The Official Pocoyo Blog

Dress up as Pocoyo!

Everyone has a Pocoyo inside of us. In a different way, but all of us keep on being a little Pocoyo, We were and fortunately we still are… And from time to time, we show it to the others. Apparently, since we leave the kindergarten, we forget to be a kid. It looks like since we grow up, we forget about our children’s universe… However, the human being is able to keep designing and dressing up his/her own reality – even though it is in a fleeting way…

 Look at the example below:

 

Who said that Pocoyo was only for kids?

Please send us all your pictures of costumes and any other item related to Pocoyo to markcom@zinkia.com!

Hurray for Pocoyo! Hurray for this special moment!

Pocoyo activities in Chinese!!

Look what it has been prepared by our friends from Zinkia China!

There are some funny and nice explanations about different activities for Pocoyo, done by a famous Chinese contest where they show parents how these things are designed in order to share it with their children.

For all of you who can speak Chinese, you can easily follow the instructions from the video (they are universal activities XDD). For the rest, you can do it through Pocoyo’s website (www.pocoyo.com)

01- Pocoyo friendship box:

02- Save Sleep bird:

03- Speed disk:

04- Pocoyo pinwheel:

05- Flipbook Pocoyo hours:

 

Pocoyo in huge dimension!!!!

When we saw it for the first time, we could not believe it. Pocoyo is a huge Pocoyo! The same happened to Elly, Pato, Loula and Sleepy Bird. They became adorable giants of 5 metres high and almost 3 meters wide…

 

The creators of this nice tribute are from Yecla (a little town from Murcia, Spain). During the San Isidro Festival, this town welcomes the spring and remembers the agricultural traditions. Moreover, the members of the traditional “peñas” (groups of people) show their homemade and particular “carrozas”. These “carrozas” are really masterpieces – done with paper, cork and other home materials… and people invest months of work for that special day.

 Each figure is independent and cannot be separated. Everything is recovered with nice and colorful papers – which make them quite difficult to keep them and support the passage of time. For that reason the responsible of this masterpiece, the El Alba “peña”, are going to hand over the huge figures to a school in order to enjoy them a bit longer…

 

This is like viewing in life the Poczilla episode!!! XDD

Thank you very much for being inspired in Pocoyo! For Zinkia and Pocoyo it is a huge honor to see how Pocoyo makes happy to so many people…

Link here if you can have a look to other images: Gallery Images big Pocoyo

Horray for Pocoyo!!!!!
 

Pocoyo in Messenger!

Here there are the Pocoyo and his friends’ icons for Messenger! So far, China office has developed 20 funny different expressions of Pocoyo, of Elly and soonish we will have some more of Pato and company.

These icons are a small part of the online collection that our Chinese colleagues are developing. Among other news, there are also some winks in order to be used in Messenger.

And soon, we will have a mobile version!

Find below some examples of the icons:

 

Ready? Go!

We still do not know where are they heading – but the true is that Pocoyo and his friends are ready to take the car and drive…

Is it not weird that Pato prefers to drive a different car than taking his roller skate? And what about Elly’s skateboard? Why do you think this is happening?

Which is the one you prefer? Any suggestion?

The best of driving a car in Pocoyo’s world is that you do not need any driving licence… and the petrol is for free!

Or at least, this is what we think, is not it?

Pocoyo and The Space Circus!

As you all know, the Pocoyo 24-minutes short film, Pocoyo and The Space Circus, was projected in Spain last Christmas by the Spanish TV channel, La 1 de TVE, in 1-hour special program, The Pocoyo’s Show. It was a complete success – getting up to 514.000 members of the audience. So we hope that The Pocoyo’s Show will also be a success at the International Festivals where we intent to present this year.

We have talked about the Martian Brothers, about how the funny world of Pocoyo is interrupted by these nice aliens and about how Pocoyo and his friends will enjoy their first day at the circus. A very special day! ;-)

But, did you think that we were not going to let you know anything else?  Did you watch the Program in Christmas? Did you like it? For those who want to know and see a bit more of Pocoyo and The Space Circus, here it comes the long version of the trailer…

Pocoyo and The Space Circus will be on sale in Spain in a DVD format. It will include a lot of surprises that you will discover very soon… Can you imagine anything? XDD

Pocoyo is made of chocolate...

This week we have been contacted by some pastry cooks from Ibi (Alicante, Spain) in order to share with us what they have just done. It is a very sweet story – I am sure that the below pictures will make your mouth water.

It is a HUGE Pocoyo and a HUGE Elly made of chocolate!

But, do not think it was just a piece of cake…Those guys have dedicated more than 20 hours of work for each piece and have used more than 100 kilos of black chocolate. In order to do it in a realistic way, they have used white chocolate and normal chocolate. We must say that proportions are not perfect, though. But we have to take into account the big dimensions and the difficulties in working with chocolate. Most of us we prefer working it in a different way! Don’t we? ;-)

We know that all it is done with affection ends up being a personal, social and emotional success – and we are conscious that these patissiers (big fans of Pocoyo :-D) have put an enormous doses of affection. Well, obviously, to those pieces and to all of them!

