Wednesday 31 December 2008

M.A.C

As a regular reader of Danny Stack's screenwriting blog, I noticed that he's had quite a successful year. A lot of this seems to be due to his advancement in kids' TV. He's created a kids' show and pitched some ideas for another show. Congrats with that!

I quite like the idea of writing for children. It's not something I'd like to do long-term, but I would like to write something that my kids (if I had some) could enjoy. I'm thinking all the violent, action-driven stuff isn't really child-friendly.

And there's a serious problem with kids' TV. Back in the day (all those many years ago), we had some great kids' stuff. We're talking Thundercats, He-Man, Power Rangers and Biker Mice From Mars (my personal favourite.) This stuff just doesn't happen anymore. Am I afraid of liking decent kids' stuff? Hell no!

This sort of thing - the lack of solid kids' TV - needs fixing, if you ask me.

So the other day I came up with an idea for a kids' TV show. It's not overly complicated (and it shouldn't be) but it does demand a certain level of intelligence and concentration. In short, I'm trying to challenge the 'young' audience, rather than patronising them.

This being one of my ideas, it's action-driven with a supernatural twist. That's the sort of thing I was interested in as a kid and if anything, kids are getting more and more violent, so there should be an audience for it.

I would probably kill myself if it ended up as a 'live action' show, with 'real' actors (kids of 16) running around with dodgy special effects. It could work as animation, but that tends to limit you in terms of dialogue. I picture it with CGI - think of Max Steel (if you know what that is).

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check out this clip from Max Steel. Probably best to skip to 6 minutes in - which is what I'm aiming for. It's not too violent and it's far from patronising.



So with an audience in mind as well as a medium, I suppose the next stage is to write the bastard (leaving out words like 'bastard' of course).

So write it I shall. Hopefully it'll turn into a shiny kids' show one day, but only time will tell.

Happy New Year everybody!

Neil.

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