bristol animation.qxp_Layout 1 23/07/2021 15:57 Page 1
ANIMATION
Credit and copyright: BBC Children’s Productions Ltd 2020
10 things we love about top TV twosome JoJo and Gran Gran
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A local independent animation studio has scooped a British TV industry award for its efforts in producing the first UK pre-school animation centring around a Black British family. Millie Bruce-Watt catches up with the creators
he Bristol studio, A Productions, together with BBC Children’s In-House Productions, recently impressed in the best pre-school programme category at the Broadcast Awards – which celebrates the very best in British TV programming – and won. JoJo And Gran Gran: It’s Time To Go To The Hairdresser’s – the 11-minute episode that got them the gong – was written by comedian Nathan Caton, who has appeared on some of the nation’s muchloved comedy shows including Live At The Apollo, Mock The Week and Russell Howard’s Good News, to name just a few. The A Productions series, which has broken new ground in pre-school programming, first aired on 6 March 2020 and has already been picked up by global networks and commissioned for a second and third series, set to hit our screens in 2022. The series is based on the semi-autobiographical picture book JoJo And Gran Gran: All In A Week by international early years author, speaker and associate producer of the series, Laura Henry-Allain MBE. Laura was inspired by her close relationship with her Saint Lucian-born grandmother, who moved to London as part of the Windrush generation. The character JoJo is a nod to Laura’s middle 20 THE BRISTOL MAGAZINE
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name, Josephine, and she wove her own heritage, lifestyle and upbringing into the characters. Behind the successful series was a team of over 100 creative minds working tirelessly to make all 44 episodes the very best they could be. We sought out A Productions’ joint managing director Katherine McQueen for the inside track on their top TV twosome and chatted to author Laura about her next ground-breaking creation. A Productions helped produce the animated segments KM: For people not familiar with the show, JoJo is a curious five year old who loves her grandma, Gran Gran. While her mum and dad are at work, Gran Gran looks after JoJo and always has an exciting activity planned for their day together. The series was created by BBC Children’s In-House Productions in Salford; we are proud to produce the animated segments of the show in collaboration with them. The team used Toonboom to create a picture-book look KM: The BBC in-house team wanted to create a painterly textured look for the series and we were fortunate that they were able to provide us with concept art and photo boards to inspire our team. Our aim was to
