By: debbie lynn elias
Kenn Viselman is a creative visionary. On talking with him, you just want to give him a great big hug, much like you and adoring children the world over have been doing for decades with his merchandising miracles like Thomas the Tank Engine and Teletubbies. Viselman is a man who, while admittedly likes to make money, doesn’t do so at the expense of quality or at the expense of a child. He truly believes in promoting true family entertainment complete with happiness, joy and security for not only children, but families, as is more than evidenced with his latest venture, THE OOGIELOVES IN THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE. His dedication to family entertainment and providing this happiness and security is genuine and heartfelt while his energy and enthusiasm is more effervescent than the bubbliest champagne!
Created by Viselman and his collaborative partner Scott Stabile, THE OOGIELOVES truly fill a void in movies – and family entertainment – today. Encouraging interactive singing and dancing by the children (and adults) in the audience, THE OOGIELOVES are wonderfully round happy tubs of love who, together with their equally imaginative and unique friends, spread the happiness and love of Lovelyloveville out into the world. Even the grumpiest adult will quickly find a smile spreading over their face as they watch THE OOGIELOVES go all out to make a surprise birthday party for their friend, Schluufy, be the biggest and best in town.
During the recent press day roundtables for THE OOGIELOVES IN THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE, I had a chance to speak with Viselman about the film, his creative process and the joy he gets from bringing happiness into the world.
I have to tell you, Kenn. You have almost bankrupted my entire family over the past few decades! [laughing] Ifve got nephews ranging from 18 to 7 and we have gone through the Thomas the Tank Engine phase multiple times as everybody has to have their own things. No hand me downs!
Thank you! Thank you for that! Thank you for keeping my mother in jewels. Thank you! I know. It does work like that! I’m sorry. [laughing]
Quite the fascinating career and business acumen with licensing, marketing, merchandising, now you’re back on the scene with this new incarnation of Kenn Viselman Presents and we have THE OOGIELOVES in their first feature film. What is the significant and importance to you of a project like OOGIELOVES?
I don’t think there is a project like Oogieloves and that is in and of itself the significance of this project. I’ve been doing kid’s stuff for a long time. . .and what I find is that we’re moving further away from what the caregiver wants. And we just keep doing it. Now, I’m on this crazy tour called the Power of Mom where I have this private plane and I just fly from city to city and I go “Hullo!” to all these mommy-bloggers and their kids. And you hear the same thing over and over and over. I’m kind of like, “Why am I the only person who’s hearing this?” I’m starting to feel like the kid in M. Knight Shamalayan’s movie where I hear dead people. I just hear mommy bloggers in my sleep now. Everyone says the same thing. “Why is the mother killed off in the beginning of a movie? Why do these movies have more violence and more sexual innuendo each year?” It seems we push the limits. We put a kind of a miscarriage in Up and we have wild dogs chasing people. A mother the other day said to us, “If these movies weren’t animated they’d be rated ’R’ so why don’t they understand that our children respond to these animated films the same way you would a live action.”
So, how do you respond to feedback like this?
For me, we looked at all the things going on. We looked at how few G-rated films there are. There hasn’t been an original G-rated film this year. It will be 130 days from when we release OOGIELOVES on the 29th from the one before it and that was Jane Goodall’s Chimpanzee movie [a Disney film]. And before that was The Arctic for IMAX and before that was The Secret Life of Arrietty which Disney brought in. And then you had Beauty & the Beast 3D before that. But, there hasn’t been an original G-rated movie this whole year. I don’t understand! And all caregivers are saying is, “I will give you my money. I will happily give you my money but make a movie that I can take my whole family to.” And I was just tired of hearing it. That’s the truth. My mom had been quite ill. Fortunately she’s fine. She’s here somewhere this morning. We travelled the world together for several years and that was fantastic. And one day she goes, “You’re too young to retire and too old to not work. You have stories to tell still. Go tell them and make a difference. Do something that will make a difference.” And I’m like, “I think I can make a difference.”
And how did your Mom’s words inspire you to make a difference?
I’m looking at childhood obesity levels. I’m looking at where in a year, this is the first generation that’s supposed to have a shorter life expectancy than the year before. I can’t believe I’m being pretty morbid right now. Normally I’m “HEY!” But I looked at all those things and Ifm like, “Why aren’t we doing something?” The average kid in America gets 54.3 hours of screen time a week but they only get 11 minutes of outdoor play. We have to take the screen and make it a more active experience if wefre really going to change lives. I had Richard Simmons when I was growing up, and his show. And Jane Fonda had a work-out. We took that box [television] that was a passive experience and turned it into an active one. Why can’t we do that in the world of film? THE OOGIELOVES was born out of that premise.
