Producing a Series in Lockdown: New Zealand’s Mukpuddy Discuss New Show ‘The Adventures Of Tumeke Space’
In 2016, we reported on a new series hitting screens in New Zealand by up-and-coming Aukland-based studio Mukpuddy; the comedy-adventure The Barefoot Bandits. The three studio founders – Alex Leighton, Ryan Cooper and Tim Evans – spoke to us about the show’s creation, their influences and the animation landscape in NZ.
After 3 successful seasons, the studio are back with a spin-off series: The Adventures Of Tumeke Space. The initial concept came from the question of “what if Billy T James (an 80s kiwi comedian) was in Star Wars” but quickly became “what if an average kiwi guy found out his grandfather was an intergalactic space hero”. In turn, this question lead to deeper themes about imposter syndrome, living in the shadow of successful elders, and a commentary on the impacts of colonisation.
Mukpuddy found themselves in the unfortunate position of starting production at the same time as New Zealand went into lockdown in early 2020. We catch up with the team five years on to discuss the new series, and how they navigated production during lockdown.
Q&A with Mukpuddy Studio
With The Barefoot Bandits already under your belt, and as the spin-off show, how easy was it to get ‘The Adventures Of Tumeke Space’ green-lit? Can you tell us a little about the commissioning process?
We wouldn’t say “easy” as we still had to pitch it a couple of times, but it was definitely an easier sell as we already had a proof of concept thanks to Tumeke’s appearances in The Barefoot Bandits (that was pretty much always the plan… sneaky sneaky!).
What were your first thoughts when you heard New Zealand was going into lockdown, at the same time as production was due to start?
There was a moment of panic as over our 19 years of running Mukpuddy “Pandemic Protocol” was never a topic of discussion (outside of fantasy Zombie Apocalypse planning). This was a show we’ve wanted to make for almost a decade, and here we were faced with a new way of working just days out from starting animation.
Alex Leighton at work (Image Mukpuddy © 2021)
How did you navigate the lockdown and work-from-home restrictions? How quickly were you able to adapt your pipeline?
Luckily we have an amazing crew who all rallied together and within 48 hours everyone was at home, set up and working as normal. So aside from the disappointment of not getting to make Tumeke Space under the same roof… it was business as usual. The pipeline pretty much remained the same, with everything shifting to an online server to access. So file management became the trickiest part of our “new normal” but even then, everyone got used to that pretty quick.
Despite the easing of restrictions in New Zealand, are you continuing remote working, at least to some degree?
We’ve always been a fairly flexible studio. So for years our crew have taken the odd day here and there to work from home but, after the lockdowns were lifted, a lot have chosen to split their time a little more evenly between in-studio and home.
You mentioned that “a show like this has never been attempted in New Zealand, as the budgets and timeframes don’t really allow for this level of ambitious project” – can you expand on this comment?
It’s safe to say that budgets for most productions (especially animation) are pretty modest in comparison with other countries. We’ve always tried to come up with shows that can work within those restraints, (limited locations, recurring characters etc) but a show like Tumeke Space required a far greater scope when it came to the story we wanted to tell. It’s a show about a hero in the making searching for his long lost Koro (grandfather) throughout the universe… so yeah, we were our own worst enemies on this one [haha]. Each episode visits new planets and meets new characters. There was no real way of keeping it small… but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Fluffy Town Sketches and Render (Image Mukpuddy © 2021)
Are there any plans for another series of either ‘The Barefoot Bandits’ or ”The Adventures Of Tumeke Space; or do you have other projects keeping you busy?
Yes, we are hoping we get to make more Bandits and Tumeke later this year. We also have a few other smaller series that keep us going. We are on to the 2nd series of our “slacker” comedy series Jandal Burn and the 3rd series of our “how to draw” series “The Drawing Show” is underway. We recently managed to get the rights to Spike Milligan’s Badjelly the Witch, so all going well, we hope to see some movement on a TV series based on the classic audio/book late 2021. It’s something we’ve worked very hard to secure, and are very excited to play with the characters and the world Spike created.
Since our last conversation with you in 2016, has the New Zealand animation scene changed?
There have been some big changes in where and how “kids” content is streamed in NZ. A streaming service called HeiHei was launched a few years back and has been a great way for us to get some of our more “left field” ideas made. While our shows Jandal Burn and The Drawing Show had originally received a no from linear TV, both worked perfectly for HeiHei and are into their 2nd and 3rd series now. There’s a few more studios creating animated shows now and Weta recently announced their jump into film and TV animation… so that can only help in putting NZ on the map as a place to go for animation.
Tumeke Space House Designs (Image Mukpuddy © 2021)
Are there any plans to release either series to a wider international audience?
Absolutely. We always want to get our work in front of an international audience. Once we get more episodes of Tumeke it’ll be a little easier to sell. We are also always pitching to international streaming services, so hopefully we’ll eventually get to make a show for the world.
The Adventures Of Tumeke Space launches on HEIHEI/TVNZ On Demand February 2021.
The Mukpuddy team (Image Mukpuddy © 2021)