We promise you to keep on showing you all these kind of curiosities! And if you wish to send us your Pocoyo cakes, chocolate pieces or any other material, we will be thrilled to publish them. And to eat them!!! ;-DD

Switch off the lights. Switch on the Planet.

To be a part of our kid’s memories. That was one of our main reasons to create Pocoyo. But, which memories would we like to have about the Earth? Would we like them to remember what their parents did to stop the climate change? What it is clear is that we all need to take care of the environment – it is our responsibility! So far, Pocoyo has decided to join the cause and he expects us to do the same.

How? When? Who?

It will be through the International Campaign, Earth Hour, promoted by the WWF organization. It will be held next Saturday 28 March from 20.30 till 21.30 with the intention of involving millions of citizens along the world. During that hour, we have to switch off the lights and do activities that have no electricity consumption. This initiative counts on more than 1.600 cities from 80 countries, and it is supported by important public celebrities, international young groups and different public administrations.

It will be wonderful to see cities switched off during an hour!

By the way, do you know which light system do we use with Pocoyo? Could we use it to illuminate the rest of the world?

www.wwf.es

With glasses, everything can be seen much better!

In about two weeks, many different models of Pocoyo glasses will be on sale. There are sunglasses for kids, polarized and prescription sunglasses, and we are absolutely certain that these glasses will be very trendy! So far, Pocoyo and Pato wear them and they do not want to take them off anymore :-)

  

And, as this text is about glasses, we want to let you know about new 3D projects for Pocoyo that we are working in Zinkia. Imagine how funny it is to see Pocoyo with this kind of glasses! It will be such a nice experience to put our 3D glasses together with our kids and to look at each other while Pocoyo and his friends make us laugh…

Pocoyo Dance Club!

Can you imagine life without music? For Pocoyo that would be quite weird – as he has always been around music. In fact, when Pocoyo was born, the Beattles’ song “All you need is love” was sounded :)

Pocoyo’s music, as you all know, it is a very relevant element and a key aspect of the success and personality of the TV series. Dani and Nahúm are the responsible for this music success and they have created a very special style. Listening to Pocoyo’s music is a synonymous with fun, joy, energy…

 

Being conscious of this success and the big demand to create new content where Pocoyo’s music and dance are the main characters, we decided to show to Pocoyo four simple dancing steps to keep on transmitting his funny energy.

Pocoyo Dance Club expects to become the favorite dance for all kinds all over the world – or at least, for all of us we are part of Pocoyo’s World!

I guess one of the magic moments for parents is seeing his/her kid dancing for the first time. All of you that want to record your kids dancing Pocoyo Dance Club please do it and upload it on the exclusive channel of Pocoyo in Youtube! (www.youtube.com/pocoyo)

Love for Sant Valentine… and all year long!

Love is universal! Tell him/her in all languages!

 

اني احتاج ان تدللني قليلا          Hug me!                  Mímame!              ずっと、よろしくね

    (Arabian)                                  (English)                (Spanish)                    (Japanese)

Kuschel mich!                          Mima-me!              Câlines-mo!                Coccolami!

   (German)                             (Portuguese)                (French)                        (Italian)

                                                    Verwen mij!            -爱我吧

                                        (Flemish)                  (Chinese)

 

Put Pocoyo on your fingers!

Are you able to make laugh a kid just using a finger? And… what about creating Pocoyo’s world with your hands?

 
A few days ago, we have in Zinkia the Pocoyo finger-puppets and we are all making different gestures with them: the victory sign, the scissors, shadows with hands, etc…

I am sure that even those puppets can be used as baby socks ;)

What do you think? Do you like them?

The Martian Brothers!

Somehow, we are considered a bit Martians, and we like so much Martians! Screenwriters and Executive Producers thought about all kind of possibilities to develop the script of the short film: a circus? With or without clowns? White background? Or what kind of background? Yes, a circus, but a space circus. The script required it and the production would appreciate it – as we will be able to use the space background already done. Besides that, we are Martians…

Angry Alien strongly required a big prominence. Loula wanted to give up her role of sweet doggie and to become a ferocious and obedient lioness. And we better shut up as we rather explain in coming posts more news and surprises about Pocoyo and The Space Circus.

However, what we indeed can confess is the resemblance that has Giuseppe – our Responsible for TV Spots in Zinkia – with one of our Martian Brothers… Yes, we did not even know that Martians have moustache ;-)

 

Vote for Pocoyo!!!

Pocoyo has been nominated in Spain for the “Mejores Miradas” award in the category of Best Animation Production – 2008. On this occasion each and every one of us can be jury!! You all have the chance to be part of it and vote for Pocoyó or which ever other production you like best…

http://www.rtve.es/television/trasla2/mejores-miradas/

We are also very proud to inform you that Pocoyó has won the PROMAX BDA prize for Best Promo, through Disney Channel :)
Though Pocoyó wasn’t made with the purpose of winning prizes, who wouldn’t feel so proud of the work and effort made by so many talented professionals?

