ODO

Year : 2024
Winning Category : Best Children's Pre-school Series

Odo was created to sell into every country, to reach every kid in every home and tackle head-on much of the ugliness we’ve seen such as intolerance, mistrust, racism, silencing the weak, migration, bad leadership.  And the biggest one of all – to promote self-esteem and positivity which are the best weapons against fear, depression and anxiety.

Odo is a little owl with big ideas. Although he is one of the littlest campers at the Forest Camp for Young Birds, Odo knows he can do anything he sets his mind to. Forest Camp is a wonderful leafy playground where birds of all shapes and sizes can play games, learn skills, and have fun side-by-side with the most amazingly diverse group of feathered creatures – silly chickens, cheeky toucans, harmonious canaries, a vain peacock, and many others. And all the fun takes place under the loving watchful eye of Camp Leader, a supremely capable and good-natured Eagle.

With the help of his best friend Doodle, Odo positively tackles every challenge no matter how big. When asked if he thinks he can do something, Odo will always confidently reply, ‘I know I can!’ Because in the forest, as in life, the most important thing you can do is to believe in yourself.

In this episode, Odo has never met Doodle’s ‘mum’. In fact, he’s never been invited to Doodle’s home at all. Now, Odo is finally going to visit, and he’s about to get the surprise of his life.

Odo is a preschool animated series for 3-5 year olds set in a lush beautiful forest and centred around Odo, a little owl and his best friend Doodle, an orphan bird. As a studio we have always focussed on making visual-led beautiful tangible series for kids because we know that kids have a huge appreciation of good design. In an industry that faces huge opposition to falling budgets and a huge push towards cheap shiny primary coloured 3D work, we wanted to push against this, to create a 2D world in a lush secondary colour palette. Odo is a series with a huge heart with stories based on social justice, promoting togetherness and equality and we wanted every kid in every home in every country to enjoy it.

Odo was created, to make a show that addressed some of the most important things that kids were facing then. Anxiety and depression levels were 7 times higher in kids then than they were 50 years earlier. Fast forward to 2023 and these numbers are simply off the chart. Never has there been a more important time to create a breakthrough show which spoke to kids. And we did this through comedy, great design, great characters, a score that is as organic as the design and with a heart and messages of social responsibility and justice. We told stories dealing with racism, migration, adoption, death. Ultimately our aspirations to reach every kid in every home in every country is becoming a reality.

Directors : Piotr Szczepanowicz, Mikolaj Pilchowski
Writer: Colin Williams
Producers: Colin Williams, Jakub Karwowski

Awarded prize artwork by Derek Hayes