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Feb 23, 2006
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A 'Big Big' challenge
Virtual sets bring new PBS Kids series to life
by Nancy Caronia
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He began his career as a performer and writer for Saturday Night Live, but has since become an Emmy award-winning force in children's television. Mitchell Kriegman, creator and executive producer behind It's a Big Big World, the new PBS Kids series, said the transition was a natural extension of his interests and passions.
"All my adult stuff was kid-like and all my kid stuff was adult-like. Ultimately, I was more comfortable in the kid world," Kriegman explained. "Having the chance to do Clarissa Explains It All [in 1993 for Nickelodeon] allowed me to do everything I had always wanted to do through the voice of a 14-year-old girl. That was a breakthrough for me and it led to more children's programming."
Since then, Kriegman has worked on such series as Rugrats, Ren and Stimpy, and Bear in the Big Blue House. In addition, he's developed Shadowmation, a patented animated process that utilizes and integrates Bun Raku-style puppetry and computer generated animation in real-time HD and 24p virtual environments.
His newest series, It's a Big Big World, sponsored in part by Sony and PBS, relies on Shadowmation to create a rainforest environment. Kriegman developed the show because he wanted to create a positive message about how to be in the world. "Parents and kids don't have a lot of positive ways to talk about what is going on in the world today," he offered. "If you can form a distance, the world situation begins to make sense."
Rainforest
It's a Big Big World uses the science and geography of the rainforest to inspire pre-school age children. The series focuses on the World Tree, which hides treehouses and habitats for animals living within its branches and leaves. Inhabitants include a gigantic sloth named Snook, who serves as a host and guide.
According to Kriegman, Snook is based on the way children see adults. "Kids like adults around -- they don't like listening to them or doing what adults say to do, but they like them around," he explained. "So I've always created adult characters that are adults, not infantalized babies; children like that kind of interaction and adults like seeing themselves on screen. On this show, the little guys come and jump all over Snook, and it's based on the experiences I've had with my kids."
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| The backgrounds for the program are rendered in HD using Maya. |
Kriegman's daughter helped cement the marmoset sibling characters, Smooch and Winslow, when she brought home a book on marmosets and anteaters. Other characters inhabiting the World Tree include a braggart fish named Ick and an old monkey called Oko, who just happens to be a tai chi master.
Series content consultant and educational advisor Tina Grotzer, Ed.D., research associate, Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, reviews all the scripts to ensure the developmental appropriateness and scientific accuracy of each episode. "This particular show is about how kids understand patterns or how to think in science," she said. "For example, kids who are four to seven love when they know something that no one else knows."
In one episode where Wartz, the tree frog, goes from tadpole to full-fledged frog. The characters on the show search for Wartz, unaware that he's right under their noses. While the characters are in the dark, the kids in the audience know what's happened to Wartz.
Learning standards are important criteria for any educational-based endeavor (in or out of the classroom) Grotzer said, but standards "are not about deep thinking and deep critiquing. The show is about the how and why the animals come together. It goes deeper than the standards would allow."
Because Kriegman is an advocate of co-viewing -- children and parents watching a show together -- he said that working with PBS has been a good fit. Shows on PBS Kids extend viewership through an online presence, which includes a component for parents and teachers. "At PBS Interactive, when a producer comes to pitch a show, they must also pitch a Web site. PBS considers both to be a critical component," said Sara Dewitt, director, PBS Kids and Parents Interactive.
While the parents and teachers area on the Web site is still under development, lesson plans will coincide with each TV episode. Carla Engelbreche, associate director, PBS Kids Interactive, said the interactive site "allows kids to extend the viewing experience by exploring the World Tree online. The look of the Web site reflects the on-air series. They took the CGI background and then optimized everything for the Web."
"It's important to us at PBS Kids that kids can experience the same environment they see on the TV show. This is an environmentally driven show. The kids are able to explore the inhabitants of the World Tree and can also use the navigational tools on the right to begin to understand certain geographical principles such as up, down, left, and right," noted Dewitt.
The series is produced at Kriegman's year-old Wainscott Studios located in the Hamptons on Long Island, NY. The 10,000-square-foot facility includes both two studios with control room, as well as three editing bays with Avid and Final Cut Pro capabilities, an audio recording booth, and administrative offices.
"In the city I would build my own studio over and over again; each project had to be started from scratch," said Kriegman. "Now, we are one of the few blue screen facilities in the area. People usually go out to L.A., but now they can come here."
Blue Immersion
The series is shot in 24p with two Sony HD cameras. Kriegman noted that once a script is written, it's pre-recorded as a "regular" animation cartoon. It's rare that they use storyboarding; shooting is done quickly in two to three days.
Kriegman credits the immersive feel of the series to the camera technique. An 18-foot crane was built with both cameras mounted on it, and the crane twists, turns, and extends into the environment. "There is always this sense that you're flying through the trees as opposed to it being great background," he explained. "When we first proposed this series, people kept saying 'great background,' but it's not -- it's environment. The camera and the scale mean that you can deeply go into the environment. It means the characters are much warmer."
When Kriegman first learned about Bun-Raku, Japanese puppetry, he knew he wanted to use it in animation. "I had always been curious about why it hadn't been applied to TV. The obvious answer was because three to four puppeteers were needed for each character," he noted. "But I liked the fact that you could see their hands and feet, their whole bodies.
When I did Book of Pooh, I couldn't imagine seeing Tigger without him bouncing around."
Today, Bun-Raku is integral to making the World Tree come to life. The show is shot on a blue screen and the life-size characters come to life through the machinations of trained puppeteers dressed in blue.
Maya software is used to build the virtual reality sets, while Brainstorm technology is used to shoot (visualize) the sets. Once that process is completed, Maya renders it all.
"It can take some time in the post render because it's HD; you have to render it to a higher level," said Kriegman. "We create virtual sets that are similar to those that are used in interactive games and videos. We do it in real time so that it's completely casual and you can see what you're getting. It's usable in a regular production process.
"Shadowmation is a marriage of animated environments and puppetry. You can add computer animated characters into the environment because now it's a virtual environment. We can even make clouds move, intermingle them. One of the things we did for this series is that Ick the fish causes ripples in the pond. It's unusual to have a real character interact with CGI and we do it on a regular basis."
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