Kiri turned out to be a feisty, fierce but loyal little friend to gentle, sleepy and sneakily greedy Lou. Each episode included sensational songs<\/a> with never sickly, often quirky emotionally rich lyrics underscored with hefty musicianship. As the credits on the first episode rolled I saw the show was created by Harry Sinclair, a name I knew from a favourite New Zealand movie, The Price of Milk, and the music was from the genius of The Front Lawn<\/a>, made up of Sinclair with Don McGlashan. \u201cThis\u2019ll do nicely,\u201d I thought.<\/p>\n My son\u2019s screen-virgin eyes nearly popped out of his head with awe, and I considered it a gift that a locally made show set in a richly artistic world was his first ever experience of TV. And now, the dynamic dino pair and their vast array of prehistoric friends are going to be playing on the big screen in Kiri and Lou Go Raaa!, New Zealand\u2019s first ever stop-motion feature premiering at the New Zealand International Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d never really thought about making kids\u2019 TV before Kiri and Lou,\u201d Sinclair tells me over a video call from his home. He frequently beams as we discuss favourite characters and the joy that comes from creating for children. It was Sinclair\u2019s daughter that inspired him to pay closer attention to what was available to kids on the small screen. \u201cI started watching TV with her and had an idea to do something that was a bit more calm, more gentle. I thought of the calm of being in the New Zealand forest and it went from there.\u201d<\/p>\n The engine of the show is Kiri and Lou\u2019s friendship and how it is sustained through a series of knocks and catastrophes, emotional meltdowns, interactions with others and moments of truly beautiful epiphanies. \u201cKiri [voiced by Liv Tennet] sprang to life as this extremely emotionally raw character who has to deal with big feelings and doesn\u2019t cope very well with that, which felt authentic,\u201d says Sinclair. Lou [voiced by Jemaine Clement] on the other hand is \u201csleepy and generous\u201d and it\u2019s that dynamic that generated the fundamental heart of the world: two very different characters who adore each other all the same. The film takes us back to where it all began: to the dramatic events that seal Kiri and Lou\u2019s relationship. It\u2019s a wondrous 61 minutes for children, but it\u2019s also a real ride for adults. Like the series, the dialogue is sparky, the storytelling layered and the worldbuilding magical and surprising.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sinclair always knew he wanted it this way. His mantra was \u201cwhat would parents like to watch?\u201d Alongside that he was committed to a world in which the characters are cute, the world is rich and the stories are beautiful. Sinclair and the Kiri and Lou team frequently receive messages from adults who watch the show without kids, which Sinclair is thrilled about. Adults, he says, find the show calming; an antidote to the dystopian elements of our world, and the often frantic and violent, cynical and terrifying shows on TV. \u201cThere is a place for entertaining adults that\u2019s extremely gentle and sweet,\u201d says Sinclair. \u201cIt\u2019s a very liberating space to work in to tell stories, both for the kids and the grown-ups.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the most appealing aspects of Kiri and Lou is the sheer artistry. You can see the fingerprints on the dinosaur\u2019s bellies and backs, the torn edges of paper on the verdant foliage. It was animation director Antony Elworthy who led Sinclair and producer Fiona Copland down the path of stop-motion. Sinclair quickly realised he loved the handmade feel: \u201cIt has a visceral reality to it which is very unusual in our world where everything is made on the computer, especially now AI is here. It feels like you\u2019re looking at a beautiful quilt that your grandmother has made.\u201d<\/p>\n On the big screen the beauty of the hand-made world is amplified. Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! is a riot of colour and texture with the direction making the most of sweeping shots across the rich, pre-human landscape complete with active volcanoes (\u201csmoky mountain\u201d), vast rivers, and, new to Kiri and Lou\u2019s universe, a wide ocean teeming with strange and startling creatures.<\/p>\n The stop-motion artistry of Kiri and Lou is one of the reasons the show is considered niche. Even though it\u2019s on TV around the world (US, UK, Canada, Latvia, Sweden and Finland among others) and has been translated into multiple languages, it\u2019s not a mainstream product in the way that Bluey or Peppa Pig are. But Sinclair is fine with this: \u201cI think we\u2019ve made something that has lasting value.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Kiri and Lou is not only artistic in aesthetics but in vision and substance, too. Kiri, Lou and friends are always making music and telling stories; there\u2019s a character called That\u2019s-Ok-Don\u2019t-Worry-About-It who holds poetry readings<\/a>. But the artistic star of the show is the scene-stealing Small, voiced by Rima Te Wiata. Small is a tiny walrus-like creature who lives in a tree apartment and is focussed on her artistic life. She\u2019s a painter and a storyteller and it\u2019s Small who frames Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! by telling the origin story to an even tinier creature called Pants, also voiced by Liv Tennet. In a world that seems, at times, to be hell bent on de-valuing art, it is nourishing and deeply optimistic to embed art-making into a TV show intended for growing brains and fresh personalities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love to do a spinoff about Small and Pants,\u201d says Sinclair, the light in his eyes dialling up a notch. \u201cI love the idea of Small: this artist who is insecure. I suppose there is something autobiographical about it,\u201d he laughs. \u201cBut I love it when her grandparents tell her to paint every day<\/a>. It\u2019s so touching. Encouragement means so much. Don and I wrote this very bizarre song called \u2018What\u2019s Art For?\u2019<\/a> for Small to sing, because we wanted to explore the meaning of being an artist, and introduce those ideas to kids. The idea that you can make stuff up is very dear to me. Kids should feel that they can write a little song, do a little painting. It\u2019s not something only specialists can do. It\u2019s something everybody should do.