So ‘Jeff the Chef’ was no more. All those years of nurturing this character and all his friends was changing. We had lived with Jeff for a long time. We had spoken to friends and family many times over the years about how Jeff was one day going to be on TV. But now, it wasn’t going to happen. Don’t get me wrong, the fact that our little show had now found a home was AMAZING! It had finally happened and we were over the moon. But also, in some way, it wasn’t the character that we had come to know and love that was going to get his big break. But then, it’s all made up after all. So the search started for a new name.
I am sure you can imagine how hard that was. Seems like it should be easy, but think of another name that rhymes with Jeff. Go on, try. I know, right. there aren’t any. The closest that we ever got was the name Stef. Which would play well in Scandinavian countries, but in the UK it would seem a bit, odd. Talking of odd, we even played with the idea of changing gender. Not us. The character. If he was going to be called Stef, why not make him female. Stef works well as a female name in the UK. I even did a load of designs. So our chef character was going to be female, the child? could be a boy I guess. And the organic farmer friend was going to be a trendy hipster male type character. Yes, there are drawing for this. Might post them at some point. What was also interesting about the gender thing was that way back when the BBC didn’t want a male. So maybe (even though we were now with Channel5) female would be a good move? All those thoughts and then…. STOP!!!!!!
We were going back on the work we had done for many years. A lot of conversations had been had about the power of the father-daughter single parent setup and it worked well, and we were about to throw it all away for the sake of having a name that rhymes. So if a rhyming name isn’t available, how about a bit of ‘alliteration’. So. A name that starts with a ‘shh’ sound. Ready? Go!
First and obvious one is Sean. but as we all know, that has been used on a certain woolly character. Other possibilities are a number of Biblical names, but that wouldn’t travel well. The next obvious and widely used one is (drum roll) SHANE! So, those lovely people at HoHo took it for test drive. they tested it on focus groups and all that kind of stuff and it was a winner. Not only does it sound good, it is also a name that fits well with the Chennel5 audience. It is a name that they are familiar with and a name that is pretty cool 🙂
So we had it. Shane the Chef. Somehow, right as it was it was still a tricky one to get comfortable with personally. Then, a great little bit of advice from Helen at HoHo. She suggested that I do a search and replace of all files and folders on my computer. That way, when I go to open any folder with stuff to work on it will say SHANE and it will be that and nothing else. Good advice. I guess that opening JEFF folders to work on Shane would be like going through a dead man’s wardrobe 😮 And sure enough, for me, he quickly became the Shane that we now know and love.
Work is going well on the book. Lots of thumbnails and test pieces. Once I have thumbnailed a few of the opening scenes I will get started on finished artwork. All being well I will have some early stuff to show at ThoughtBubble and maybe even launch the Kickstarter campaign. Needless to say, if you are interested in being part of the Kickstarter campaign say now so that I can get a sense of it.
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!
Clips from Shane the Chef are now up on YouTube on the Shane the Chef Channel. A chance to see some beautiful little sequences from Cloth Cat Animation. Apart from all the fun of catching chickens in the clip here, take a look at some of the amazing model, texture and render that Cloth Cat achieved. Amazing detail for an animated TV show.
So I have been delving into the depths of my memory to try and remember the details. But through some very trying career ups and downs it’s hard to be really clear about some of it, so this is my best guess. Suffice to say that back in 2007(ish) after myself and Simon Jowett had been trying to get our little show, Jeff(as it was then) the Chef, placed we seemed to hit a bit of a wall. Everybody thought it was a great idea, but we couldn’t actually make it happen…
At that time I went back into comics for a while. Probably drawing more Transformers and some Power Rangers I seem to remember. My stint in TV wasn’t coming up with any new work so it was back to a bit of comics and any other illustration work I could get. I also got a good gig in a games company designing environments for some games based on the ‘Ologyworld’ books published by Templar Publishing. I loved that job and interesting the art style that I developed while there was to appear in a couple of other key projects. But more of that another time.
So, I was looking for more illustration work. I needed to get a bit more stuff into my portfolio that wasn’t comics. I fancied the idea of breaking into the world of children’s books illustration. While looking through the stuff I had in the studio I took a look at Jeff the Chef and decided to rewrite the pitch document as though it was a pitch for a children’s book. The content was good and I was pleased with the illustrations. – If I find them I will post some so you can see what those early designs were like -. Anyway, with my redesigned portfolio sorted I started to make appointments to see people. One of those appointments was with Mary Vacher who was then at Random House Publishing. I can’t remember how I got her name but nevertheless I had an appointment to go and see her. It was a good meeting and she was lovely to talk to. She did say, however, that my work was not particularly suitable for children’s book illustration. Well you can imagine my thoughts. I felt like I had got to the point in my career where I was literally going round in circles. Nothing seemed to quite fit. I wasn’t right for kids books, my comics career was all but over, I was finding it hard to get any more work in games or TV. but then, as the meeting ended she said. “this is interesting though”. She was referring to the Jeff document. And then she said, “It’s really nice and could be a nice book for someone, but… it looks like it ought to be a TV show”. I smiled and told her the background of the project. Then she said something that was to MASSIVELY shift things. One of those moments that changes everything. She said, “Do you know Oliver Ellis”. I didn’t, so she gave me the contact details and said, “give him a call and let him know I sent you” (bless her). The following day I did just that.