How did you arrive at the interactive formula which is so enjoyable and entertaining?
I tell everyone this because I’m Tyler Perry’s biggest fan, I think. I went to a Madea movie, the first Madea movie. I live in a very white neighborhood and it’s a very White theater, but it isn’t when Tyler Perry movies come to town. Suddenly, I’m pretty much the only White dude in the movie theater and the movie comes up and I’m just sitting there minding my own business and suddenly some woman next to me or right around me starts going, “Girl! What are you doin’? Why you goin’ there?” And I’m like “What the hell just happened?” And then suddenly it’s like a wave with all these people talking at the screen. Honest to God! I’ve never seen that before! I know I’ve been in a horror movie when I’ve screamed out loud, but I didn’t mean to do it. But in this case, it’s like cultural.
So Tyler Perry strikes again!
We ask a preschooler to sit in a movie and act like a grown-up. We give them soda. We give them sugar. We give them corn syrup. And we still expect them to sit there for 90 minutes and be quiet. That’s not the way children behave. Why do they have to? Why can’t we just take that environment, know who a child is, and create it and build it and then find a way to bring the whole family together. So we really thought this out. And I hope you agree. We made some really great music for this movie where we bring in a lot of different musical sounds. We brought in, I think, some of the best character actors in America to play in this film with us, so an adult would go, “Oh my God! Look at Chazz Palminteri doing that.” A kid could care less who it is, but for an adult it’s kind of funny to see that. Or to see Cloris [Leachman] be the squirrely lady who lives in a tree and collects round things.
The idea of all that for me was “that would be fun” and that would make the film more inclusive. That was the impetus for it.
The methodology behind THE OOGIELOVES seems to be working based on the screenings you‘ve been having across the country.
Yes, yes. We’ve had tons of [screenings]. What I do now is – as I told you, I’m on this Power of Mom tour – we fly to a new city. We’ve been to NY, LA, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Dallas, Atlanta – a ton of them. We sit down with a group of mommy-bloggers and we talk to them for an hour. . .And then the kids come in and the kids watch the movie with them. I don’t try to sell anybody anything. You just experience this with your kid, however it works best for you. And I swear to you, every child who leaves that theater says one of two things – “Again, Again” or “I want to see the next OOGIELOVE adventure.”
Important is that these projects are never about “the money”.
For me, it isn’t about the money. I’ve done $20 billion in the world of kids and family. It’s not about the money. When I was doing Thomas the Tank Engine, I was marketing for them, and I really wanted to make a Thomas plush because I heard that kids were sleeping with their little wooden trains and I thought that might be dangerous, so I wanted to make a plush toy. Everyone said, “Oh, no no.” I finally had to force someone to make this toy for me. A few months later I was in London on my way home and there were three families online, 1-2-3, all of them had a young child, and ALL of them had a Thomas plush in their hand. When you’re dealing with a 3 or 4 or 5 year olds, you can‘t make them do anything. You can‘t tell them which is their favorite toy. They decide. And I love that because I can manipulate any age but I can’t manipulate them! And I know that when they made that choice, that’s the choice they really wanted, and that gave me great satisfaction.
Now, to be able to create a whole movie experience where everyone in the theater is having that singing, dancing, laughing, screaming, kids sitting in mothersf laps, mothers reading words, fathers encouraging their kids to dance – it really is the most magical thing I’ve ever been able to experience; and I’ve had a great life!
One of the great things that I noticed with the film that you and Scott Stabile came up with – you’ve got Dotty in a round house, no sharp edges, no sharp corners. You‘ve got a diner that is metal – safe, secure, and it‘s also rounded, a flying sombrero with its rounded edges, round tables.
Yes, right. It’s very deliberate. We took all the sharp edges out of the film as much as we possibly could. We made everything have roundness. We tried to limit the color black as much as possible. We tried to go to the line as to how much color we could bring into a space. They live in Lovelyloveville. I wanted it to be literally the safest place ever created. At one point, THE OOGIELOVES weren’t as round but I said, “No. I want them round, too. I want everything to be as round and to remove as many points as we could.” That was all very, very deliberate.
How did those considerations come into play when writing the script and creating the story?
