Tallulah Tulip: A Reimagined Look at Children’s Media Practices

Fletcher, Lily

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Tallulah Tulip: A Reimagined Look at Children’s Media Practices Public Deposited

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Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/pr76f505d

Abstract

The show The Quests and Quacks of Tallulah the Duck and the comprehensive set of media and literary research that support it, are a cross-disciplinary approach to creating a project that extends beyond the classroom in teaching essential development and research skills in the Media Production industry. The project is a mock developmental stage for a new potential limited series of children’s programming to be aired through the Canadian Broadcasting Company in Canada. The thesis includes the development of a pitch for the show, including character and design model sheets, episode descriptions, and research to back the social-emotional learning purpose of the limited series and its projected impact. I am building a children’s media programming informed largely by research and critical theory about children’s media, and pitching the creative elements of my project through the research I have conducted and developed through the point of view of critical practice and theory. In an article published by the Journal of Pediatric Health Care “Screen media overuse is associated with poor sleep quality, shorter sleep duration, greater likelihood for overweight/obesity, lower executive functioning, poorer academic performance, and increased internalizing and externalizing problems.” (Liu). There are many shows currently on the market that are highly commercial and over-stimulating, as I will showcase later in the thesis, and do not have a focus on social-emotional learning in the development stage. Shows have also moved towards shows utilizing CGI and other computer-generated animation styles, whereas my show brings in a hand-drawn 2-D animation style. This creative pitching of a show was made with the intention of helping kids move through difficult topics as well as encouraging a collaborative viewing environment for guardians and their children to discuss the topics while watching with their kids. I will defend this media as a positive form of research-based educational entertainment.

Creator