Boy and the Dinosaur

Intro.

Boy and the Dinosaur is a preschool series about an ordinary boy and his extraordinary friend, a big orange dinosaur.

Based on an original concept by Move Animation Studio founder Jason Harding, and realised by an incredibly talented team of directors, producers, artists, animators, writers and musicians, Boy and the Dinosaur blends big, visual storytelling and broad physical comedy with plenty of original music and a simple educational philosophy.

Overview.

One night Boy wishes upon a shooting star for the most unlikely of pets... Only for his wish to come true!

The whole series takes place in their house and garden, we never leave this environment for the series. This is our safe space.

Occasionally, when relevant, the games that they are playing, for example Boy and Dinosuar are pretending to fly to the moon, then the cardboard boxes that they are using as a spaceship and the boxes that they have on their heads as space helmets, we will see them change into a real helmet and spaceship and the garden will become a lunar landscape with imagination. At the end of the story it will fade back into the garden. It is only in their imagination that we see this.

Boy.

Boy is curious - but is timid when hiscuriosity leads him far away. He is creative and inventive - which sometimesleads him into, trouble!

And Boy is imaginative – which occasionally, makeshim fearful when his imagination runs away with him! Boy loves nature and is always curious about what's going on in the garden. It's a safe space - but itcan be a strange one.

The family house and garden is his whole world. This whole world reflects the educational philosophy behind the show. For a child toplay well, he must have freedom within boundaries, to be able to explore a safespace without the need for adult interference, the point where the fabric between the real world and imagination is the thinnest.

Dinosaur.

Dinosaur is not like a dinosaur would literally be — he's more how a four-year-old child would imagine a Dinosaur to be.

‍Dinosaur loves Boy and pays a great deal of attention to everything he shows him. Dinosaur cannot speak in sentences. He does have a voice, as such, which is akin to a low rumble of unmitigated contentment or squeaks of delight – but he is mostclearly able to express himself through physical action.

Dinosaur is a gentle soul but he can be clumsy. He doesn't know his own strength and is frequently surprised and confounded by his own size. This mismatch of scale is a great sourceof comedy! However, Dinosaur is surprisingly dexterous with his tail and, with great concentration, he can use it to carry out some quite delicate maneuvers.

The Family.

The house is bursting at the seams with family life.

‍This is a truly diverse family. They are mixed race, with Mum being of Asian/Indian descent and Dad being English.

Dad goes out to work and Big Sister goes to school, Mum is a composer and music teacher. She works from home and looks after Little Sis. It is a fullhouse and a positive, albeit sometimes chaotic, environment for a young Boy.

Mum.

Mum loves to pick up her son and give him a big squeeze (hugs are very important to the whole family)! Mum is an authority figure but also an enabler.

‍If Boy is being boisterous or making a mess, instead of saying 'No', she is more likely to suggest an alternative activity. Mum has a whole bunch of different musical instruments in the music-come-living room. She plays and composes at a piano in front of a window facing out into the garden –so she can keep an eye on Boy! Creativity is important in this family, and Mum is Boys inspiration and role model.

Dad.

Dad goes out to work. His 'leaving for work' and 'arriving home' can be important moments for Boy.

‍In a house full of girls, Boy looks up to his Dad and looks forward to him coming home ... especially when Dad brings home something from his vintage book shop! Boy's Dad shares some personality traits with Boy and we can see that on most days he'd much rather pull off his tie, go and sit in a tree and look at the clouds than go to work! This is the root of Boy's imagination.

Big Sister.

Nine year old Big Sis is physical and sporty. She is loving, creative, protective and completely brilliant at thinking up games!

‍She can make a game out of anything! And she's very good at organising! Big Sis mostly ignores Dinosaur–she can’t see him, doesn’t believe in him, as she is trying to put away “childish things”. She aspires to be a teenager. However, she sometimes indulges her little brother and it is in these moments and interactions that we see her real love for her brother.

She has her own typical tween bedroom full of pop posters, pictures & trinkets. To Boy and especially to Dinosaur it is an opportunity to dress up!

Baby Sister.

14 month old Baby Sister, is crawling chaos –a gorgeous, gleeful, giggling, little muck magnet!

‍She is just starting to be mobile –very mobile –and is here one minute, over there the next! As soon as Mum takes her eye off her, she's gone! Baby Sis is just starting to talk with her first baby words, but can’t string a full sentence together. Dinosaur finds this very perplexing! Baby Sis adores Dinosaur!

Hurrah! Here he comes! Upsetting a chair here and knocking a vase over there! FUN!

The World.

The show takes place entirely within, what appears to be, an ordinary house and garden.

The house always feels crowded –and with a giant dinosaur squeezing through the doors, resting on the furniture and swishing his tail across tables, it can seem smaller than it really is –which delivers maximum comedy potential!

Luckily, the house has a large garden. But the house has a transitional quality –the real world begins at the front door and gradually slips away as we go deeper into Boys imaginative world. The garden begins formally but ends in an overgrown nature garden. It is in this area that we have Boys treehouse, an almost “sacred space” for him and Dinosaur.

Alongside this, where the grass grows high, it feels from Boys perspective like an endless, wild, woodland area! Of course it isn't, but it feels like it could be! Here, Dinosaur can be physically let loose in a way we wouldn't get to see otherwise –rolling around, bounding and tumbling. So on a snowy day, it would be perfectly reasonable for Dash and Dexter to go sliding down a snowy hillside while, on a sunny day, they might gallop across a grassy meadow.

Once the line is crossed between the real and the imaginary, the universe becomes boundless.

Intro.