Pocoyo - Miradas 2 / Zoom Net

Hello, Pocoyo! and Protégeles

Another big day! The importance of being recommended…

Last December, we presented in Madrid the videogame Hello, Pocoyo!. We had a press conference together with Virgin Play and the Spanish Association Protégeles. It was especially important to be next to Protégeles because it was the first time that this Association supported a game like that.

Who is Protégeles? It is an organization that protects children’s security in audiovisual contents. For us, this aspect is crucial to produce all our projects. Protégeles also elaborates studies related to different contents focused on children – done by professional experts on children’s security, computer technicians, pedagogues and marketing and communication experts.

It was extremely warm in the meeting room. Previous nerves to the press conference. “Good morning and thank you all for being here…” – Teresa Núñez, Virgin Play Press Responsible (good friend and professional), opened the press conference to introduce the rest of the speakers: Paco Encinas, CEO of Virgin Play, commented the internationality of the product. Guillermo Castillo, President of the Association Protégeles, praised the work of Zinkia for “having created a videogame that is able to join families in front of the DS”, and Fernando de Miguel, CEO of Zinkia, proudly mentioned that it was a pleasure for Zinkia and Pocoyó that an organization like Potégeles did not criticize that kids play with videogames like Hello, Pocoyo!, but also that they recommended with total security.
Lastly, Tatiana Delgado and Francesc Vilanova (our concept designers that represented the development team) did a wonderful life explanation about the game that captivated all journalists.

In the meanwhile, Pocoyo appeared to become the main character of the day. It was curious – at some point, the heat and nerves disappeared and the room was full of laugh and fun…

Happy Christmas and a happy new year!

Although it may result a contradiction, Pocoyo's white background admits some snow, and we couldn't say good-bye to 2008 without throwing some snowballs. But, in Pocoyo's world there aren't a hundred words which refer to the snow as it happens with the Eskimos, there is only one word and most of the characters wouldn't even know how to pronounce it :-)
Zinkia and Pocoyo's team wish you a homely Christmas, in family and full of presents !

 

Pocoyo and The Space Circus (II) - A new challenge

We have to do a short film! But, how can we do a short film from something that is already extremely short? – Someone asked. Nothing to do with this. We meant to do a short film of a considered duration, close to half an hour, capable to be projected in a cinema in 35 mm and the perfect reference for Zinkia to face Pocoyo’s film.

A new challenge for the scriptwriter, for the executive producers, for the director, for the production team, pre-production, post-production and for the music team… A new challenge for all of us! Even for the kids. 25 minutes of Pocoyo full of surprises…

Pocoyo and The Space Circus

Coming soon...

Birthday Party with Pocoyo!

It is a special day. A day you will remember forever. A day full of joy, wishes, surprises… It is YOUR DAY. It is YOUR SPECIAL DAY. It does not matter how you feel that day – if you are cold or if it is raining… In any case, it is your day and you are extremely happy to be with all your family and friends!

Nowadays, birthday parties with Pocoyo are very in. This one, in particular, is Jorge’s birthday party – who turned 4 years-old. He is one of the first kid who has shared his day with his friends decorating everything with Pocoyo: flags, glasses, caps, forks, napkins, tablecloth, etc…

Happy birthday, Jorge! In this picture you can see him blowing the candles out with all his friends and family… How wonderful!

So far, all these party products are on sale in Spain – but we promise you that very soon you will be able to buy them in other countries.

And please do not forget to keep on sending your photos (markcom@zinkia.com) of your parties, cakes, and everything you want!

Hello, Pocoyo! (Part III)

It looks like Pocoyo is as naughty as usual – he has taken the magic marker and he has made disappear all his friends. How? For the moment, he has painted a square on the floor and he has made it a dancing room. The issue is that everyone who goes into the dancing room, disappears.

Where are all those that have disappeared? Will Pato and Pocoyo meet again? The research is the essence of the game, and to find them we will need to travel all around Pocoyo’s world…

How have we designed and built the world of Hello, Pocoyo!?

First thing, we designed it on paper – we sketched every scene in 2D. In this previous design, we conceptualized all puzzles of the game and we dosed all the items that were meant to be discovered along the game. We will let you know in another occasion which items we are talking about!

                           

After that, we modelled screen by screen in 3D – adding at the same time the items. Two types of items: decorative and interactive items (like the balloon, in this specific example), and the respective performances. Have you ever thought about being able to cross a river or a road by blowing on a balloon? Pocoyo did not think about it. He simply blew and let himself be carried away…

   

Pocoyo China (Part II)

A few weeks ago, we let you know that Pocoyo was in the Chinese TV. Today we can tell you that the relationship between Pocoyo and China is tighter than ever... Just a few days ago, we also got the Official Blog and the Pocoyo website are available in mandarine Chinese!

Below you can find the addresses:

http://blog.pocoyo.com.cn/
http://www.pocoyo.com.cn/

Pocoyo has no frontiers!

Pocoyo Curiosities!

