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News & Views - Going All Out!
Head Gear Animation has created a breakthrough environment for PBS called PBS KIDS GO! - a new on-air and online multimedia destination specifically created for early elementary school kids who have graduated from the network's popular pre-school programming. Debuting in the U.S. on October 11, 2004, the spots Rube Goldberg and Surfing on Slides, along with the rest of the new package, was designed and directed by Head Gear co-founders Steve Angel and Julian Grey, executive produced by Sue Riedl, working closely with PBS KIDS' creative team, John Ruppenthal and Gordon Harris.
Head Gear developed a creative approach that took inspiration from sources as diverse as M.C. Escher, Michel Gondry and the architecture of Montreal's blocky Habitat building. Incorporating feedback from focus groups with kids across the U.S., the team honed an environment that features real kids alongside popular show characters in a surreal and dynamic world of animating boxes. Humor, surprise and musical rhythms are prevalent themes in a living playground that the children explore together.
The new packaging is comprised of 65 elements, including a combination of bumpers, IDs, system cues and end pages. Live-action kids were filmed against a green screen, and the PBS KIDS GO! "city" was built on a miniature scale and shot frame by frame using stop motion animation. Shutters opening and closing, panels extending and hidden compartments sliding were used as framing devices for logos and other graphics. Each child was composited into the stop motion world, creating a flawless blend of the live-action interacting with the abstract surroundings. After Effect artists meticulously merged all of these elements, so that the compartments of the PBS KIDS GO! city danced in time with both the music and the movements of the children.
The most challenging and rewarding aspect of the project was getting to design and execute the entire package from beginning to end, says Angel "It's great to do a job of that scale. We were really able to sink our teeth into it." Grey adds, "With a job so creatively challenging, it was refreshing to work with a client as receptive as PBS, who encouraged us to push the boundaries."