A new and vibrant 3D craft show Pop Paper City will be launching on Channel 5’s Milkshake! for preschoolers on Saturday, 12 November. Produced by Bournemouth-based animation and video production company LoveLove Films, the new series is the first of its kind to blend 3D adventure with live-action craft in a series of 11-minute episodes that focuses on a group of unique friends who live at Pop Paper City, the capital of the stunning and endlessly peculiar paper world.
The characters, voiced by real children, find new ways to have fun together by creating new parts of their already impressive world, using craft to solve their problems and complete their adventures.
Pop Paper City aims to engage children with live action montages within the show to inspire children to make their own paper creations, encouraging ‘doing as well as viewing’. Also, to encourage the children watching at home to create their own crafts, the character Helping Hand, voiced by TV star Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso, Intelligence, Christopher Robin), plays an integral part in Pop Paper City. Helping Hand takes the form of a real hand, which comes down into the screen, interacting with the 3D world to help the characters when they need an adult’s supervision.
LoveLove Films founder and managing director Georgina Hurcombe, was inspired to create a craft series after growing up watching the likes of Blue Peter and Art Attack.
“I loved crafting when I was a kid, and I loved shows like Blue Peter and Art Attack. I can remember an episode of Blue Peter where they crafted Tracy Island from the Thunderbirds, and it was so fun to make. Of course, my version of Tracy Island looked nothing like the one they made; it more closely resembled a blob of papier- mâché, but I loved making it and it was shows like these that helped inspire Pop Paper City. I wanted children to really be a part of the adventure themselves. I feel it’s so important that kids are ‘doing as well as viewing’ so the viewers can craft along and everything in Pop Paper City can be reproduced in paper and the show itself encourages families to get together and create the parts of the world together,” Hurcombe said.
The series follows characters Plom, Phoebe, Mae-Mae, Zip, Hooper and Fly as they explore the world of Pop Paper City, a vivid, vast, and exciting place for the characters and audience to enjoy. The characters travel to urban environments, explore caves, the ocean or even outer space. Just like children’s imaginations, the world of Pop Paper City has no bounds for creativity and exploration.
In addition to encouraging ‘doing as well as viewing’, Pop Paper City also encourages sustainability. In the series, the Helping Hand character suggests to the children watching at home that they can use recycled materials as well as reusing everyday household items such as egg boxes, cardboard or toilet roll tubes.
“We are passionate about taking on projects for positive change and have previously worked with the United Nations Environment to produce animated children’s content about the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling. I truly believe that Pop Paper City has the power to inspire children across the globe to ‘get crafty’. Pop Paper City has always been our passion project. I’m delighted to be in production with the series and can’t wait for it to be on screens both in the UK and around the world,” Hurcombe said.
The new series launches on 12 November at 9 am on Channel 5’s Milkshake! and then airs every Saturday and Sunday at 9 am!