SA animation directors celebrate an Emmy for Tabby McTat

South Africans Jac Hamman and Sarah Scrimgeour directed Tabby McTat, which won the International Emmy for Kids: Animation in New York last night, Monday, 25 November.

Adapted from the bestselling Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler picture book, the BBC Christmas special is up against Mystery Lane, Sharkdog and Wake Up, Carlo! 

This is the second iEmmy win in a row for South African directors in the category: another Donaldson-Scheffler adaptation, The Smeds and The Smoos, directed by SA’s Daniel Snaddon and Samantha Cutler, won last year.

“Growing up you always dream of winning one of these awards but it seems so impossible,” says Jac. “You don’t imagine as a South African you can reach that level so it feels great to win after all the hard work. We’re very proud of the team.”

Jac and Sarah weren’t able to attend the International Emmys in New York, where kykNET’s reality series Die Brug was also nominated in the Non-Scripted Entertainment category. “Being on the other side of the world and being busy with other things, it just makes it a little bit more difficult to get to these big events,” says Sarah. “It would have been wonderful but hopefully Tabby will be on the awards circuit for a little bit longer and maybe there’s still a chance for us to go to one or two more.”

If successful, this will be the second iEmmy win in a row for South African directors in the category: another Donaldson-Scheffler adaptation, The Smeds and The Smoos, directed by SA’s Daniel Snaddon and Samantha Cutler, won last year. 

Now streaming on Showmax, Tabby McTat is about the warm and wonderful friendship between a musical cat and a talented busker called Fred. One day when chasing a thief, Fred falls and breaks his leg and is whisked away in an ambulance. What will become of the busker’s cat, left alone on the streets of London?

“I used to love busking with my husband Malcolm when we were living in Bristol, and also in Paris,” says Donaldson. “We also both love cats – in fact – we’ve just acquired two new kittens named Tabitha and McTat. So this story is really close to my heart and combines two of my passions: singing, and cats!”

Sarah’s been known to sing to her cats, so Tabby McTat was an obvious fit for her.  “I adore cats, and this is a story about a musical cat. Honestly, how could I resist?”

Jac was drawn to the themes of the books. “It felt like it was quite a mature message, about how you can grow apart from a friend, and how relationships change, and about a child having to leave their parents’ home to start their own family. It’s very moving and I was excited to see how we could turn that into a film and push those emotions. I liked the idea of a parent watching the film with their child and that they might just pull them in and squeeze them all the tighter because of those themes about the temporariness of relationships and how they change.” 

The 25-minute short film stars BAFTA nominees Rob Brydon (Gavin and Stacey) and Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísú (Gangs of London) as Fred and Tabby, with Critics Choice Super nominee Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who) as the narrator.

Watch the trailer for Tabby McTat

Produced by Magic Light Pictures, Tabby McTat was one of the 10 most-watched shows on TV in England on Christmas Day 2023 and was the most-watched animated feature from UK broadcasters across the festive period, attracting over 8.6m viewers. 

Earlier this year, Tabby McTat won the Animation: Preschool category at the BANFF World Media Festival and the Audience Award at the New York International Children’s Film Festival. It’s also been nominated for a Rose d’Or Award in December, as well as Royal Television Society and Venice TV awards. 

Tabby McTat is the 11th Donaldson-Scheffler animated special from Magic Light Pictures; you can also stream the Oscar-nominated The Gruffalo and International Emmy winners Zog and The Smeds and The Smoos on Showmax, with the rest streaming before this Christmas. 

Working remotely from Cape Town, Jac and Sarah spent over a year and a half directing a team of just over 80, mostly based in the UK. Tabby McTat is their sixth BBC Christmas special and their second as directors, after the success of Superworm, which won Best One-Off, Special or TV Movie at the Kidscreen Awards last year. 

They weren’t the only South Africans involved in Tabby McTat. “Our long-time collaborator and art director Shannan Taylor actually moved over to the UK to work on Tabby and she brought so much life into Axel’s illustrations, adapting them into this 3D world,” says Sarah, who also name-checked lighting lead Armand Filmalter; animators Depesh Cara, Dominic Seeber, Luke Berge, Sam Cutler, Stefano Menegaldo and Stuart Coutts; lighting and compositing artist Dayaan Abarder; and character sculptor Danie Malan. 