Would you like to have these toys in your room? We have found them in Japan but unfortunately are not on sale :-( They are used just for decoration…

Character Costume: The Hug

The destiny wanted to hug each other. We could not avoid it. In fact, we think that anybody wanted to avoid it, even though it was a bit scary...

Pocoyo has his equivalent in a huge Pocoyo: the character costume. We wanted a nice character costume that would allow kids to keep on feeling the Pocoyo experience. It is a Pocoyo that you can touch, enjoy and interact with.

We got all that until the moment. However, we did not consider the possibility to make Pocoyo kneel down – due to the heaviness of Pocoyo’s head and the possibility to fall down in front of the kids...But the big day arrived! It was a great moment. The destiny. Even though we explained to our actor the limited movements he was able to do, the typical positions, proper hydration, etc. at some point – as a magic moment – Pocoyo kneeled down and the hug came by itself...

From the first hug, kisses and hugs came from all kids. It was like a Kisses and Hugs Special Day for Pocoyo... It was impossible to avoid that hug – not even the destiny...

Pocoyo Merchandising (Part I)

Have you ever wondered how we create and design Pocoyo’s toys? Who produce them? Who design them? How is the working process? Time to learn a bit more…

As you probably know, even before the first emission of Pocoyo in TV (that was through the British channel CITV), Bandai was Master Toy of the series – participating and helping in the design of the characters: we took out the claws and the tusks of Elly; the dummy of Pocoyo; Pato changed many times shape and colour… always working together with Bandai in order to ensure the running of the brand properly.

However, Pocoyo has many other partners around the world besides Bandai. EVERY SINGLE ONE is responsible of Pocoyo’s success. Specifically, in every country, we have a licensee solicitor that is in charge of dealing with the proper partners, in charge of ensuring the name an the values of the brand, building a long-life brand, demanding product quality and in charge of favouring the distribution channels. How do we reach all this? How do we get to have uniformity in all merchandising products from Pocoyo? Among other, thanks to our STYLE GUIDE… At the same time, either Zinkia or our British partners Granada International, we double-check, coordinate and approve all the material that comes from the licensee partners.

Having a Style Guide guarantees this uniformity, it is easy to work with and avoid confusions…

What else? Once the licensee partner is decided – always he/she needs to be involved with the brand and our values, we start working on Pocoyo’s products. From there, the Design and Brand Department together with the Business Development Department at Zinkia try to bring the personality, the spirit and the essence of the TV series to the product itself – always caring the last detail and making sure that proportions and colours are respected. Our intention is to ensure that the person who has a Pocoyo toy in his/her hands feels the same as when he/she is watching the TV series (Pocoyo Experience… J). Once the product is defined, we start producing it…

As you all know, Elly is a very vain and coquette elephant… What do you think she would look with a pearl necklace? Should we put her on a tutu?  What about Pocoyo engine driver? And Pato, looking like a postman? Those are the proposals we have during our product meetings… One day, we will let you know which of them have been rejected…

   

Do you know if we work in the same way in South America? And in China?  To be continued…

Hello, Pocoyo! (Part II): The magic marker

In Zinkia, we love imagination. Pocoyo loves imagination. In fact, when we try to explain to somebody what is Pocoyo, we use to say: Can you imagine seeing the world for first time? Keep on imagining… Can you imagine having a magic pen that makes true all you draw with it? You puncture your car wheel? No problem! Just draw a new one! Do you feel eating an apple? Take a paper, draw it and eat it! The door is close and you can not get in? Draw a door in the wall and come in…

Obviously, in Zinkia we were very excited with this idea (and who wasn’t?), so we decided to have this item as the central theme of the story of the videogame Hello, Pocoyo! Furthermore, as Nintendo DS has a tactile pencil to paint with on the screen, everything fitted perfectly.

However, it is not easy to include a new element for first time. Yes, we do have a magic pen, but… First issue: we also though about having colour pencils for Pocoyo and his friends – and those could be confusing with the magic pen. We eliminated the pen and we transformed it in a magic fountain pen. Second problem: the icon of the fountain pen was very clear; however this object was too adult for Pocoyo. So the conclusion was to use a magic marker…

But obviously, if we gave a magic marker to Pocoyo, what could happen? How far can go Pocoyo with his imagination? I guess, as far as any other child.

Pocoyo conquers America!

Just the other day, while walking through the 5th Avenue, we met a very special friend… Guess who? Yes, it was Pocoyo! A coincidence? The destiny? No, simply Pocoyo was around because he had to pick up the Gold Award that the American Organisation, Parent’s Choice, gives. This time, he came alone… (Apparently, Pato was a bit angry because he was nominated J).

Parent’s Choice is the oldest non-profit guide in the US to children's media and toys. It is used by millions as a guide to products that are fun, safe and socially sound. The Parents' Choice Awards are selected by the Parents' Choice Foundation's panel of educators, scientists, performing artists, librarians, parents and children. Parents' Choice panellists' comments included, "Pocoyo is a real original. Viewers can't help but be mesmerized. It's sweet, it's cool, it's creative. Parents are as likely to stay tuned as their kids" (© Parents' Choice).

