Written by Sally Rippin, Author of the School of Monsters series
In August 2023, I attended the inaugural Australian Children’s Content Summit in Coffs Harbour with a pitch deck for an animated series clumsily pieced together with the help of my illustrator Chris Kennett, and a lot of googling. When I set out to write the School of Monsters, I had always imagined the books would translate well to animation, and having had many of my other books optioned for screen and gone nowhere, I figured I was as well-placed as anyone to try to get this one off the ground.
I didn’t know anyone at the conference and my first few days of pitching were pretty anxiety-inducing. I had no idea what I was doing but hoped my enthusiasm and vision for the series would make up for how little I then understood about the screen industry. On the last day of the conference, many of the attendees were already packing up and leaving, when I made my last pitch to Celine Goetz, then executive
producer at Cheeky Little.
Celine was warm and encouraging and I could feel her instant connection with the material and understanding of its potential to be both something fun and entertaining, but also subtly educational. By the time I was at Coffs Harbour airport a few hours later, she had already got in touch to say they’d like to line up a meeting the following week with Chief Content Officer, Patrick Egerton, to chat about turning the books into an animated series.
Three years later and Cheeky Little have created something even more wonderful than I could have hoped for. They have been a dream team to work with the whole way, including Chris and I in all the stages of production, and we have learned so much from working with them.
The characters Chris and I initially created for the books now feel so beautifully well-rounded, loveable and relatable, thanks to an incredible team of scriptwriters, directors and animators. I could not be happier with how this world of little monsters is coming together and I can’t wait for all our young readers to see their favourite characters come to life on the screen.