Following the success of 3D preschool show Numberblocks on Cbeebies, the production company Blue Zoo and their toy partner Learning Resources wanted to create YouTube adverts for the brand’s toy spin offs, Mathlink Cubes. Second Home were approached to reimagine several favourite CGI moments from the show into stop motion using the toys for Numberblocks’ UK and US social platforms. This included their YouTube channel with 10.2 million subscribers.
Style: Stop Motion / Puppetry
Client: Blue Zoo, Learning Resources
Year: 2021-2024
The Project
For a number of years Blue Zoo has been working with toy brand Learning Resources to produce spin off educational toys. Creating a wide range of products from cubes to stamps; plushies to trains, each item is cleverly derived from the show, its settings and characters. Mathlink Cubes are a popular and playful learning tool for young children to understand basic counting and arithmetic, just as Numberblocks is a hit with young viewers in their learning infancy.
To showcase these products, the client wanted to demonstrate how moments from the show can be recreated using the toys, as means to encourage learning and play. Signature moments included some song and dance numbers which used the Mathlink Cube toys in place of the CG characters (Numberblocks 1 -20). Others included puzzle scenes or dramatic roleplaying scenes which are used as a basis for playful problem solving. In addition, we created an introduction title sequence of the Mathlink Cubes toy box bouncing to life to be used across all films for consistency.
To date we have reconstructed 11 Numberblocks videos. Since the launch of our first batch of videos in 2021, the live videos have reached a combined whopping 51.8 million views!
Crafting
It was important to make the videos look and feel like something created by a child playing at home. Two main locations were built in our studio, a child’s desk and a lounge complete with wooden flooring and exposed brickwork. Dressings were designed in keeping with a child friendly home, including a rustic toy basket with some handmade toys originally made by our own animators and model makers as hobby pieces.
To emulate the scenes from the show, we created playful cardboard cutout sets ranging from boats on the sea to night time hills, to a launching rocket, to a runaway train. In true ‘make and do’ spirit, we used cardboard and other simple craft materials that can easily be found in anyone’s recycling bin. On occasion we utilised the Mathlink Cubes’ packaging to help create certain set pieces. In some moments handmade replacement magical flourishes made from tin foil, gels or stickers were used to mimic the digital visual effects in the show.
Animation
For the characters’ speech, we used the Mathlink Cubes sticker sets as a base to create a full range of replacement mouth pieces for lip-synching. The cube sets came with detachable faceplates which made it easy to switch between the phonemes. Characters were rigged on ball and socket arms to make them run, jump and fly.
Post Production
With footage captured, we removed rigs, composited effects and graded the final picture. Additional edits included 1:1 crops for social platforms before being handed to Blue Zoo who completed the final audio mix and transitions from the original CGI animated scenes into our stop-motion equivalents.