With this one, Pocoyo already has 2 awards in the United States! Both of them are very important, but this one is especially significant for Zinkia and Pocoyo as this time it has been parents, children and professionals who granted us.

http://parentschoice.org/

 

Hello, Pocoyo! (Part I)

Can you imagine being part of an adventure of Pocoyo?

That was the question we had when we decided to create Hello, Pocoyo!, the videogame of our favourite friend for Nintendo DS. In this game, you are able to come in to Pocoyo’s world, play with the characters and use their gadgets… Who is not looking forward to playing with Pocoyo and participating in one of his crazy adventures?

That is why we decided to create an interactive episode of Pocoyo trying to keep the same spirit and essence as the TV series. Among the different types of videogames, the concept that fitted better was a graphic adventure adapted to children.

We started with the script considering it as a TV episode – but taking into account all kind of details where the kid can participate as a player. The main point was to involve the kid into the story – as he/she is the one who needs to help Pocoyo and his friends. All the possibilities from Pocoyo’s world together with the options from the Nintendo DS gave us the opportunity to have a lot of elements to make this game an unforgettable experience.

We had the idea… We just need to make it come true!

Pocoyo has fun in Asia!

Just the other day, Pocoyo surprised us again. He talked in a weird way – so weird that we though he was someone else! Even Pato could not understand him! Fortunately, our friends at Zinkia China helped us to understand Pocoyo (Did you know that Zinkia has offices in Beijing?). In fact, Pocoyo was speaking in Chinese J!

                        

            

But that is not all, Pocoyo can speak Chinese and also Japanese! (Right, Atsumi?? J). It looks like Pocoyo loves Asia so much!

                        

Below, you can find the links to the new Pocoyo websites:

-          Chinese version: www.pocoyo.com.cn

-          Japanese version: www.pocoyo.com

Please, send us all material related to Pocoyó and the Asiatic continent to: markcom@zinkia.com

Hello, Pocoyo!

As  you all know, Pocoyo is impulsive – as all kids are. His last wish is a video game – and because he has been a good boy, at Zinkia we have decided to grant him his wish J

We were looking forward to let you know about this new challenge!

Very soon, we will let you know the working process, the video game design, the mechanics and all the anecdotes of Hello, Pocoyo! - The new Pocoyo game for Nintendo DS. From Christmas onwards, you will be able to check how cool this game is… But so far, the ones who can play are our Spanish, Portuguese, British, Italian, French and German players…

Download Promo_Hello_Pocoyo_DS.mov

Pocoyo is also Mexican

We are extremely pleased to be able to share some exciting news with you regarding Mexico. Pocoyo started airing on Televisa 4 weeks ago and is the favorite show amongst the youngest viewers in the country! Thanks to an agreement reached between Zinkia and Grupo Televisa, the first season of Pocoyo will be on air for some time to come!

The presence of Pocoyo in Mexico has been strengthened with the signing of an agreement with Tycoon, the market leader in the Mexican Home Entertainment market to launch the first in a series of DVDs this August.

It seems that Pocoyo also feels good wearing a Mexican poncho...

iGoogle and Pocoyo

A Few days ago Google Spain launched a series of thematic designs by several well known artists that have been created specifically for iGoogle, the Google home page that can be customized with your favorite content. You can guess who was chosen to be included… In just 15 days since its launch, Pocoyo has become one of the most sought-after designs to appear on the Google home page, ahead of designs by Coldplay, Dolce & Gabbana, Andreu Buenafuente, Javier Mariscal or Agatha Ruiz de la Prada. It is the number one theme to be downloaded in Spain and no. 5 internationally. You can not only personalize your homepage with Pocoyo content via the web but every time you carry out a search using Google, you also have the possibility to choose different skins with all the characters of the series. In addition, the skins keep changing regularly throughout the day, featuring a dynamic range of images with some new characters and vibrant backgrounds. Check it out at http://www.google.com/artistthemes PS: We promise to show you the Zinkia offices very soon...

Drawings of Pocoyo!

They say that you stop being a child when you stop drawing and that the fact of abandoning your drawings causes a loss of creativity.  It is perhaps due to this, that many of those who work in Zinkia continue being children with huge ears and noses and that the true Pocoyo is the Pocoyo who has already been drawn by thousands of children...

Send us your special interpretation of Pocoyo, Pato, Valentina, or that of your children (markcom@zinkia.com)… We would be delighted to decorate Zinkia’s offices with them !!

Pablo Heredero: 4 years old

Mercedes Borges: 7 years old

Damián Rascón: 6 years old

 

And to take a look, click on the button

Favorite Characters!

Three months ago we proposed that you vote for your favorite character, and it is only now, that after a long and complicated recount that we have published the voting results. It appears that Pato was expecting some more votes at the last minute, but even with these ...

Really, what happened to Loula? Oops! Of course … I did not agree that man´s best friend is a Duck (Pato) and not a dog, in Pocoyó's world ... Pulpo does not surprise us as much, since his enormous talent as an opera singer assures him a promising future, while continuing to make friends ;)

It is logical that each one of us has a favorite character. Indeed, here at Zinkia there is more than one person who dances like Pato :)

We are thinking of planning new votes and competitions! Any suggestions?