Many, many ways. Scottie and I visualized the entire film. So, when we were writing it, we were looking at it. Because I have done so much marketing and licensing of product, it’s very easy for me to think on a vertical level, so I can imagine what would make a better toy. So, as we’re making the film Ifm thinking about the toy at the same time. I have no problem with the concept of making money and making great things at the same time. I think that people usually are ashamed of that because they’re focusing on the money and not the great thing. I try to make sure that we’re doing both of those things; that we deliver on them at the same time.
The characters have great diversity. Can you talk about the pillow, Schluufy. Why a pillow as a “best friend” for THE OOGIELOVES?
Why not? [laughing] I’ll tell you why when we looked at this project why Schluufy was important to us. It’s a security thing for a young child. Every young child would understand why that pillow would be its friend and understand that we took this movie from a child’s view, not an adult’s one. If you think about “the binky”, a little kid picks his thing – it would be a blanket, it would be a something that they want for security. We wanted Schluufy to play that role. For us, even if you look at the way we set the movie up, the first eight minutes, we make it look kind of like a tv show because I want it all in one room so the youngest child can get acclimated to the characters to the space, without having this stimulus.
And then you have more typically inanimate objects that come to life in Lovelyloveville.
[W]e have more and more stimulus come at them. We wanted things to just come to life. I didn’t try to make real looking raccoons. I deliberately made stuffed animal raccoons because in a kid’s world – – – I don’t know you at all, obviously, but I know you think your dog can talk. Just the two of you are alone and youfre waiting for your dog to use your human words now. Children do that with their plush, with their pillows, with their wallpaper, with their everything and I just wanted that world to feel magical. So we just let everyday random things come to life. That’s why it’s a vacuum cleaner, a pillow and a window. The world where anything is possible is the world that I would like children to grow up in.
Another thing that you did is make everything over-sized because everything to a child is sooo big.
Yes, that’s true, too. I wanted THE OOGIELOVES to be bigger than adults, as well. That was very important to me. And everyone was like, “You know how big they’re going to be?” “Yes, I know. I want it that way. I want them to be bigger than grown-ups because in a kid’s world everything is bigger than they are.” So I want the OOGIELOVES to be even bigger than an adult as well.” I just want them to be these big balls of love.”
Talking about diversity, you have an amazing cast. How did you go about choosing these particular actors? You really blend the generations.
That was important for us. We wrote the characters very specifically. We knew who we wanted. We fought hard for many of them. We knew we wanted a good ethnic mix, we wanted different ages. We had it sorted out. I wanted a grandmother to see herself on that screen. I wanted a grandfather to see himself. I wanted a father figure. I wanted a variety of different things.
Also notable is that Lola and Lero Sombrero are not your stereotypical Latinos.
It was really important to me that our Latina [played by Jamie Pressly] wasn’t dark haired, that stereotype of what a Latina is. I wanted a blonde Latina. I’m so delighted because it was such a risk for me that I wasn’t going to get that [positive] response. I was really focused that a Latina isn’t a stereotype of a thing.
What you won’t ask me and I have to say it, is that I have a very different view on what family is. I believe that George Bush, the first one, lost his election all those years ago because although he was talking about family values, he didn’t really understand what the family in America was. For him, it’s a wife, husband, 2.2 kids, a white picket fence. That isn’t America anymore. In some ways it would be lovely if it could be but, the adults work. We have a neighbor that takes care of our kid. We have a relative – depending on our culture, sometimes in a lot of Asian cultures the grandmother is taking care of the kids, in Black culture we have a next door neighbor, we have an aunt. It’s not the same thing anymore. We’re bound together by love whatever your molecular unit is. It isn’t necessarily husband and wife and 2 perfect kids. We have a vacuum cleaner, a window, a pillow and we have 3 friends that live in a house together. We know that when we’re watching that movie that they are a family. There’s no question for a child that they’re a family, but I didn’t want a child who’s living in a home with one caregiver to feel that they weren’t enough or the same. So, we were very deliberate about what that molecular unit was going to look like.
And will there be more OOGIELOVES?
The next one is coming out next Labor Day weekend (2013). It’s called THE OOGIELOVES IN THE BIG FAMILY ADVENTURE. And then the one after coming out the following year (2014) is the BIG HOLIDAY ADVENTURE. They also follow the same idea of interactivity but different stories.
For Kenn Viselman, THE OOGIELOVES IN THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE represents a time and place of safety, security, comfort and love. For him growing up, it was the 1950’s, “when I could run around, in my neighborhood and not think that therefs a boogeyman out there.” And now? “I don’t want evil. And I think for 83 minutes we can put evil on a shelf and just enjoy our family together.”
#
