Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
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FALL 2024 37 "Getting to showcase the wide range of storytelling that can happen in a musical theater fashion is just so cool for a pre-K show," says Snowden, who describes herself as a "lifelong musical theater person. It's very musical theater that if you can't talk, sing, and if it's not able to be conveyed properly through song, add dance." Snowden found that her Midwestern show choir background came in handy while mapping out the dance numbers. "For a lot of the big camera shots of nine children going at it, it's like, 'OK, we need levels. Who's going where, what's the picture we're making?' It was a lot of fun to go back into that high school self and see, oh, wow, this paid off." THE SOUND OF MUSIC Getting the music right was crucial to the success of the show. The music team included alums of popular preschool series like Doc McStuffins and Muppet Babies alongside Tears for Fears guitarist Charlton Pettus, who co-created the show with songwriter and composer Michelle Lewis. The team wrote more than 150 songs for the first season alone, churning out approximately three songs every two weeks. "Just when you think they couldn't top themselves, they just kept doing it," says Warburton. "Our musicians never really stuck to one style. They did a salsa number, heavy metal, a rap song..." While each story includes at least three songs, the record number squeezed into a single 11-minute story is five (or "four and a reprise," says Moore). Song placement was determined as early as the script-writing stage, but the songs themselves were not written until after the script was finalized. "Sometimes we're like, this needs a dance break in the middle, and we'll add some time in between for that to happen," says Warburton. "Or the ending of this isn't big enough. We're always revising to make it bigger and better." "In most preschool shows, the songs are a comment on the story," Warburton adds. "We wanted to do a show where the songs really are the story." When it was found that the characters were saying the same thing in the script as in songs, the directors had to decide whether to prioritize dialogue or lyrics. "Usually, it was better to hear it in the song," says Warburton, explaining that it took a lot of "recipe alchemy" to strike the right balance. Not to mention: "Every one of us has had a different one of these songs stuck in our head at any given moment over the last two years." "That's the initiation event for the crew—Which K:TM song did you end up with in your head?" says Moore. "You just find yourself humming along and instead of hating it—it's like, 'No, I actually do like this song," Snowden says. "'It's here now. It's here to stay.'" FALL 2024 37 Songs like Berti's My New Kicks showcase Broadway moves while exploring emotions relevant to young children.