TV Kids<\/em>\u2019 Anna Carugati.<\/p>\nAt Sesame Workshop, finding and nurturing new concepts always begins with \u201ccharacter and story,\u201d Wilson Stallings said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking for characters that are relatable to our audience. Characters that our audience will want to be friends with. We look for stories that are meaningful to our audience. Stories that are on topics that our audience can relate to. And then, as an educational media company, we also look for the pressing and most critical needs of kids at any time. And incorporate all of those into the content that we develop.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a similar viewpoint at Nelvana, Georgaklis said. \u201cI came from a broadcast background before I went into development at Nelvana, and I know that buyers are often looking for very specific content at any given time, and that can change. You can\u2019t only rely on what the trend is to build a slate because those trends change all the time. Ultimately, we\u2019re always looking for a meaningful, creative, fun story driven by great characters, and it has to fit within our overall priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStory wins\u201d is the motto at Boat Rocker, Sangha noted. \u201cBeing a BIPOC exec, it\u2019s very important to me to tell diverse stories as well. So finding new voices, finding people who are underrepresented and putting them on screen is a core philosophy that we stand by and try to make our slate very diverse. It\u2019s about having that varied slate of things that we are specifically asked for, things that we think are going to be hot in the next couple of years and things that we just genuinely love and are like, this is great IP, and we just want to see it get made.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is all about the story, characters, what will connect with the audience,\u201d agreed Singerman. \u201cWe are an independent producer, so we do need to be aware of what the market wants and needs. That is a moving target. We have to live with these projects for many years in development and, hopefully, ultimately, production. We just need to love it through and through. And with that, we also spend a lot of time putting ourselves in the shoes of the kids. How will they reenact our storytelling on their bedroom floors with toys, food or whatever it is? How are we going to excite and inspire?\u201d<\/p>\n
The conversation then moved to finding talent, especially diverse talent. \u201cYou\u2019re always looking for talent from diverse backgrounds so that we can make sure that kids see themselves represented,\u201d Wilson Stallings said. \u201cYes, there\u2019s great talent out there, but I think there could be more. At the Workshop, we have a writing fellowship program where we\u2019re looking to source and develop diverse and underrepresented talent. We\u2019re building the next generation of puppet talent. We don\u2019t do animation in-house, but we partner with studios that look for diverse talent, raise that talent up and put them in key decision-making roles. But broadly, I think there\u2019s much more that we could do. We don\u2019t want to keep going to the well all the time with the same group of talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of shows are being made\u2014it can get competitive,\u201d Singerman added. \u201cWhen it comes to diversity, there\u2019s always more work to do. We need to make sure that when we are telling diverse stories, there is the proper representation associated on-screen and behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have historically just gone to the same pool of people because it\u2019s whom you know,\u201d added Sangha. \u201cThere are people out there, but the people who are experienced and have show-run before, executive story edited before, might not be on your radar, or you\u2019re going to the same person over and over again. We\u2019re trying, especially with subsequent seasons or shows, to reach outside our group. I spend many hours on Instagram looking at BIPOC designers and messaging them to try to find people I don\u2019t know. And I have found interesting talent through doing it. On the writing side, we make room for writers. We ensure that we\u2019re meeting with BIPOC writers or disabled writers, any sort of underrepresented groups so that we can try to push that and get more talent behind the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to have an initiative and another thing to talk about the long tail,\u201d Georgaklis added.<\/p>\n
The discussion then moved to the pros and cons of working with known IP versus brand-new ideas on a development slate.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe, hopefully, we\u2019re at the tail end of the wave of known IP being the driving force,\u201d Georgaklis noted. \u201cNew ideas can start to creep up and creep through again because there are so many great ones. But ultimately, discoverability is at the core of it. It\u2019s so hard to find a show these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, this goes back to the varied slate,\u201d Sangha said. \u201cWe need to do IP because you can go to a buyer and say, This is a New York Times\u00a0<\/em>bestseller. We know it has a built-in audience. We know that people will gravitate toward it, and we can make new fans, too. But then, on the other end, we want to make the next big IP, the next huge thing. Our goal is to do both. The biggest thing now with new shows is, how do you make sure that it\u2019s familiar and that people look at it and say, this may not be IP, but it\u2019s something I relate to? It\u2019s also challenging to develop IP sometimes that already has a built-in DNA; you have to change from the book, but you don\u2019t want to change too much because then why are you optioning the book?\u201d<\/p>\nSingerman added: \u201cOriginal IP is the lifeblood of why we do this. We\u2019re here to create new ideas and franchises and bring something into the world that inspires the next generation of kids. But of course, having known IP is certainly very important in terms of a business consideration. We balance both. It comes down to storytelling. What has the richest stories? What has the most universal and resonant themes? What has the characters that we care about the most? Known IP is like going into a jungle and you have a map, you have a compass, you know the direction. There\u2019s still work to do and things to discover, but it\u2019s a much safer path you\u2019re taking. Whereas original IP, you\u2019re dropped in the jungle. You don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going, you don\u2019t have a map or a compass, and you have to forge a new path. That is sometimes the most exciting part of the job. Where are these unknowns? What are these discoveries that we\u2019re going to make? And you can certainly do that in an adaptation of a known IP, but there\u2019s even more opportunity in original IP.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sesame Street\u00a0<\/em>is 50-plus years old, Wilson Stallings pointed out. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of great opportunities to reimagine some of those characters, but we also want to make new stuff.\u201d<\/p>\nOn playing with forms and different platforms, Singerman noted: \u201cIn the quest to be ubiquitous and build franchises and be everywhere kids need to be, we have to think about how different platforms and different experiences demand different types of storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgaklis added: \u201cKids consume content on different platforms for different purposes in different ways. Any time I talk about development, the first thing I tell everyone is to get to know your audience. That helps us understand what the strategy will be. We try to work our way around where our audience is and where they love to consume that specific type of content we\u2019re creating. There\u2019s so much out there, and their exposure to media is open at such a young age. We\u2019re always looking at what value we can add to their day-to-day and where they will find us. It\u2019s all part of the equation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The TV Kids Festival featured Sesame Workshop\u2019s Kay Wilson Stallings, Nelvana\u2019s Athena Georgaklis, Cyber Group Studios\u2019 Ira Singerman and Boat Rocker\u2019s Shaleen Sangha sharing their approaches to crafting development slates that meet the needs of all players in the market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":24623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[7072,2443,145,7131,4305,397,518,7132,5723],"class_list":["post-24622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-athena-georgaklis","tag-boat-rocker","tag-cyber-group-studios","tag-ira-singerman","tag-kay-wilson-stallings","tag-nelvana","tag-sesame-workshop","tag-shaleen-sangha","tag-tv-kids-festival","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n
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