, with live action and puppets. It’s about a family facing the challenges of integrating a couple of incredibly mischievous and untrainable tickle monsters into their everyday home life. They’ve got to keep them a secret from the very grumbly family next door who think that something is wrong…and it is! We just developed the bible and first two scripts with CBeebies.