“Because they’d worked on the earlier Christmas specials with Triggerfish and because they’re so good, we do tend to try to hire them if we can,” says Jac. “I also think there’s a South African work ethic; they just work super hard. Especially with someone like Shannan, you have to pull her away from work…” 

They’re delighted that their friends and family are at least finally able to see their work on Showmax. “It’s an interesting thing when, after two years of working on this thing, it premieres on the BBC on Christmas Day and, being in South Africa, we can’t even watch it,” says Sarah. “So it’s fantastic to be able to finally share it with everyone we know.”

Stream Tabby McTat on Showmax.

In addition to Tabby McTat, kykNET’s Die Brug is also nominated at the International Emmys tonight in the Non-Scripted Entertainment category. You can also stream Die Brug on Showmax: 

We caught up with Tabby McTat’s directors, who both live in Woodstock, to find out more: 

For both of you, Tabby McTat is your 6th BBC Christmas special animation – and your second as directors. How did these go from being animated in Cape Town and directed by foreigners, to directed in Cape Town and animated in the UK? 

Sarah: When Jac and I got offered the directing positions, the assumption was actually that we were going to be making it with Triggerfish, who had already worked on four of BBC Christmas specials in Cape Town with Magic Light. But Triggerfish chose to focus on their feature film, so Magic Light needed to find another studio to make Superworm. The prospect of making something remotely with a studio in the UK seemed incredibly daunting at the beginning of 2020 – but then Covid happened, and the whole industry was forced to adapt to a new way of working. So it wasn’t only us having to work remotely from Cape Town, it was the entire team in London too. 

Talk us through directing a small army of animators in another part of the world. 

Sarah: There are about 80 people that worked on Tabby McTat, staggered over about a year and a half. We did it all remotely, except for one very brief trip to Sheffield for a quick meet and greet with some of the supervisors. When you look back at making the earlier Christmas specials at Triggerfish in Cape Town, where we got to spend every day with the team, you really realise what a luxury that’s become post Covid. 

What’s the secret to running a successful remote team? 

Jac: When you’re in a brick and mortar studio with people, you can get a read on people and how they’re doing. You can see the whole team at once. You can pull people into a room and figure out a problem together and brainstorm. 

When you have to jump on Zoom, it can easily become a broken telephone situation. So Sarah and I met every single morning of the whole production. Before work, we went to get coffee and we set out what we needed to accomplish that day. And then we would have what we call scrums with each department: a call with each team every morning, so that even if we’re not actually discussing real tasks, you just get to see people and feel like there’s a team, to make sure that they still feel like human beings.

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler are two of the bestselling children’s authors in the world. When did you realise just how big a deal they were?

Jac: I don’t have kids so I think it was seeing the huge response to the earlier animations. It was like, ‘Oh wow, this is a bit of an institution.’ And then as we started getting into directing, you go to the press screenings and see the fanfare, and you go into Waterstones in London and see it decked out with their books and merch, and you start to get a sense of how big it is there. 

What are they like as people? 

Jac: They’re super down-to-earth and very lovely. They’re just typical artists in a way. They feel like kindred spirits, who are just immersed in their craft. They love what they do and that comes through in their books, I think.

Sarah: Personality-wise, Axel and Julia are actually quite different. Axel is this very dry German gentleman, who says it how it is. And Julia is this wonderfully kind and gentle woman. I think it’s the combination of their minds and their differences that make for such incredible storytelling and something that feels so unique.

When it screened on the BBC at Christmas, Tabby McTat was hailed as “the saddest ever,” “heartwarming” and “pretty much purrfect.” How worried were you about ruining Christmas by making kids cry? 

Sarah: I think kids can handle a lot more than we give them credit for, so we don’t need to hold back on the sadder stories or stories with a little bit more emotional depth in them. These are things that they’re going to be experiencing throughout their lives. So if you do it in a sensitive way, I don’t think there’s any reason why we shouldn’t be telling them these stories, because it’s real and it’s part of life.

