CAMP UFO EXCLUSIVE!
PRODUCER STEVEN ANDREW AND WRITER/COCREATOR LEE WALTERS DISCUSS BRINGING SCI-FI BACK TO CBBC
ONE INSPIRATION FOR the new CBBC show Silverpoint may be rather unexpected.
“We talked about the Enid Blyton book The Faraway Tree,” says producer Steven Andrew, of a conversation with writer/creator Lee Walters. “What we both really liked about it was that you always get these extraordinary events happening. I think that was the genesis of the show.” But that’s not the only thing to influence the story of a group of teenagers at summer camp discovering something amazing in the woods.
“We talked about this disconnection that we felt kids have with nature and the environment,” Andrew continues. “How could we put our characters in a world that would be exciting and touch on these natural themes?”
Writer Walters echoes this. “From that point, we knew what the tone should be and the specifics of the story. I’d been developing a show about kids addicted to technology that was set in some sort of camp, where they had to go back to basics and live out in the wilderness. We thought, ‘That’s a nice environment, but what if we added sci-fi?’”
Walters can also trace the origins back to his own youth. “I was studying near these woods and there was this thing called a gravity hill. I thought they were just making it up. If you go on Wikipedia, they actually exist.
It’s a hill that’s an optical illusion, which makes a downhill slope appear to be an uphill one. Me and my mates took our car, and went there thinking it would be ridiculous. Sure enough the car went back and we were freaked out. Because this was in the woods, we wanted to set something there too and I thought, ‘What if that was real? What if somebody stumbled upon something which actually was a source of energy in the woods?’ So we just burrowed down on that idea.
“A boy learns about some kids who vanished 23 years ago and comes to this camp to figure out what happened. But it’s about more than that, it’s about two disparate troubled kids who come together over discovering something, an alien object buried out in the woods.”
In terms of comparisons, Andrew is quick to mention a high profile US TV show aimed at a slightly older audience…
“We’re huge fans of Stranger Things, but we felt that for the younger end of that audience, there wasn’t anything [similar]. That show is quite dark and unsuitable if you’re nine or 10 years old. One of the attractions of Silverpoint was
‘Could we create that kind of show for a younger audience that would give them those great hooks, real adventures and really empower them, but in a way that would be a PG version of Stranger Things?’”
The show involves quite a bit of visual effects but not always in the huge scenes, as Walters explains. “There was also a lot of stuff that needed to be fixed, whether it was a weather thing, a prop thing or an actor in the wrong position. It was just stuff that VFX can solve, but you don’t know that’s coming ahead of time. You’ve allowed for the other stuff and that can slow you down a little bit.”
Even though the show hasn’t been broadcast yet, the pair know that a second series is coming. “When we pitched the show, we knew how this series ends, and it doesn’t wrap up in series one. Series one is the first few chapters and we’ll go on to tell the rest of that story.”
Silverpoint premieres on CBBC in March, with all 13 episodes available on iplayer immediately.