{"id":2840,"date":"2016-08-12T16:47:37","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T16:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/"},"modified":"2016-08-12T16:47:37","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T16:47:37","slug":"how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/","title":{"rendered":"How Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jordan Pinto \/ Playback<\/em><\/p>\n

Vancouver\u2019s Thunderbird and its animation subsidiary Atomic Cartoons said \u201cyes\u201d to Beatles-themed series Beat Bugs<\/em> even before creator Josh Wakely had finished his pitch.<\/p>\n

The only problem was that Wakely, who had earlier acquired the rights to use songs from Lennon\/McCartney\u2019s \u201cNorthern Songs\u201d catalogue, had never worked in animation before.<\/p>\n

Listening to \u201cHelp\u201d on a small laptop,\u00a0Wakely outlined his vision to Atomic character designers on how these classic songs could be woven into the narrative of a children\u2019s animated series.<\/p>\n

From those small, tinny-sounding beginnings, Canada\/Australia coproduction Beat Bugs<\/em>\u00a0has quickly gone on to become the largest project that Atomic has ever participated in, involving more than 135 in-house employees (half the company\u2019s workforce).<\/p>\n

After nine months of development, representatives from Thunderbird\/Atomic and Wakely\u2019s prodco, Grace: A Storytelling Company, went to L.A. to pitch the project. Netflix was the first choice for distribution for Beat Bugs<\/em>, said Atomic president Jennifer Twiner-McCarron, and the streamer snapped up the series during the first meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt it worked better on a streamer, for the kids to have all the songs at once,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

With Netflix on board, the project went into physical production in early 2015. Thunderbird and Wakely\u2019s Grace: A Storytelling Company are joint financiers on the project, while Netflix acquired the international rights.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons Atomic used so many in-house employees, said Twiner-McCarron, was that it needed to be an \u201citerative process\u201d due to Wakely\u2019s team being based in Australia.<\/p>\n

The majority of storyboards were done in Australia, while all the design, modelling, animation, lighting and compositing took place in Vancouver with Thunderbird. That being said, Twiner-McCarron estimates Wakely made approximately 25 trips to Vancouver in a little over one year.<\/p>\n

Atomic did everything visual that went on screen, and then would send it back to Australia, where Wakely\u2019s team would insert the music and the sound effects.<\/p>\n

Of the logistics of doing a Canada\/Australia coproduction, Twiner-McCarron said, \u201cIn some ways it\u2019s good, because when one team is asleep the other one is working. You just have to have odd check-in times.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement that the series had been greenlit for a second season came in late July, one week in advance of the series\u2019 launch on Netflix. The producers, though, have been working on episodes for the second season for some time, and expect to be finished at some time in the fall. Beat Bugs<\/em>\u2018 second season launches on Nov. 18.<\/p>\n

The producers are also hopeful of a further greenlight, as they held back about half of the Beatles\u2019 catalogue\u2019s \u201cA\u201d tracks (such as \u201cHey Jude\u201d), so that they have strong songs in their back pocket should the need arise for more episodes. \u201cNot that there are a lot of \u2018B\u2019 Beatles tracks,\u201d joked Twiner-McCarron.<\/p>\n

In terms of target audience, the series is aimed primarily at four-to-seven year olds, though invariably there will be cross-generational appeal, said Twiner-McCarron. Creating the series to appeal equally to boys and girls was also important to the producers, who initially created one of the main characters, Buzz, as a boy, before realizing the series could appeal to a larger audience of girls by making Buzz female.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jordan Pinto \/ Playback Vancouver\u2019s Thunderbird and its animation subsidiary Atomic Cartoons said \u201cyes\u201d to Beatles-themed series Beat Bugs even before creator Josh Wakely had finished his pitch. The only problem was that Wakely, who had earlier acquired the rights to use songs from Lennon\/McCartney\u2019s \u201cNorthern Songs\u201d catalogue, had never worked in animation before. Listening … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jordan Pinto \/ Playback Vancouver\u2019s Thunderbird and its animation subsidiary Atomic Cartoons said \u201cyes\u201d to Beatles-themed series Beat Bugs even before creator Josh Wakely had finished his pitch. The only problem was that Wakely, who had earlier acquired the rights to use songs from Lennon\/McCartney\u2019s \u201cNorthern Songs\u201d catalogue, had never worked in animation before. Listening … Continued\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-12T16:47:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/social-share.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"633\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gearbox_admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gearbox_admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/\",\"name\":\"How Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug - Thunderbird Entertainment\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-08-12T16:47:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-08-12T16:47:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/41eb8208032d7ee9602156e61d6f6c41\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/\",\"name\":\"Thunderbird Entertainment\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/41eb8208032d7ee9602156e61d6f6c41\",\"name\":\"Gearbox_admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/239363dc97071e1a4eb9d0cc6971f646?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/239363dc97071e1a4eb9d0cc6971f646?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gearbox_admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/author\/gearbox_admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug - Thunderbird Entertainment","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug - Thunderbird Entertainment","og_description":"Jordan Pinto \/ Playback Vancouver\u2019s Thunderbird and its animation subsidiary Atomic Cartoons said \u201cyes\u201d to Beatles-themed series Beat Bugs even before creator Josh Wakely had finished his pitch. The only problem was that Wakely, who had earlier acquired the rights to use songs from Lennon\/McCartney\u2019s \u201cNorthern Songs\u201d catalogue, had never worked in animation before. Listening … Continued","og_url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/","og_site_name":"Thunderbird Entertainment","article_published_time":"2016-08-12T16:47:37+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":633,"url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/social-share.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Gearbox_admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Gearbox_admin","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/","url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/","name":"How Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug - Thunderbird Entertainment","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-08-12T16:47:37+00:00","dateModified":"2016-08-12T16:47:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/41eb8208032d7ee9602156e61d6f6c41"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/08\/12\/how-atomic-cartoons-caught-the-beatle-mania-bug\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How Atomic Cartoons caught the Beatle-mania bug"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#website","url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/","name":"Thunderbird Entertainment","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/41eb8208032d7ee9602156e61d6f6c41","name":"Gearbox_admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/239363dc97071e1a4eb9d0cc6971f646?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/239363dc97071e1a4eb9d0cc6971f646?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Gearbox_admin"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/thunderbird.tv"],"url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/author\/gearbox_admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2840"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}