Jac: I think my bigger fear is actually making something that’s overly slapstick and bombastic and full of bright, garish colours to just grab the attention of a kid, as opposed to something that actually might just give them a little bit of pause, even if it makes them sad for a moment. I watched Watership Down as a kid and obviously that did a number on me, but I remember that feeling so clearly, and I feel like it expanded my emotional world a bit. We did make sure the film is full of adventure and laughs and sweet moments too, though. 

Variety says, “For many families in the U.K., sitting down on Christmas Day to watch the BBC’s annual adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s children’s books has become as much a holiday tradition as tinsel and mince pies.” Was it weird as South Africans to be contributing to such a quintessentially British tradition? 

Sarah: Yes, definitely. It was a big responsibility to get right, especially since we’re not from around there. 

Jac: The fact that it’s in London was definitely daunting but I do think it sometimes helps to come in with fresh eyes. I remember my first visit to London and how my mind was completely blown walking down Oxford Street or The Queen’s Walk. It’s like for us in Cape Town, how you forget how incredible it is that we just have a huge mountain on our doorstep.

Because we’ve been making so many of these adaptations, we probably know their world better than most people. But we definitely bounced everything off the locals on the team to make sure it all felt authentic and real.

Tabby McTat’s cast is amazing, from Jodie Whittaker (aka Doctor Who) as the narrator to Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù from Gangs of London as the cat. What was it like directing them? 

Jac: That was definitely one of the highlights. We worked with amazing casting directors but we got to help pick, and then direct them. We actually managed to be in the recording booth with Rob Brydon in London when we were there. 

All of them are such pros. You’d think they’d have huge egos and not be willing to work with two young South African directors, but they were just so great to work with. They’re so talented, so it was really about us communicating the emotion that we wanted to feel in the moment. But they took smaller notes too, like, ‘Could just say this word a little bit differently?’

How would you describe the distinctive look of the animation? 

Sarah: Ultimately we’re going for a stop motion, handmade, tactile aesthetic. The first specials, Room on the Broom and The Gruffalo, were made with physical sets, and then the CG characters were composited on top of them. That set the baseline for what has become the look of the rest of the specials. 

As the software and technology evolves, it actually becomes easier and easier to make things look hyperrealistic or to use these tools to polish something to a point of perfection. So one of the challenges, when we’re going for something that needs to feel handmade,  is to practise restraint and not use all the tools available to you just because you have them. Because if you were making this in real life as a human you would try and make it as perfectly as you can. But just by virtue of being human, it’s going to be imperfect. So we were quite deliberate about holding in these imperfections to keep that handmade, tactile feeling.

There’s such a unique charm that comes with something that feels like it’s been made by humans. 

When did you realise animation could actually be a career? It can’t have been something you saw a lot of growing up.

Sarah: When I was in high school, the industry here was so small, so the prospect of ever becoming an animator or being in this industry locally never even crossed my mind. But I’ve always loved animation and I’ve always loved animated forms. So after doing a little bit of research, I found this little animation school in Cape Town called The Animation School. It really was only at that moment, probably when I was 17 or 18, that I realised that this is something that you can actually study for and this is something that you can make a career out of.

Jac: For me, I just didn’t feel like there was anything else I could do. I grew up on animated films and that’s the thing that gave me a buzz. When I walked out of animated films, I was like, ‘Damn, I want to do that.’ I remember, back in the day, watching the behind the scenes on DVDs, like The Incredibles, and seeing the process and realising that, ’Oh, there’s actually stuff here that I can do.  I can actually fit into this industry.’ So if I’m going to spend my whole life doing something, that is what I want to do. 

But it didn’t seem like there was an industry here in South Africa or that it was a viable career.

I got very lucky. My first job was at Triggerfish as they were making their first film. So my career kind of happened as the industry happened, you know? I was originally thinking, ‘I’m gonna head overseas right away because there is no industry here’, but thankfully there were some trailblazers here and it’s just been growing and growing and growing since then.