What's The Big Idea premieres on CBeebies and I wrote the theme tune.

What's The Big Idea - opening theme tune from David Freedman on Vimeo.

This is now my third theme tune for a show.  If you've got a show that needs a catchy ditty, do get in touch.

Quick drawing of dog asleep.

Clearing up. Look what I found.

 

I was clearing up the office and this fell out of an old file.

 

How time flies.

 

It was a promo card we sent out when we were pitching Mr Hell. I totally forgot that Tim Burton was interested in developing him for a moment there. Whoosh. That was an exciting moment. Still, it landed at Universal Pictures... where it languished in Development Hell... (actually purgotory) for 3 years, and eventually someone at ITV was clearing out their office, found the pitch doc, rang us... and they trotted it over to the BBC. The rest is cult classic multi award winning history, available on DVD (not that anyone sees any money from that, but hey... it's out there... and makes for a nice birthday gift) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aaagh-Its-Hell-Show-DVD/dp/B000MTF0E0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362046500&sr=8-1 and it runs in South America and still plays in Russia.

 

And look you can get it from Sainsbury's for CHEAP! http://www.sainsburysentertainment.co.uk/en/Films-TV/DVD/Aaagh-It-s-The-Mr-Hell-Show/product.html?product=E10001146

 

What I really love about Mr Hell... is the great talent who worked on the show. ALL of whom, have gone from strength to strength. Hugh MacCleod http://gapingvoid.com/ is now a one man industry (with 7 people working for him!) and Swampy Marsh is co-creator of Phineas & Ferb. Alan Gilbey is on Dino Paws. I'm not exactly doing badly... Joel Jessup, Ben Bowen, Barry Baker, all go from strength to strength.  And on the Canadian side, J. Falconer is rocking the world with Bob's Burgers, Rob Boultier created Kid vs Kat, Moose Pagan keeps producing shorts that make you weep with envy... and Tim Stuby and I'm sure I'm leaving others out... but truly, what an amazing team.

 

We were young, we were nieve, but maybe that's why it was and still is a good show.  

Dreaming of Jack Kirby

Read some old Jack Kirby stuff before going to bed last night.

A Wasted Hour Of My Life

Has there ever been a greater waste of time and talent and money and money spent on talent and use of energy (and the energy of countless projectionists and a distributor's efforts?) than Wes Anderson's 'The Life Aquatic'? I thought that this was one of those films I should see. Wes Anderson after all. Bill Murray post Sophia Coppolla. I should catch up on this missing gem. I mean given that Bill Murray can't possibly make a bad film even when it's the depths of Caddyshack, and Wes Anderson can't take a bad still photo in widescreen. Heck, even if the film is nothing more than some proscenium shots of quirky sets with Bill staring off longingly into the distance, then surely that would have been enough for me. 

If only that were the film. But it wasn't. Bill is interupted with the worst script never to have been written (oh the awful smell of pointless improv to jokes that make only the director laugh) and the pain of watching actors wing amidst expensive set peices and pointless special effects. 

Even the stupid costumes wear thin after oh, the third person dressed like a moron. Contrast = comedy. Everyone dressed like a moron = filming a fancy dress party. 

Quirkiness for quirkiness sake and moments of (I can't even say clever) typography do not a film make. 

And Bill's hangdog repetition of the storyline 'relaxed revenge' bores even him, so why should I bother. 

I tried to hang in there. But I was feeling my time slipping away and soon I was also feeling bad for the actors and the crew... and the time they wasted in making the film. 

And then I thought, oh dear God I'm wasting their time all over again, simply by watching any more of this. The only person getting anything out of it was David Bowie who collects some PRS from the soundtrack, and lets face it, he doesn't need the cash. 

So after an hour, I put a stop to the pain and torture. It is an hour of my life I will never get back and if anyone says 'Oh you should have waited until the ending, it gets better.' I can only say better than what? For me, it only got better when I turned it off. 

Ah well Bill. We'll always have Groundhogs Day. And in all those years you spent in that film, not one moment will ever be a waste of either of our time.

 

Morning sketch 12.02.13

 

 

Can a cover have a DVD Extras section?

By Odin's beard shavings, we made the cover of Kidscreen!!!!

OMNG!!!

OH MY NORSE GOD!!!! We made the cover of Kidscreen!!!!!

