Back of the Oven! Part5
As I mentioned last time, getting someone to champion our little show was like pushing water up hill. But finally, we had found those key people that would stand a chance of getting ‘Jeff the Chef’ (as it was known then) placed with a broadcaster. Oliver Ellis and Helen Howells had created a new company by the name of HoHo Entertainment (see what they did there? with an H and an O 🙂 ) Their track record in the industry was good and myself and co-creator, Simon Jowett felt that they were the right people to get this show made. So Oliver and Helen carried on building their new company and taking Jeff around to broadcasters. What was required from me through this process was to continue to provide visuals of the characters and locations that would make up the show. Needless to say, HoHo had ideas about how it could look. This wasn’t just Simon and me developing this now. Oliver and Helen would suggest changes and new stuff. Obviously, we didn’t all agree all the time but as is the way with any project, it is about what works rather than about what you want. Our collective thoughts and experience really did seem to be moving the project along. But the biggest challenge and the one that would make all the difference, was trying to get a major broadcaster to pick it up. The BBC were approached again and they seemed to like it but always had some kind of reason why it wasn’t right for them. Those reasons sometimes seemed bizarre. We would try and adapt the project to suit their concerns but there is only so far you can go before your project loses its original integrity. Sometimes you have to hold your ground and stick with your original intention. The BBC turned it down. Time moved on. years passed. We are now at about 2009/2010 I finished my stint at the games company working on the ‘Ologyworld’ stuff. I then got a call from my old friend David Freedman (remember him? the first producer I worked with in TV) who was working on a kids animated TV show at Pinewood Studios. the show was called Matt Hatter Chronicles. A very ambitious CG action adventure show. I was tasked with designing all the environments. Like any show, it had its problems, but creatively it was a hugely satisfying experience and definitely added work into my portfolio that would serve me well later on. After finishing there I was drafted back in to draw some more Transformers stuff. I almost didn’t do it but it was a chance to work with Simon Furman on a project that had served us well way back when. Not only that but a chance to finish off the incomplete Marvel story-line from some 20 years previous in the form of a 20 issue series called, Transformers: ReGeneration One. Something that also came out of Matt Hatter was a brief period of time working on the show with an Art Director by the name of Andrea Tran. We worked well together and a year or so later Andrea called me about working with him on a new CBeebies show called Ruff-Ruff, Tweet & Dave. The show was being produced by Collingwood&Co and is to date one of my favourite working experiences. Great people and great little project.
Meanwhile, HoHo were still plugging away with Jeff, and finally, they got a bite. Channel5 were interested. It took a lot of manoeuvring and massaging and negotiating but they had finally done it! We had our major broadcaster. A MASSIVE hurdle had been got over. But, this was just the start of a new mountain to climb. Getting the broadcaster signed up is great but it doesn’t pay for the show. Raising the finance for a 52 episode kids show takes a lot of doing. But hey, HoHo are good at this, right Then, we came up with a problem. It was something that had always been a possibility but something that I always struggled with. Due to various conflicts, HoHo and Channel5 had decided that we could not go any further with the project using the name ‘Jeff’. It turned out that there were other properties out there that used the name. Previous research had shown this but we weren’t concerned as those other projects weren’t like ours. They weren’t even kids TV shows. They were things like an out of print book and somebody who makes sausages up North and a chef in America. It didn’t seem to conflict with any trademark but it was there. It was too close for comfort. So after much deliberation, the search for a new name began. This was a tough one. He had always been Jeff. He was Jeff. What on earth were we going to call him? It was like being asked to rename your child!
A rose by any other name?
Next: Back of the Oven! Part6