Pocoyo Awards (V)

We’ve just been told some days ago that Pocoyo is once again nominated for Best TV Animated Series at Annecy Festival, the best and most prestigious animation award in the world. In this edition, Zinkia will present an episode from the second series, Big Scary Slide. To give you an idea, amongst 1855 programmes presented from 56 countries, just 20 have been nominated as finalists. As you can see, just been nominated is an achievement for any worldwide production.

Just thinking about that mythical day of 6^th June 2006 when Pocoyo won the Annecy’s Crystal, is a thrilling feeling. What nerves! We never thought that we could reach such recognition.

Following, please find attached a summary of all prestigious awards obtained by Pocoyo.

Hooray for Pocoyo!!

More Pocoyo Awards

...and a Happy New Year...

It seems that Pocoyo has behaved very well this year. At least, that is what Santa thinks so... ;-) How about you? Have you been good? Pocoyo and his friends would really like to know YOUR WISHES for this new year...                      Click here to see the PocoChristmas

Pocoyo "The movie"

Maybe is a good idea, maybe not..we are deeply thinking about it, first of all it`s not the same 6 minutes script than 90 minutes...long way! Will it works?..and what about white backrounds...definitily we have to think about other places, underwater, space, yes, but some more also...
Its going to be a huge challenge, but what if is it possible!!!...lets give it a try, at least lets see how a Pocoyo script for a film would be.
We are already involved in the develop of a new series and we are not planning doing Pocoyo´s 3rd seasion by the moment. It´s too long to explain here why, we first need to consolidate the series, and this is really hard for a preschool one. I think we will, but in the next years and at this time we will need to develop diferent contents as, for istance the movie.
We did some tries with the illumination which is one of the more important issues in this adventure as long as we just work with this caracteristics white backgrounds and global ilumination.
Samanta Undari, the profesional who´s in charge of the matter, did a great job bringing Pocoyo to the inside sets, here you have a couple of examples.

Pocoyo 2 is almost here

It´s been a long time, i know...
We are almost done with the seasion 2 of Pocoyo, just one more week!!
Here you have a clip we did to launch it on television. I think the new episodes are going to be great and we really hope you like it.
Season 2 has got plenty of surprises, new caracters, new wonderful machines, even new planets!! And of course all the humor that we had in the previous episodes. All the team did it with the same love and hard work. Hurray for them and Hurray for Pocoyo!!

Pocoyo opening midi

Here you have another little treasure from our music/audio team. It is the opening music theme tune in a midi file just ready to bring to your mobile... everyone here has the ending music, so each time anyone receives a call we all start looking for our mobiles!  We thought it would be a good idea to have another one! I hope you enjoy it.Download opening_pocoyo.mid

Pocoyo´s Picture Gallery

I found this on the CITV webpage. It's a nice idea, all of our children can send their own version of Pocoyo and his friends and then CITV show the drawings on TV. You can also send them to me at host@zinkia.com and I will post them here!

Here is the link

Sleepy bird´s car

Have you ever seen Sleepy bird´s car?...it appears just in one episode "Pocoyo Race", but, isn´t it great?!!
I love it so much and we were so lucky to get Bandai on board to make it as a toy, and in my opinion it is a great one!

Pocoyo Awards IV (BAFTA)

David Cantolla, Guillermo García, Kathryn Hart, Anne Brogan, Jonathan Doyle

The photo was taken at 7.30pm in Hotel London Milton. After we’d met in the lobby, we shared a champagne cocktail with very elegant and glamorous people in an enormous function room with reserved seating. At our table were Anne Brogan (Executive Co-Producer), David Johnson (Financial Director), Catherine Williams (Script Editor), Giles Ridge (Head of Production), Emmanuelle Namiech (Int'l Sales Exec.) and Lynda McNaughton (Post-Pro) from Granada Kids and Granada International, Jon Doyle (Executive Co-Producer) from Cosgrove Hall and us three: Kath Hart (Executive Co-Producer), Guillermo Garcia (Co-Director) and myself (Co-Director).  Kath, Guillermo and I flew from Spain the previous night and we stayed with our friends/associates. We made out that we weren’t going to be that bothered if we lost…but of course … who did we think we were kidding!?  Before the ceremony started, Guillermo and I had already finished our bread and butter, despite the incredulous stares from our fellow guests! …  We Spaniards are always lowering the tone!

After about 5 or 6 award presentations came our category of nominations. Next to "Charlie and Lola", "The Koala Brothers" and "Postman Pat" , Pocoyo appeared on the screen … and the crowd applauded ferociously … this really did touch me … my heart was pounding and I could tell by the faces around the table that we all felt the same way …

fingers crossed….

the moment arrived …. “and the winner is: ……… Pocoyo”

Wow!  I was absolutely over the moon!  We were all absolutely thrilled!  Anne was euphoric and Jon too … how fabulous for them, after all the bad news we’ve had over the last few months.

