Educational Animated Series “JazzDuck” Pilot has Launched on Amazon.
On the 17th June 2016 the first episode for the brand new pre-school animated series JazzDuck became available to watch on Amazon as part of their current Pilot Season – you can find the trailer here or you can watch the pilot now on Amazon.
The series follows the character JazzDuck (who is half Saxophone and half Duck) and his animal companions who work together to help save the day. In the pilot episode we find JazzDuck has lost his friend Ball somewhere in the city – and through some great listening and with the help of his animal friends, JazzDuck sets off on a musical adventure to find her.
The emphasis of the show is music and listening; through its narrative it helps reinforce the positive benefits of active listening. The Nexus creative team have been working closely with Dr. Alice Wilder (Amazon’s acclaimed child psychologist) to ensure the show effectively encourages active listening; a base skill from which so many other learning activities can be built upon. Very cleverly, the character JazzDuck does not speak with words, he can only make saxophone sounds which further reinforces the significance of music as a means of communication (and according to poet and teacher Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Music is the universal language of mankind”). The visual style and animation go hand-in-hand with the music, reflecting the sophistication of Jazz through the characters’ interesting forms and choice of colour palette and mirroring repeated musical beats and phrases through the animation’s visual cues and recurrent character gestures.
The series is produced by London based animation studio Nexus, which have won multiple awards for commercials and music videos and were even Oscar nominated for Best Animated Short for their film This Way Up. The creative team at Nexus worked very closely with their partners Brains and Hunch who composed the music and provided the sound design. When watching the pilot episode it is a joy to see and hear the cohesion between the auditory and visual elements (and I couldn’t help but join in with JazzDuck and his animal friends at the end of the episode for their final song and dance, “The JazzDuck Jam”).
This month Nexus have been showcasing their 360° VR short Rain or Shine (for Google Spotlight Stories) at the Annecy Animation Festival and have seen the release of their short film series Invade All of the Humans for Disney XD.
Meet the Directors
Tom Jobbins
JazzDuck was created and co-directed by Tom Jobbins . After graduating from the National Film and Television School, Tom’s mixed media graduation film My Face Is In Space has been shown around the world at film festivals. Since then, Tom has continued to produce and direct imaginative animated films and was the winner of ‘Best Animation’ at the UK Music Video Awards in 2013 for his film Hiatus – We Can Be Ghosts Now.
Mark Perrett
Co-directing with Tom Jobbins is Mark Perrett. Mark wrote and directed the series of short films Invade All of the Humans with his brother Tom Perrett. Since 2001 Mark has worked with Nexus Productions where he has directed various commercials and music videos. He has also directed sketches for the first two series of the UK animated TV comedy show Monkey Dust and has collaborates with his brother Tom, Brains and Hunch, Pascal Wyse and Ross Hughes (Saxophonist and JazzDuck’s musical voice) in the London Snorkelling Team – An acclaimed music act that performs live with animated projections.
Meet the Composers
Brains and Hunch
Brains and Hunch (Chris Branch and Tom Haines) provided the music and sound design for JazzDuck (with the help of the man behind JazzDuck’s voice, Saxophonist Ross Hughes). The duo have worked with Nexus on numerous projects, including Rain or Shine and Invade All of the humans of which they provided the music and sound design. For over 15 years they have provided original music and sound design for film, well known television shows and commercials, theater projects and music commissions.
Q & A
We were able to catch up with Tom Jobbins [TJ] (creator and co-director) and Mark Perrett [MP] (co-director) at Nexus and they were very happy to answer some questions about their innovative new show…
What was the inspiration for the show JazzDuck?
TJ: When I was a student I put on a funk and soul night in Bristol, and worked concurrently in a plastics factory making butter tubs. It was a boring job but I got to doodle a lot. It was here that I drew JazzDuck. As soon as I had drawn him, I fell in love with him. I mean who wouldn’t like a character that is half saxophone, half duck. It was simply by thinking about the fun he could have with music that the show was born.
It is fantastic to see an animated TV show that embraces the importance of music as an educational tool. What lead to this concept?
TJ: Who doesn’t love listening and dancing to music? There is so much research to show how powerful music is for young minds and we locked quite quickly into the idea that ‘listening’ was underrated. We wanted the show to have music at it’s heart and for it to develop from there out. Playing an instrument or singing was something I was too scared to try when younger so JazzDuck became a great opportunity to try and remedy that for others. I’ve got kids now so I am hoping it will help them developmentally but also to show them a sense of fun through music – it seems to be already.
Music is clearly an integral part of the show’s concept and narrative. What effect did this have on the direction, production and visual style?
MP: Writing the musical elements does have the potential to be too rigid or too obviously educational, but as we dived into the narrative it provided lots of solutions by providing restrictions. JazzDuck himself was always going to speak through music so this meant we had to choose an animation style that could allow for a lot of great visual acting. We spent more time on creating the music and sound design than most tv shows, but it is something we are very proud of. The Jam’ at the end seems to resonate for all ages.
Has the platform Amazon presented more constraints or more opportunities for the animated TV series?
MP: Until it goes to series it’s hard to answer that. They certainly have a lot more data to act upon than most broadcasters. I think it is good that the pilot is available to the public rather than stuck behind doors in the execs office, its definitely rewarding to see it out there already and to see people reviewing and leaving positive feedback.
How did you come up with the character JazzDuck, the duck-Saxophone hybrid?
TJ: JazzDuck is just one of the many wonderful characters that dance around my head.
What are your long term goals for the series?
TJ: We aim to introduce kids to musical ideas without being to forceful. The best way to do this is by writing fun characters and emotional stories. Just getting kids to soak up the ideas will be brilliant! We have lots of great ways to get the music and listening elements into the story so seeing that come to fruition will be a real pleasure. I’d love in years to come a Glastonbury headliner to say that it was all because of JazzDuck that they got into music!
Remember to watch the pilot of this exciting new show – if all the 5 star reviews on Amazon are anything to go by then JazzDuck is sure to be a hit with its audiences. I can’t wait to see episode two!