You And Me (1984)

Concept and creative process

Opening titles for ‘You and Me’, a programme for children aged 4 to 5, featuring stories, songs, activities and puppet animation. Animator Mike Hibbert recalls working on the programme titles. “Richard Callanan was the programme producer and creative driving force behind a lot of animated projects for BBC Schools that I was fortunate to be involved in. Richard shot the dance sequences with children dancing to the new music track. He had somehow persuaded the reggae pop group UB40 (nominated that year for a Brit Award as Best British Pop Group) to write and record the title song for the programme. He provided me with the dance footage on 16mm which I projected and traced frame by frame. The traced images were combined as drawn images, rendered on paper in a directional hatched style using coloured pencils. I incorporated the programme title in a similar manner in the grass beneath the children’s feet.” The sequence was filmed on a rostrum camera.