 

 
Not only did we make the cover, but of all the artwork we sent them, they opted for a bit of cross dressing nuttiness. Bring it on!!! It's that kind of show.

Brenda Wooding and Heather Kenyon are at the helm of a wonderful madcap show about some Vikings, a few herring short of a rollmop, who went the wrong way and are now trying to invade China.

The theme tune sums it all up nicely, http://vimeo.com/50817034 and Brenda will fill you in on the rest at Kidscreen summit in New York. Giles New and Keiron Self developed the show with me and have penned some very funny scripts. The design is by the awesome Ministry Of Animation. It's not your conventional show, but then again these are unconventional times. And the only thing that gets a kids attention these days is something that is surprising.

In The New Year... we invade.

 

Bounty Hamster is alive and well and living on youtube.

Every now and then I hear from somebody who discovered Bounty Hamster via Youtube. And occasionally they draw a picture. So much is their fandom and love. Occasionally it's even a good drawing. This was drawn by a fan named Alex. Happy Christmas indeed. Neat.

I've just discovered there is a whole Bounty Hamster CHANNEL!! Don't know who set that up, but wow, they put some work into it. Mind you, we also put some work into the show. If you ever wondered what can be done on a shoestring apart from shoe tying, check it out. It's still a fun show. I think. I'll have a look later today.   https://www.youtube.com/user/BountyHamster2012 

Youtube will take over the planet sooner than later, and occasionally people long for more than cat videos. Not much more but a bit.

I am currently catching up on all the unaired episodes of The Tick. This never aired??!! And yet Holly Willoughy has a career in TV?  There is no justice. It's beautifully written and bold in it's madness.

For every horrible Dancing On Thin Ice Look What I Found In Your Attic crap TV that's out there I reckon there are at least five decent narrative shows that never caught on. And 5,304,224 Cat videos.  Anyhow here's a link for the pilot episode of The Tick if you're bi-curious; that is curious about more than one show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3pcWYJEI2E

Have a Groovy Xmas

Season II ????

Shot in one lovely take.

24 spoof ending that nobody will see. Unless they click here.

The Groove High ending that nobody will ever see. from David Freedman on Vimeo.

Me & Eric Renwart have been writing songs. Here's the one we did for Viking Kong.

Viking Kong revised 041012 from David Freedman on Vimeo.

Rasmus Hardiker of Groove High goes on zombie shooting spree.

Cleaning out Groove High Files

Every day I'm cleaning out a bit of the Groove High files. Just came across this. This was how I wanted the musical sequences and fantasy sequences to feel. But it was ultimately deemed too complicated (by me). Time, money, lack of a layout dept, which brings us back to time and money. The notion of creating new bg's with bg line work that animated - morphed - was just to costly so we kept things simpler, graphic and bold, which worked. But still, this would have been sweet.

Life is short. Theme tunes are shorter.

I've taken to writing songs lately along with the supremely talented Eric Renwart (we're talking Prince, Clapton, John Mayer talented!) Mostly theme tunes. But you know what? We LOVE writing theme tunes. It's a cool challenge to reflect the tone of the show and if possible sum up the essence of the show. Boil it all down to 30 seconds or 60 seconds. We're both loving it and finding the time to make it happen. Our process is fairly simple. I write lyrics, sing into an iphone, email it to him... and it comes back sounding like magic!

 

We met on Groove High, had so much fun working together that we figured we just needed a way to keep this going. Got a show that needs a theme tune? Bring it on. We'll demo for free, and if we win the pitch... then you can pay us.

 

 

 

Why write updates when I can doodle them?

This is Eric, my songwriting partner. For real!

Samantha Barks, our Zoe from GH about to go from Groove High to Great Heights.

Even mad inventors want to make their mommas proud.

My boy has taken to plundering my old comic collection ... which is cool and mildly embarrassing as I find myself revisiting comics I read ages back and thought were so cool back then. Some were, but you know, Dazzler wasn't. Anyhow, this one cracked me up. Great art. Intense cover, you know the world is going to end (as usual) and you're braced for the normal stuff... but then you read those two lines.

I'll bet the writer took the rest of the day off after writing that.

Or maybe he simply rang up his mother.

Click on the image, and check out the two bottom bubbles.

 

 

 

The Final Mix Of The Final Episode of Groove High

 Had to capture the moment.