December 10th, 2019 
Jerry Beck 
Every year Blue Zoo, the multi BAFTA award winning London based Animation studio behind hit kid’s shows like Tree Fu Tom, Digby Dinosaur, Number Blocks and the upcoming Paddington Series, they run an in-house competition for an unconventional Christmas promo. Says Blue Zoo CEO, Oli Hyatt MBE, “It’s a chance for everyone to blow off a bit of steam and animate something sideways. This year, I thought we should do something musical, so I rang David Freedman.”
David is a multi award winning screenwriter and songwriter, with theme songs for eOne (PJ Masks) Disney Channel (Groove High), Studio Ghibli (Ronja) and most recently a few songs for Blue Zoo. Says Freedman, “Oli rang and asked if I’d like to write a Christmas song, and thanks to my son, I already had half of one lying around. My son Jackson is a budding songwriter, and weekend busker in our town. I dared him to write Christmas song without the word Christmas in the lyrics and it being about watching telly. It seemed like a song we could agree on. A grown-up song about loving the holiday, loving each other, but mostly loving watching TV on a big day off.”
Jackson went away for 10 minutes with his guitar, and came back with an idea that the song should be about wanting to stay home with your girlfriend, rather than going out to visit relatives, ‘It’s not you, it’s not me, it’s your family.’ Says Jackson, “Don’t get me wrong, I love my relatives, but if I still get food and presents, I’d rather stay in bed.”
“The hook was at the core, with a subtle riff of Jingle Bells in between,” says his father.
By the end of the day they’d laughed a lot, and had a solid first draft. Says Jackson, “Finally we’d written a song together… and it was still cool. The song was originally titled 25 and we thought surely everyone feels this way.”
Enter Roy Stride from the multi million selling pop band, Scouting For Girls, who didn’t feel that way at all. “I’m one of the few people who loves seeing his in-laws at Christmas! But I’m well aware that everyone else has stress. The song worked, but it needed more warmth. Love and Stress is the nature of all relationships, but it’s love for each other that carries us through.”
Jackson, David and Roy sat down to rework the song, and the little Jingle Bells riff grew in size and impact when Roy nailed a romantic chorus with “Let’s not go away” “Suddenly it was more positive than negative, but still funny,” Says Roy. “It’s a love song. A Christmas love song about wanting to be ONLY with your partner, tucked up in bed, binge watching telly.”
The team sent the song into Blue Zoo and got everyone buzzing. “Pitches came in from every single department, animation, character design, layout, even accounting! None of them stuck to the story of the song too closely, and yet all of them were sideways, and amazing. “It was a very difficult decision to make,” says BZ Boss Oli Hyatt, “But ultimately Katie Gasgoine from HR won with a sentimental concept, just this side of weird.”
Katie has an art background, and works in HR in charge of finding new talent for the studio. Says Katie “It’s the story is about a woman who either happened to have fallen in love with a gingerbread man, or she made him herself. We’re still not quite sure. But we do know that they’re in love.
Like any relationhip, they’ve got their own problems. Quite possibly having children, but we don’t go there. On this day, the gingerbread man doesn’t want to go to his in-laws, as they have a habit of chewing on his head, arms, legs. It sounds gross, but it’s actually going to be very sweet.”
Oli says, “This year our promo is much more than a promo. It’s a short film. Plus a great way for us to show off our new 2D department, with something that is part beautiful, part strange and part gingerbread.”
Blue Zoo gave total freedom to Freedman, Freedman and Stride to create the song, and total freedom to the animation crew/elves creating the film under Katie’s guidance.
The song is out now on all digital platforms. Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, etc. The video launches online the first week of December.
Posted in 
Tags: 
