The Official Pocoyo Blog

Why Pocoyo?

Pocoyo doesn´t mean exactly “little me” in Spanish (but it´s mean is quite similar). The real translation of it would be more like “not much me” o “a little bit me” but in actual fact it is a word or a construction that exists neither in Spanish nor in English (I´m almost positive!). The real story behind the name is much more enchanting (especially for me...).

When we started the series my daughter Vega was 2 years old. Every night before bed she used to say a little prayer that goes “baby Jesus light of my life, you are a child like me” (In Spanish, Jesusito de mi vida, tú eres niño como yo). Because she still couldn´t talk properly, instead of saying "como yo” at the end of the prayer, she used to say “poco yo”!

We all love the funny little things our children say at this age, but I thought this one would make a great name for the series, and I managed to convince everyone! I love thinking that the title of a series and a character that is alive in many people´s minds, that is being watched in many countries, that is the star of books and toys and is almost a brand name, is a word invented by a child, a mixup of words …. My daughter´s words! (:-D)

Pococuriosities: Patovehicle

He has ended up using a skateboard, but it has not been because we haven’t invented any vehicles for him!  Here you can see a style guide for what it could have been … Pato’s means of transport, a fantastic red Turbocopter.  What do you think?  Maybe we could use it in the future ….

Social Responsibilities - Alimentation

With each step we take with Pocoyo, we try to examine each of the implications of each of the stories and the behaviour of our characters from the educational point of view.  We do this with a lot of affection and care, enlisting the talent and professionalism of many evaluators.  However, there are some subjects which come to light as we go along, which represent important issues not just for specific episodes, rather when the series is looked upon as a whole.  Child obesity has increased extraordinarily in the last 20 years, particularly in the more developed countries basically due to a sedentary life with bad alimentation.  Studies are already showing an epidemic with percentages upwards of 15% of obese children before the age of 10 years.  Granada and Zinkia, the scriptwriters, the creators, and the producers want to show our support, for what it is worth … and want the series to reflect many things other than the love for the sedentary life.  We thought we were on the right tracks in the first season, but for the second we have decided to take a stand and make some subtle changes.

 

Although we are quite limited in what we can do, cakes and pastries have appeared in some of our episodes (as Guillermo says, how sad it would be to have a birthday party without cake!), but as of episode 10 of the second season we won’t be seeing them any more.  From now on Pocoyo will not eat any more ice-creams and Pato will only eat fruit.  I’m sure it seems like we are taking quite a radical stand, because we all know that one ice-cream won’t harm anybody plus the fact that we are limiting ourselves in terms of our scripts by doing so, but it is possible that by making this positive change, we may influence our children.  If just one of them decides to imitate the eating habits of our characters, then it has been worth it … any opinions?  (Yes, we know that as a start we have to remove the sweets and treats from the web page – we’re working on it! …J

Genesis (IV)

read first Genesis(I), Genesis(II) and Genesis(III)

Armed with all these tools (see Genesis I to III), as soon as we had the 3D characters ready, we made the first pilot.  This is what we took with us to Cannes to sell at the MIPTV event. We made the pilot in one month using Lightwave (although today the series is made in XSI) and although the idea was to use white backgrounds most of the time during the series, we decided in this instance to set it at sea to make it more impressive (or more sellable).  (This turned out to be a big mistake, but I’ll tell you about this in “The Background Issue”).  We also presented a bible for the series and a sales brochure with a holographic frontage, featuring Pocoyo…. This brochure is now a classic – there aren’t many left … (I’ve got one at home at least!).

I’ll leave you with the first animatic and the pilot that was presented.  This is the original pilot we used to sell the series – in which the first character designs can be seen (it takes a while to download, just so you know).  In the pilot we can see the original “Pato´s Dad” and listen to the music which some of the parents in the first focus group accused of being boring and repetitive (there may be some truth in this, but it´s still quite catchy!).  Everyone who we showed it to at the festival really liked it, but it was Steven Andrew from cITV, Emmanuel Namiech and the people from Carlton and Anne Brogan from Granada Kids who really pushed for us to work together on it, their vision was to get an agreement signed and get the Pocoyo “wheels” in motion.

   Download First_Pocoyo_Animatic.mov  (3 mb)

  Download First_Pocoyo_Pilot.mov  (8 mb)

Pocoyo blog in Japanese (Atsumi, you are the best!!)

Writing this post gives me particular pleasure, Pocoyo already has a Japanese version of the blog http://pocoyo.exblog.jp/ and all thanks to the work of our friend Atsumi.

And as if this wasn’t enough, she has also created the “Pocoyo” community in “MIXI” site, the biggest Japanese networking site http://www.squidoo.com/mixi/ .  The truth is that we don’t have a clue what is written, but just look how lovely it looks!  Fingers crossed that the series is successful in Japan and that Atsumi’s effort helps to spread the word about the series over there.  Thanks for everything Atsumi!!

Pocoyo Opening Theme in MP3 for Jillie and friends!

As promised, here is the mp3 version of the series’ opening, especially for our friend Jillie as she’s had the most trouble downloading it to her phone … XD!

opening_pocoyo.mp3 (626 Kb: mouse /right click to download)

Pocoyo Awards III (El chupete)

It’s not an animation festival - “El Chupete” (which means dummy) is a children’s festival geared towards the world of publicity and communication and which encourages responsible communication through the media. Pocoyo has been awarded first prize for the best character, and we are really thrilled of course … But how curious that we received the “El Chupete” prize for the series, after all the controversy that arose around Pocoyo’s own dummy – this will all become clear in the next post (the “boy” Pocoyo II)…

http://www.elchupete.com/premios_mascota.php

other awards received for the series