(Elaica K. Zayas) This week our class has met with two children’s media professionals who founded their own companies, Gary Pope with Kids Industries and Tony Collingwood with Collingwood & Co. Both told us their background and how they got started as well as insights about their companies and what it is that they do. Today we visited Collingwood & Co. and met the man himself, Tony Collingwood. First impression, he seemed like a very humble man. As he continued to talk, I realized he was just that, humble and very passionate about about he does.
Collingwood & Co. is one of Europe’s leading animation companies. Collingwood & Co. has produced shows such as Captain Zed and the Zee Zone, The Secret Show, Dr Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, and many more. Tony Collingwood explained the process of creating an animated children’s television show. He told us the stages in which a show is created: format, characters and story. It was sort of an unorthodox way of creating a show because many would believe that figuring out a story is how one begins to create a children’s television show. He explained that small children love repetition in their televisions shows and that’s why they want to see the same things, but different every week, as ironic as that is. He said that preschoolers enjoy characters and the format and that it’s all about what is generic about the show.
His success as a children’s animation TV show creator is certainly because he has a passion for it and because he knows exactly how to capture the attention of certain ages. He talks about creating shows for certain ages. I thought that if you created shows, you usually created for age groups rather than for certain ages and the surrounding ages just happened to watch. But it is the opposite.
Tony Collingwood touches on so many ideas. His successful company comes from having knowledge about children and what they like, the expertise from the individuals in his company, the leadership of Tony, and their passion.
Although I don’t know what path I would like to go down just yet in the media industry, Tony Collingwood definitely inspired me. His advice and words of wisdom are ones that will stick with me throughout my journey.
Thank you, Mr. Collingwood!