Granada Kids is closing down, yes, it’s unbelievable.

Television is above all a question of money, if the business plans are not profitable then companies and their projects close down and disappear. For those of you who have not been following the issue, here is more or less the chain of events:  1. OFCAM in the UK is prohibiting the advertisement of sweets and junk food in any area of children’s products, which of course is great for our children, but…. 2.  As a result of this, ITV’s business plan has had to be reworked looking at its children’s products.  It has ruled that the business plan cannot sustain this area and has therefore decided that they are not going to commission anymore children’s productions.  3.  On making this decision, the plan for Granada Kids’ co-productions has become unviable, and Granada International has announced its closure.  4.  Not only Granada Kids, a whole host of producers have been left alone in the market and are only going to be able to look to the BBC in the future… which indicates a desolate panorama for our children… at the same time, it is a possibility that (as is the case in Spain) the majority of the children’s’ products will be imported from countries who produce them internally … as we say in Spain, that’s football for you!

For this reason (as well as the obvious!) I was especially sorry for Anne, after the efforts she has gone to with us.  I can’t tire of thanking her because she is the before and after in this series, which has made it a very special award.

I wish to dedicate this award to them, to Anne and Jon who have been the best travelling buddies we could have hoped for in Pocoyo!  With them we have learned so much. And of course, to all the others at Granada, some of whom were with us at the table, and to those who have also been part of this adventure but, for one reason or another, could not be there with us.

After everything that you’ve read …and as you’re now getting to know the ins and outs of Zinkia and about how we make Pocoyo, I suppose that you can imagine how wonderful an award like this is for us. Yes, Annecy is, in the world of animation, almost an Oscar, but this award is like winning the best pre-school product on television!!  And even more so in England with competition in infant products as fierce as it is…….. thanks to all of you who support us, to all of you who write here, and to those of you who have believed in us right from the start.  And lastly, a very special thank you to the whole Zinkia team who have made this adventure possible.

more about pocoyo awards here

Animation References

For many of the sequences in the series, animation references are needed.  Most of these have been done by Alberto Sánchez and Luis Zamora and they are done so that the animators have a better idea about how we want the characters to move within a scene.

These references are made using the scenes from the animatic (animated storyboard) and the more references given to the animation teams, the better.  Often, the intent or the way the character acts is not easy to see or understand just by looking at the animatic or the written explanation accompanying it. I will leave you with a couple of examples, one is from the episode “Elly´s Doll” and the other is from “Musical Blocks” these episodes were released in autumn 2006.

Download sc-36.mov 

Download cap_051_pocoyo_jazz-4.mov 

Backgrounds

It’s true that in the pilot episode Pocoyo appears in a boat in the sea counting fish, as you will have seen in the post we published a while back.  But even before this, the first sketches of the character and his first movements were done on a white background.

The problem is that although we were quite clear that we wanted little or no backgrounds, the idea was only in our heads and as what we had presented in the markets had backgrounds, it was difficult for us to allow ourselves to understand this concept as in pre-school it hadn’t been done much before and so it was quite unique.

It might have been for this reason that at first we had a major, intense debate concerning the backgrounds we would use in the series, and it even caused us a delay of a couple of months in the production due to the necessity to go through all the backgrounds for all the episodes in the series. Yes, Pocoyo may not have been white …. Can you imagine it?!

For us, the white background was basic, it gave more focus to the actions of the characters, highlighted their design and movement. It also seemed as though it would encourage the children to pay more attention to the episodes. It gave the series a unique aspect, although we were still planning on using episodes in which Pocoyo would travel to other places such as the Ocean background, or Space, but we also realised that it was a decision that had various risks … and would the children really like it?

From here we will go straight to the journey we made to research how the backgrounds in series would be, something which took an enormous amount of work.  After two months of tests and sleepless nights, experimenting with all types of backgrounds, fog as a tone, with clouds, without clouds, with many props, simple etc… we finally arrived at a compromise which we thought was best and we finished the first episode “umbrella, umbrella” with a background filled with trees, flowers and which was completely green!!!

This is when the decision was made, without the background the difference to the episode was so huge (and let me tell you that the background we came up with was anything but bad!) that the decision was made to use white backgrounds on all the episodes apart from very few special occasions. (You have to understand that this decision lead to a backwards step of two months of production – or rather a lot of money and risk for the sake of trying out the proposal.)

I’ll leave you with some of the images of the backgrounds and the work that was done.   I haven’t found the definitive versions, the ones that were used in the end, but I’m sure that this is sufficient to judge whether we did or didn’t ….

The Dummy Issue (The Boy:Pocoyo evolution II)

read first Pocoyo evolution I, click here

Following the presentation of the pilot we managed to arrange a lot of meetings, Pocoyo seemed to be a great hit! Although, evidently, there was still a long way to go and many changes to be made. When we eventually got to signing the agreement with Granada, Carlton before the fusion, we started to work more behind the scenes with the setup of the characters. And even more than this, Colman López (Technical Director of the series) decided that we were going to work with Softimage XSI and that we had to transfer the models from Lightwave.

