Fish Tale: ‘Tiddler’ Producer Barney Goodland Reflects on the Making of Magic Light’s Swimming CG Special

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This article was written for the May-June ’25 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 350).

 

Ever since Michael Rose and Martin Pope first collaborated on an adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s book The Gruffalo back in 2009, the duo’s Magic Light Pictures has brought 15 top-notch specials and series to animated life. Last Christmas, they followed up their long string of award-winning and crowd-pleasing titles (which include Room on the Broom, Revolting Rhymes, Zog, The Snail and the Whale and Tabby McTat) with yet another Donaldson-Scheffler book adaptation, Tiddler. An audience of 7.3 million tuned in to watch the special when it premiered on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in December. In fact, the project scored the highest audience share for a Magic Light Pictures special since The Gruffalo.

“The Tiddler book has been a firm favorite at Magic Light for years because of Julia Donaldson’s charming celebration of storytelling and Axel Scheffler’s vibrant illustrations set in an wonderful underwater world,” says producer Barney Goodland, whose credits also include Tabby McTat, The Smeds and the Smoos, Zog and the Flying Doctors and The Snail and the Whale. “Tiddler is also a brilliant character — a real performer with a great imagination. We also loved that he is a school-age fish. It meant we could tell a story with young characters at its heart, which could speak to young viewers directly and they could recognize themselves in it.”

A Great Catch

Tiddler, which is directed by Andy Martin and Alex Bain and narrated by Hannah Waddingham, centers on a small fish with a big imagination who is swept away from his school one day. Soon, he comes to realize that his tall tales might be the key to finding his way back home to his friends and family. “Everything he sees inspires his imagination to create a story, but he ends up putting himself in grave danger,” says Goodland. “Eventually, his journey to safety teaches him that he doesn’t need to change who he is to impress others and that he already had everything he needed. The combination of this storyline with a character as engaging, energetic and creative as Tiddler was a real treat to work with.”

Goodland adds that it was especially rewarding to work on the balance between the story’s real world and the world of Tiddler’s imagination. “Exploring the balance was exciting from a design point of view, and making sure we got the transitions right felt like a key to exploring his story successfully,” he notes.

The producer says he and the team faced the challenge of unlocking Donaldson and Scheffler’s work and expanding it into a 25-minute special while retaining what people love and hold dear about the book.

“For Tiddler, that meant looking at why he tells stories and led to us thinking about the joys of storytelling, the relationships it creates and the excitement of finding and delivering for an audience,” he explains. “From a technical point of view, doing anything with water in animation is always difficult, but with fish we also had characters who had to show everything in their faces. This posed a serious challenge to the animation team, but they really rose to it. I think the emotional performances they’ve created are phenomenal. They have such skill and have done it so subtly. The same has to be said for the whole crew, who successfully created an underwater world that welcomes the viewer.”

From treatment and scripting to delivery to the BBC, the project took close to two years to complete. “We made the film using a feature pipeline, giving the storytelling and creatives the time we think is needed to create something special,” says Goodland. “Magic Light Pictures produced the film with Red Star, a very talented studio based in Sheffield, U.K., providing animation services. Assets and additional animation were provided by Triggerfish Animation Studios in Cape Town, South Africa. They used Maya, Animbot, Fusion, Houdini, Photoshop and Arnold to produce the animation.”

The special’s style harkens back to their very first Donaldson-Scheffler adaptation, The Gruffalo. “In the 11 previous adaptations we’ve produced of Julia and Axel’s books, we’ve always wanted to retain that original style, because it maintains the connection to the original work and what the audience expects,” says Goodland. “The stories are all different and take place in different worlds, but we like to think they’re all part of the same universe and viewers can move between them seamlessly.”

Goodland says the animation goes hand in hand with the storytelling. “We let the story and any source material inspire the style,” he notes. “We’ve produced live-action projects, as well other animated specials like Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and live-action and animation hybrids like The Velveteen Rabbit all with different techniques and styles. It’s the storytelling that’s fundamental to Magic Light and then letting that drive the technique.”

“In the 11 previous adaptations we’ve produced of Julia and Axel’s books, we’ve always wanted to retain that original style, because it maintains the connection to the original work and what the audience expect.”

— Producer Barney Goodland

 

Because the studio’s animated specials have become regular features of the holiday season in the U.K., Magic Light was able to easily get top voice talent to sign on to the project. “We often find that actors are keen to work with us as they’ve enjoyed previous films with their children or grandchildren,” says the producer. “Also, we have tremendous casting agents in Karen Lindsay-Stewart and Emily Jacobs, who always recommend great voices. Martin Pope (producer and co-founder of Magic Light) and I worked out a brief with the directors about the characters’ personalities and their place in the world we’re creating. Karen and Emily then used this to put together their suggestions, and we’re always amazed by the incredible talent they present.”

He adds, “Hannah Waddingham was our dream narrator for Tiddler, and her performance is sublime, perfectly engaging the audience and heightening the drama. With Karen and Emily, we also identified early on that the school fish had to be played by children. It was the only way Tiddler’s character would feel genuine. Finding our two young actors presented Karen and Emily with a challenge, but in Reuben Kirby (Tiddler) and Theo Fraser (Johnny Dory) they found two absolute stars who gave performances with great energy and vulnerability.”

On a Grand Scale

Goodland says that 2025 is a challenging time for animation worldwide.

“The costs of production remain very high, and there is a lot of competition for audience attention,” he says. “Of course, competition can make things harder, but it can also lead to a greater commitment to quality and good storytelling, which we welcome. I do think there’s lots to be excited by. Audience awareness and engagement with animation as a storytelling technique continues to widen. In the U.K., we’re seeing signs of the industry getting more recognition and potential opportunities for growth opening up. There’s recently been an uplift to the tax credit and lobbying is ongoing for more support to be put in place. There’s plenty to do, but I think these things are encouraging.”

He hopes audiences and young families take the message of Tiddler to heart and keep doing things that make them happy without worrying about the opinion of others. “Storytelling is marvelous, and if nothing else, it’s a way to have a fun dance with penguins, as long as you watch out for the fishermen!”

 

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For more info, visit magiclightpictures.com.