The meeting with Oliver (who was at that time working for Target Entertainment) was great. He really liked the idea and suggested that we talk about it more and some possible changes to it. Further meetings happened with him and his work colleague, Helen Howells. And… they optioned it! This was amazing. A second chance. Jeff had found a new home and these guys were serious. They handled projects like Postman Pat and Rory the Racing Car. It felt like Jeff was going to be among the right people. During that time Simon (Jowett) and I had many meetings with Oliver. We reshaped things, came up with new characters, talked about how it could be produced, went to see stop-motion supremos, Cosgrove Hall Films and model makers extraordinaire, McKinnon & Saunders. These were amazing times. At McKinnon’s we saw the models they were making for Fantastic Mr Fox and at Cosgrove we saw Postman Pat in production. Jeff had always been conceived as a stop motion show and it looked like we were finally going to make that dream come true. Of course, a major broadcaster needed to be signed up but surely… surely that would happen? right?
Then… another blow. TARGET were shutting their doors, or being taken over or something. But either way, they didn’t want Jeff. No idea why but that was it. Jeff’s new found home was closing it’s doors.
But, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Oliver and Helen had always worked well together and had decided to team up and go it alone and set up their own company. As part of their exit from TARGET they had been told they could take Jeff with them. They asked if we would be willing to sign with them and their new company. It was great of them to ask us, but they were new, with no track record as a company. But we had faith in them, as people. They loved Jeff as much as we did and they were great people to deal with. So we went with it. It was all now very uncertain but it still had a chance. But it wasn’t going to happen in a hurry. Oliver and Helen had a company to build first.
back to the day job…
Where were we. Oh yes, 2005 or 6 or thereabouts. Our little show didn’t get picked up by HIT entertainment. No Matter, Simon the writer knew some more people…
We managed to get a meeting set up with Millimages as Simon knew their UK person. A chap by the name of Johnathan Peel (no, not that one). We went along to see him, had a very long liquid lunch and he loved the idea. And optioned it!! BOOM! We were over the first hurdle. I learned something in that experience. Something that I have used in my University lectures many times. When that option happened I was back into the London animation studio that I had been working in when we first came up with the idea for the show. A second gig working on an animated movie and a TV series. After our successful option with Millimages I went back to the studio and told the person who was the current director that my little show, Jeff the Chef had just been optioned by Millimages. Now, ya have to remember that I was pretty new into kids TV. I had been a comic book artist and games concept artist but hadn’t been in TV long. So his question was, “How did you manage to get a show optioned when you have no background in TV? You need some background in TV to get a show optioned. It’s just not possible”. The answer to that one was pretty straight forward really, which was, “I didn’t know it wasn’t possible” And that really is the case. And it’s actually the reason why most people don’t dare tread into new territory with any confidence. They feel like the ‘shouldn’t’. That it’s not heir place.
Now then, back in the day the show was always seen as a ‘stop motion’ show. Like Postman Pat or the original Bob the Builder or any number of traditional UK kids pre-school shows from Camberwick Green onwards. It simply had to be done that way. After a couple of meetings, Jonathan mentioned that that was all fine from a creative point of view but from a financial point of view it was a tough one. Stop motion is expensive to produce. Very expensive. And to sell it to a broadcaster on that basis would be very difficult as it requires raising a lot of funds to make the show. He suggested we consider doing it as CG. “No way”, said I. I didn’t see it as that and to be honest, back then TV CG was, well, a bit naff. My thinking was that good CG is ok but budget stop motion is at least ‘real’. It has that lovely tactile quality. Kids love it because it looks like toys coming alive.
‘Cromarty’ (looking remarkably like John Grace) from the show, Portland Bill
My old college tutor back in 1981 when I was doing a degree as an illustrator at Leicester Polytechnic was a chap by the name of John Grace. As well as being knows as the co-creator of Reboot John had made a stop motion show called Portland Bill. It was pretty basic but a really sweet show. John was a great tutor and a very inspiring man and I wanted to follow his example. John was the inspiration for the ‘Pop’ character in Jeff the Chef. A father figure. Anyway, Johnathan agreed to pitch the show to the BBC as stop motion. They liked it, but not enough to sign it up on the spot, but they liked it. It went through various rounds of consideration, reached a short list, was almost there… but fell at the final hurdle. That whole process took the best part of a year and in spite of Johnathan’s industry credentials and best efforts it didn’t quite make it. So when the year was up Millimages decided not to continue with the option. We were high and dry and out on our own again. So where to next? We were (literally) running out of options. Or as far as we could find. So things were iced for a while. Simon went back to scripting other TV shows, I went back to some comics stuff and we let it sit for a while.
I have said many times that life is about the people you meet. Sometimes those fruitful meetings come up when you least expect them. Sometimes a dip into a new area can provide something new or sometimes it can loop you all the way back to where you were, but with a new energy and intention. That’s what happened next.
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