The first thing we did was to redesign the size and the shape of the head. We put a flap at the back of the cap to cover the nape of Pocoyo’s neck because the spinal positions were awful ….

… we gave him a bigger tummy and we removed the hood as it was causing problems for some of the positions, and the same with the pocket of his jacket. We tilted the head backwards a little. We reduced the hands slightly. We varied the appearance of the body adding a little to the tummy and turning the position of the body a few degrees. With everthing, Pocoyo has always had problems in holding objects in his hands because it hits him in the face. But in the end, little by little, we achieved a compromise between mobility and morphology which seemed to be the definitive.

….but the real problem was still to come….

Following an important meeting and after nearly six months working on the character, the decision was made to remove the dummy ….

Stated in a few articles Publisher in the press, it was reported that we did not agree with this change, but it wasn’t exactly that, and I’d like to take this opportunity to clear this matter up.

The original idea was that Pocoyo would show his expressions with his eyes, like a small child of 3 years of age…. Fortunately the image that we had created was that of a character which reminded every parent, in some way, of our youngest children and, apart from this, it worked really well. In contrast to other countries, in Spain there are no problems with the dummy from the educational point of view and it is widely accepted. From the point of view of production we had never contemplated neither a voice nor the synchronisations of mouths in the series.

…in any case, it was fine by us for him to speak and it would mean that we’d have less problems trying to get the series into those territories like the EU where the dummy is a problem. We certainly never dismissed the change, it was simply that after so long with the dummy …. How were we to know what he had underneath it, and if we were going to like it, never mind if we knew what it was?! And if Pocoyo’s mouth didn’t work? And if we couldn’t find it? We never said “no”, we just asked for some time.

We did 1000 tests, 1000 that we didn’t like!! But in the end it came out, to compensate for the loss of colour from the dummy we gave him a yellow zip on his jacket and … we had it! We made Pocoyo grow! And as always we moved on from the problem. Today when I look at Pocoyo with the dummy … it just doesn’t look like him and I have to say that I love to hear him speak!

Pocoyo Hockey

This didn’t end up getting used but I found it by coincidence and it brought back great memories.  This helmeted model was made for the episode “Swept Away” which, although it was emitted as episode number 10 in the first season, was the number 1 officially accepted by Granada and CITV. In reality it was the third episode that Zinkia made (the first two have only been seen by a few of us…)

At one point in the episode, Pocoyo used the mop as a hockey stick so we decided to see what he would look like in a sports helmet typical of this sport … I still really like this, but it didn’t end up getting used because it was thought that the children may not understand. Further on in another episode we made a black golf cap for Ely and it seems that Bandai have already made it! (well, at least they have given me one … I get all the best things?!...:-D).

Vamoosh

In the beginning it wasn’t clear whether Pocoyo was going to have his own vehicle. Despite the fact that we designed a car for the episode of the race between Elly and Pocoyo, there had been some doubts raised by the educational assessors… but we were determined to make him one, we were sure that the children were going to love it. As always we tried to come up with one with our own system – to make one so great that there could be no doubt.

I remember that it came about really quickly.  Guillermo and I set to the task of drawing images of anything we liked. Pocoyo wasn’t just going to have a vehicle, he was going to have one which would fly, speed, could turn into a rocket to fly to space, and into a submarine for the Ocean scenes. Half fish, half bird, with a balloon filled with drawers where he could store anything he wanted, and of course, with room enough for everyone ….!!! And the Vamoosh was born … the name is literally the truth - VAMOOSH!!! Which, in Spanish, means something similar to “let’s go!”( first name was "bish craft", half "bird" and half "fish") I don’t remember who came up with it but well done!

I think it’s my favourite prop in the series!

Pocojedi

The truth is that it’s a struggle for us to penetrate the American market … and it’s got nothing to do with lack of trying!!! ….. For anyone who is interested in a screen test, here are Pocoyo and his friends appearing as seconds in the episode IV of “Star War”!!! ….

Hi 2007!

Back in town, I have been out for almost a month!!!

Sorry to those I haven't answered yet...

Take a look at the picture we made for you..
Happy new year to everybody...is not too late, is it?:-D

p.s Denise: thanks for your Pocosanta.. here

Fake Contest IV

just a sec to post this..im in Uruguay with a really bad connection..:-(

New Pocoyo on the Block!
Check this out!

For more fun fakes, click here

Pocoyo´s web episodes

We have been worrying over this for ages … if episodes had already been made available on the web, why not get on the band wagon ourselves – but using better quality episodes? We’ve created an area in the Pocoyo web page where you can watch three complete episodes as many times as you like, now in English and Spanish and very soon to be available in more languages. This is just a taster of what we have got planned, but until this happens, enjoy these.

Ah! To the bottom left of the cinema screen there is a button to make enlarge the image. At the moment this resolution with this compression is giving good results, but we are going to try to go high quality, full screen …. We are looking into how we’re going to do this.

Pocoyo.com!