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to think of a more specialised pair than Sinclair and McGlashan who have been making little songs together for 40 years \u201con and off\u201d. For Kiri and Lou, Sinclair will send McGlashan the episode story and the lyrics, and \u201coccasionally I even think of a little tune as I\u2019m walking (which he sometimes uses or discards [laughter])\u201d and McGlashan will send back ideas and questions and from there the back and forth begins. \u201cIt\u2019s such a joy to work together. It\u2019s just part of our ongoing process that we\u2019ve had since 1985.\u201d<\/p>\n The music in the film will delight both fans of the series and newbies to the Kiri and Lou world. There are sweeping ballads like \u2018When You Find A Friend\u2019 and a brilliant working song called \u2018Digging Up The Roots\u2019 that Lou\u2019s herd of Palorchecies sing as they\u2019re harvesting k\u016bmara. In one scene a trio of Ruru warble backing vocals so beautiful I hunted for the credits: Anika Moa, Anna Coddington and Sandy Mill. The TV series is stuffed with phenomenal talent: Marlon Williams, Julia Deans, Paul Kelly and many others. The film holds fast to its musical roots, ensuring that emotions and ideas are conveyed seamlessly between dialogue and song.\u00a0<\/p>\n But what was it like adapting a five-minute episode structure to a feature length film? For Sinclair it was challenging but exciting. \u201cI really wanted to see where it could go, how big the stories could get, and create something with a real arc where you\u2019re really heading somewhere. I was excited to get Kiri to the most intense place she can go. It was actually a relief in a way to give them a big story: to go crazy and do all of the things that you can never do in a five minute episode. It was a wonderful feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n Sinclair and team also needed the story to be one the whole family could watch; a real adventure with the kind of excitement that could hook older kids and adults. To combat tension overwhelm for the smallest audiences, Sinclair came up with an idea for storyteller Small and audience Pants (who is essentially a stand in for the littlest kids) to call out and halt the action before it gets too scary. It\u2019s a brilliant device that offers relief to stressed children for whom this film might well be their first cinema experience; and a device that leads into comedic moments where Kiri and Lou are suspended mid-dramatic moments wondering why the world has suddenly frozen.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a luxury of storytelling to offer reminders that everything is going to be OK. For most artists, their own stories are white-knuckle rides, that lurch from one funding application to another. For Sinclair it\u2019s always been a struggle. \u201cYou\u2019re doing a thing for say six months, then nothing and endlessly getting \u2018no\u2019 for answers. You go through moments of terrible panic feeling like you\u2019re never going to work again and that your ideas are terrible and there\u2019s a lot of doubting yourself. It\u2019s kind of a stressful way to live.\u201d Kiri and Lou changed everything for Sinclair: it was the first time in a long time he had steady work which was a \u201cgreat relief\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s more calm making ongoing TV. And I needed life to be more calm.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is not to say that making Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! has been easy, or that creating children\u2019s TV is getting any smoother. \u201cWe\u2019re a tiny company competing with very, very big companies. There\u2019s Fiona Copland [producer] and me. We don\u2019t even have an office. Everything happens on Fiona\u2019s kitchen table. We don\u2019t have a marketing budget to go out and tell everybody about our work. So we\u2019re really hoping the movie will help spread the word and then maybe we\u2019ll have more money to make more of the TV series.\u201d<\/p>\n Since first starting on Kiri and Lou it\u2019s become harder to raise funds for TV, and especially stop-motion animation. \u201cIt\u2019s very, very, very difficult now to get money for kids\u2019 shows in general. There are less shows being commissioned because the industry is in a massive downturn globally. I don\u2019t know all the reasons why, but it\u2019s harder.\u201d<\/p>\n Would Sinclair ever go back to making work for adults? \u201cKids\u2019 shows are the right spot for me now because it seems to work well for my personality. I\u2019m not sure I have anything to say to adults anyway. It\u2019s disturbingly easy for me to access my inner child. It helps maintain a kind of playful relationship with your world. I\u2019ve written some adult things and got quite depressed and grumpy writing them, and that\u2019s never happened writing Kiri and Lou. It\u2019s always a joy to go to that world and then to see little kids watching something you\u2019ve made with a whole bunch of people. It\u2019s the best feeling in the world when you see their faces and see they love it. There\u2019s nothing better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! premieres in Auckland on August 8<\/a> and in Wellington on August 15 <\/a>after which it will be in cinemas nationwide. Auckland Philharmonia is presenting Kiri and Lou Live in Concert<\/a> on August 22; and Orchestra Wellington<\/a>\u00a0on August 29 in Wellington.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s written for adults and found himself depressed. Now Harry Sinclair is focused on Kiri and Lou and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7269,275823,128303,156,199242,246572,111,270277,139,69,1066],"class_list":["post-560483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-animation","tag-childrens-tv","tag-don-mcglashan","tag-entertainment","tag-jemaine-clement","tag-kiri-and-lou","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-international-film-festival","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pop-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Pania (left), Kiri and Lou, and Sorry (waving from behind the tree). (Photo: supplied)<\/p>\n
\u2018Smoky Mountain\u2019 has a starring role in Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! (Photo: supplied).<\/p>\n
Small telling tales to Pants in Small\u2019s treehouse, which is more of an apartment really, in the film (Photo: supplied).<\/p>\n