Music composed by Paul Lovatt- Cooper will form the sound track to a brand new children’s series which has just started on the BBC.

‘Strange Hill High’ is BBC’s innovative new animated comedy and stars well known actors Emma Kennedy, Richard Ayoade, Ben Smith, Caroline Aherne and John Thomson.

Ground breaking

It is all about an all-but-forgotten inner-city school filled with fantastical secrets and outlandish mysteries, and has been created using ‘hypervynorama’, a groundbreaking animation technique that combines Japanese vinyl toy design and puppetry with stop-motion animation and computer generated imagery (CGI).

The thirteen, 22 minute long stories of the multi-million pound series follow the quick-witted and street smart Mitchell Tanner (Doc Brown), the new kid at school and his two new best friends, ever-confident Becky Butters (Emma Kennedy) and class nerd Templeton (Richard Ayoade).

Simpsons writer

As the series has been penned by ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Futurama’ head writer Josh Weinstein, not surprisingly, offers more than a little something for adults too.

Huge task

Paul composed the complete musical soundtrack and told 4BR: "It’s been a huge task composing the music because Josh and the BBC wanted an epic film-like soundtrack.

I combined live orchestral musicians with some state of the art sequencing software to create a substantial score. Having to work on 13x22 minute shows is the equivalent of working on two feature films!"

He added: "One episode entitled ‘Snoozical’ see’s the star of the show Becky, fall into a deep sleep during her music lesson and drift off into this dream-like musical. I had to compose several songs for this episode for the cast to sing, including a full scale finale for over 40 voices.

It was a surreal experience having the likes of John Thompson and Caroline Aherne in my recording studio singing away only to apologies profusely when I asked them to re-take a line because they sang out of tune slightly!"

Atlanta and LA

Not all the actors were available for certain recording sessions, with Richard Ayoade filming in Atlanta with Ben Stiller on his latest film ‘The Watch’, so Paul was faced with a tricky situation.

"We had to link up to a recording studio live in Atlanta where I directed him from our studios in Altricham," he continued. "His vocals were recorded there and broadcast to us via ISDN for my immediate approval."

Paul worked closely with Head Writer and Showrunner Josh Weinstein, who is based in Los Angeles.

"Working with Josh has been a fantastic experience. When we received each new episode that was ready for the music score he would give great direction as to where he wanted the music to go and what sort of a feel or emotion he wanted to develop in each scene.

It really helped me to develop my composing style for this type of medium."

Pleasure

Speaking about the music Josh Weinstein added: "It was a genuine pleasure working with Paul. I love his music."

Paul is the Director of Music for Factory Transmedia which is one of the co-producing companies of the show.

It was a genuine pleasure working with Paul. I love his music Josh Weinstein

Chalk

Factory TM’s Managing Director is Phil Chalk, former assistant principal cornet and conductor of Faireys. He is also the Producer of Strange Hill High.

Phil commented: "It was a big undertaking to set up the shooting of Strange — it is a huge show.

We needed sets that were elevated 6ft high to accommodate all the puppeteers who operated the puppets from underneath the sets. There was a lot of work implementing the stop-motion animation and computer generated imagery into the scenes also.

All in all, the finished product is thirteen episodes that have a fantastic look and feel about them. Each episode is a ‘mini movie’, from the set design, to the acting, puppetry and even the music everything has worked to perfection."

Topping the ratings

The show has become a major hit with the first two episodes having already aired and are leading in the latest viewing figures. The second series has been commissioned and is in full production.

You can watch Strange Hill High on CBBC every Wednesday at 5.00pm with repeats on Saturdays at 11.00am.

You can also watch Strange Hill High on BBC’s iPlayer and by visiting the website http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows/strange-hill-high