The APPeal of Pok Pok

 The first two stories I wrote for Pok Pok have become episodes on their official YouTube channel.

Pok Pok is an educational app for kids, and they have an associated YouTube channel that does gentle learning and entertainment videos using toys and characters from the app.

I was approached about working with them, and was happy to agree to write storylines for them. I've done a lot of toyplay before, so this was nothing new - but it's always nice to make some charming, simple little tales for younger audiences (especially when my other job is making robots punch each other!)

It's a lot less script intensive, the team like to adapt things as they shoot and match the particular voice they want. But I'm generating concepts and writing out the full plots for them to take into the studio.

The first episode is about Gardening and the second is a mystery about a Giant Egg! (with another in production on the way!)

Enjoy!

MCM London Comic Con

 Absolutely mad! Surreal! Crazy!

I'm a big ol' nerd, so I've been to many comic cons in my time, including the prestigious MCM London - the biggest in the UK.

But to my astonishment my work on Transformers: CYBERWORLD has led to me being on a flipping panel! About the show! Such an honour and wonderful experience.

I still can't believe the response we have received from the fandom - and it was really, really great getting to share the experience with a bunch of engaged fellow nerds from the glitz and glamour of the stage.

(Not that it was a massive thing, but still huge to me.)

I fully blacked out and don't remember what I said. But I would do it again for sure - hopefully the show continues long enough for us to visit a convention again in the future!

I was there alongside my fellow writer Ryan Denham, Voice Director Joe Lewis and four of the five amazing voice talent we work with on every episode: James Alexander, Jessica Carroll, Shogo Miyakita and Jack Ayres!

Our gracious moderator was also one of our Executive Producers Tayhan Mustafa.

We played the full theme song and also showed a small snippet of that weekend's episode. As well as having an audience Q&A.

I'm so humbled and thankful, and still can't believe it happened!

R-L: Shogo Miyakita, Jack Ayres, James Alexander, Jessica Carroll, Joe Lewis, Tayhan Mustafa, Ali Lightfoot

I was listed on the website!

(Big shout out to James for kicking off and organising the whole thing for us!)

Til All Are Won!

The first official teaser trailer for the project I've been working on has finally dropped!

May I introduce Transformers: CYBERWORLD a brand new YouTube web-series from Hasbro Studios UK.

I've been working on this for nearly 10 months at this point and I've not been able to talk about it at all. But my name is on the IMDb and the show is officially announced so I am copping up to it.

I developed the show for series from a concept (and toyline) provided by the team at Hasbro, and I am the Head Writer for the 36 episode run.

It's so very exciting and I'm so pumped to share the show with the fandom and world. The first episode premieres on 12th July this year - just over a month away. We're still in the thick of production (and will be well up until the finale) but it's coming to life!

I've already seen the first few episodes coming together and hopefully you all love it as much as we do. The team is fantastic, the cast is brilliant, I can't wait for people to see what we've all worked so hard to produce.

Big love and big thank.

Fire Fire! Kidibli Premiere 🔥🔥

 The first episode of the Kidibli reboot has gone live! In fact, the first two episodes have!

The first about waffles in the toaster is the final version of the pilot that I created the animatic for. The second is an episode I actually wrote(!) about a cat getting stuck in a tree.

Watch them both below here:

This was a really fun project to work on, and figure out the brand new format for the show. There's a couple more episodes I have written that should come out in the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled!

It was great to work closely with Jeremy Krause again, and fellow writer Jessie Stephenson (quite possibly our first project since Popeye!) looking forward to many more as the series progresses.

Kidibli

 In the wake of my departure from WildBrain, I was given the fantastic opportunity to work on a series refresh for the studio Animaj.

They were looking to revitalise their digital show Kidibli - bringing a similar energy to what was produced for Kiddyzuzaa.

I had the pleasure of working with a number of my former WildBrain/Kiddyzuzaa colleagues for the project, and I hope it continues to be a lot of fun!

My role, initially, on the project was to help produce an animatic for the pilot episode, that would be used as part of the internal pitching to greenlight the full series. Written by the incomparable Jeremy Krause.

Originally this was about glue and had a slightly different execution.

But then the team pivoted to an episode about misusing a toaster (and starting a fire.)

I'm very happy with how the animatic turned out. I used a combination of assets provided by our fantastic illustrator Courtney Summers, along with my own drawings and some real photos of an actual fire engine toy that I bought for the project.

The idea was that the show would have a mixed media look, swapping between live-action, stop-motion and hand-drawn animation for different moments.

Being a wholly illustrated 2D animatic, it was important to express this visual distinction as much as possible - hence the different styles throughout the piece.

I'm thrilled to say it was a success and the project is going into production. I am on board as a writer and storyboard artist for the show. I will share more as things progress!