Labuntina – An Interview With Creator Valentina Ventimiglia
Labuntina is the popular preschool kid’s TV series that is screening on Sky Kids TV. The series introduces children to the world of sound a phonics with the help of a colourful cast or critter-costumed kids. Labuntina has found fans with children and adults alike with parents singing the praises of the show for it’s near instant appeal with children who are singing along with the series.
Created by Valentina Ventimiglia the shows musical origins stem from the songs that Valentina used to play on the guitar to her own children, after finding a gap in the market the animator refined the idea and developed a series before heading to Kickstarter to initially finance it.
The series exceeded the initial goal that it set on Kickstarter and it wasn’t long before the series was picked up by broadcaster Sky. Valentina has a history working in children’s television having worked on Pip Ahoy for CHF and Sarah and Duck for Karrot. Making quality content for kids isn’t easy, so we caught up with Valentina to get more detail on how the series came to be.
The show is a mixture of music and character, could you tell us what we can expect from the show and what characters we should look out for?
Labuntina is a series of animated music videos of original songs for young children. The duration veries from 2 to 4 minutes and the main characters are Lili Fish, Kodi Fox and Judi Bee, 3 children that love to dress up as animals. They sing all the songs and occasionally we see them transforming to go into their immaginary worlds, where Judi Bee can fly in her magical garden, Kodi Fox can talk to animals in his enchanted forest and Lili Fish can explore the underwater, as she turns into a little mermaid.
Tell us a little bit about your career leading up to Labuntina.
I graduated in Traditional Animation in 2006 and straight after that I won an internship at Cartoon Network Europe, in London. I lived in London for about 5 years, freelancing as Traditional/Flash animator and towards the end I had the opportunity to work as Storyboard assistant in 2 features: Fantastic Mr Fox and Frankenweenie. I moved to the North West in 2013, to work for Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick as lead animator, but very soon got into Storyboarding for TV series, such as Sarah & Duck and Okido. Meanwhile, I kept on developing my project with every little spare time I could find and in 2017 I finally launched my Kickstarted campaing, to fund the pilot of Labuntina, which I’m very happy to say, proved succesful!
Judi Bee
I understand the idea for the shorts came from a very personal place, could you elaborate?
Yes, absolutely. Labuntina came from my need to entertain my daughter, who at the time was about 1 year old.
I wrote several songs for her, to help us both getting through the daily routine, but especially to engage with her, as it seemed music worked much better than words and proved to be a very helpful tool. When I realised I had about 10 songs, I thought “I have to turn these into music videos”, as Clara really enjoyed watching animated nursery rhymes. I began to develop a proper concept around the songs and that’s how Labuntina came to be.
Lili Fish
You’re originally from Italy but have lived and worked in the UK for many years, what’s the difference between Italian and British Kids TV?
Having worked mainly in the UK, I am not very familiar with the current state of Italian TV for children, but I can definitely tell that Italy tends to import a lot of foreign shows and produce a very small percentage of what goes on its TV. I grew up with maily Japanese cartoons (which I’m very happy about!), but now you can see a wider variety, with productions coming from the UK, Europe in general, USA and Canada. All rigorously Italian-dubbed, of course!
You set up a Kickstarter campaign to bring the show to life, how did you fit that around your career!
From a couple of months previous the launch, until a few after the campaign, I actually had to stop working. The Kickstarter campaign was a full-time job, which is not completely over yet, as I still have rewards to full-fill ( I haven’t forgotten!). My husband economically supported me throughout, so we lived on one salary for nearly a year, which was challenging, but it definitely worth it at the end.
Kodi Fox
Did the Kickstarter campaign help get a deal with Sky to commission the show?
Absolutely. My Kickstarter video included an animated title sequence, which gave people a preview of how the show would have looked like. I accumulated a lot of material during the years, so the video came out quite rich and sharing it on the socials gave me an enormous visibility. The video was also shared on Festivus (cheers Rob!) and it was there that Lucy Murphy, head of Sky Kids contents, got in touch, even before the campaign was over.
What does the future hold for Labuntina?
Hopefully… More Labuntina! I really hope that the children will love the show and ask for more. I think we have such a solid brand now, that it would be a shame not to make more, but again, fingers crossed the children like it and if they do, we’ll take it from there. You can watch the episodes, plus 3 promos and one trailer on Sky Kids channel, Sky Kids app, available both on tablet & mobile, and NOW TV.
You can watch episode of Labuntina on Sky here