We have the occasional young visitor to the animation studio in Manchester, and they are always drawn to the Clangers characters. Everyone wants a cuddle. The stories in the programme are gentle, funny, musical, loving... and frequently a bit bonkers. Each Clanger has a definite personality too.

The original episodes were shot on a very tight budget and with very short time constraints. The animation was all done by Oliver Postgate. He would have shot  'blind', which means without being able to view what you are filming while you do it. 

Technology has moved on so much, and now we have wonderful software which allows us to step through what we are doing frame by frame. We can watch our shots as we do them and even look at what everyone else is doing. The animation on the new series will be much smoother but we are aiming to retain the pace and charm of the original. Lots of lovely pauses.

There are 25 frames in a second of animation, and we are expected to average about 12 seconds a day per animator.  This is harder to achieve when all the Clangers decide they want to dance!

Our Clangers are mainly knitted by Amanda Thomas. She is a very 'crafty' and talented lady. She has tried to keep them as close to the originals as possible whilst still allowing for the more sophisticated 'skeleton' (we call it the armature) to fit inside. They are all hand knitted, just like in the original series.

I am looking forward to introducing the Clangers to a new generation. I have eight nieces and nephews and they have all watched the originals in preparation for the new series. I feel it is a continuation of the original, rather than a remake.

Jo Chalkley is an animator for the Clangers. 

Clangers starts on Monday, 15 June at 5.30pm on CBeebies. Each episode will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

On set, it was about making the actors feel relaxed and confident so that they could chat truthfully and openly, although certain storylines may have been expected, the actual chosen footage was kept under-wraps until ‘action’ was called.

We filmed between two-three hours with each pairing and often did more than one showing of a clip. The first time around gave us genuine reactions, on the second take we could expand those thoughts and stories. But sometimes the cast became so engrossed as viewers, they forgot to chat!

Occasionally, I would be needed to steer the conversation back on track or help to give their comments context that we’d all understand, but mostly once they started it was very hard to stop them chatting, especially Pam St Clement and Barbara Windsor - they are probably still there!

Making each episode was a long process. Matthew Campbell the EastEnders archivist would draw up a massive long-list of moments for us from the EastEnders database. Assistant producer Katy Reid would then work through the endless clips, helping to reduce the long-list, before we’d work together in creating a final running order, shaping something that flowed and felt like a rounded show. I was keen not to ask the actors for their thoughts at this stage as I felt that may give us a too polished response.

Samantha and Rita’s reaction to the frozen lake scene was totally unexpected – and hilarious. It would be easy to mistake them for real-life sisters. The screen kisses generated a far more school playground level of embarrassment than I ever expected.

Meanwhile, Nitin Ganatra and Himesh Patel might be father and son on-screen but they are clearly mates with an added mentor relationship off-screen. The story of Himesh first meeting Nitin with an autograph request is sweet and told brilliantly.

Adam Woodyatt’s relationship with ‘his house’ – ie Ian Beale’s set - was fascinating. He’s essentially grown up on set and he feels a real ownership towards it. He would refer to times when the house dimensions or layout were ever so slightly different, or, as you can see in his episode, where he believes Ian’s belongings (props) should be! Kat and Alfie’s place has actually burned down since filming, so that was lucky!

Barbara Windsor and Pam St Clement are TV legends, so it was so nice to see them working so naturally together, with such a genuine friendship built around the shared experience of working in Walford. It also became very old-school showbiz at times, especially when Christopher Biggins called Barbara for a chat!

The clips had an equally strong reaction for people who had worked on those episodes too. During Pat’s death scene, we were concentrating on Pam and Barbara’s responses to this story and out of the corner of my eye I could see one member of the production team in floods of tears!

The audience responses have been fascinating – it’s given EastEnders viewers a chance to feel like they really know the people behind the characters just that little bit more.

Matt Taylor is the director and producer of EastEnders: Back To Ours.

EastEnders: Back To Ours is available until Thursday 26 February on BBC iPlayer.

More on EastEnders: Back To Ours:

Digital Spy: Barbara Windsor and Pam St Clement join EastEnders: Back To Ours
Daily Mail: Goggle-box style EastEnders

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

During my research, I noticed from photos of military hospital at Étaples that all the tents had been adapted to make them practical for hospital use.

Entrances and exits had been cut into the canvas wherever necessary, with a variety of wooden doors, storage areas and practical shelving added in.

So I joined three tents together to make a large L-shaped ward tent and imagined that the connecting corridors were storage areas and nurses stations.

Cristina Casali is the production designer for The Crimson Field.

The Crimson Field continues on Sunday, 13 April at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on The Crimson Field
BBC One: The Crimson Field: Watch a set tour narrated by Cristina Casali
BBC Media Centre: The Crimson Field 
World War One At The BBC: More television and radio programmes 
BBC Writersroom: The Crimson Field: Interview with creator & writer Sarah Phelps

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC. 

 

All the dark secrets and hidden lives are kept within the confines of its walls, converted into separate flats.

Our job was to trap you, the audience, in the house with a killer.

I knew that we could do this by having full control of the layout and architectural detail of the house and no location would allow us this freedom.

So we built everything as a set in the studio: the staircase, loft and all five flats at Ealing and Wimbledon Studios. I hope we had you fooled.

The staircase was designed first as this was the main artery of the house.

It stood 40 foot tall in the studio and whilst the front door matched our real exterior house location in Greenwich, London, the layout of stairs and corridors were entirely our own invention to serve the needs of the script, director and camera.

The characters’ flats were then designed but working within the parameters of budget and schedule only one master flat was built.

This was a system of movable walls, doors and fireplaces and plug-in windows, kitchens and bathrooms.

We would then have just either 12 or 24 hours, often overnight, to transform one flat into another - changing layout, wall colours and all furnishings and props.

As challenging as this was logistically and to our sleep patterns it meant we retained the identity of the house in every character’s space.

Here’s the reality: a designer’s job is about finding the balance between the visual storytelling and the practical demands of a production - the art and the business.

My biggest influence was Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby designed by the legendary Richard Sylbert who inspired me to play with architectural detail for emotional effect: up-turned, oversized Victorian mouldings all create much deeper shadows giving the house more dark places to hide.

Not often does a designer get to explore this type of set design on a contemporary TV crime drama, it is more usual to work entirely on location so this was a gift of a job for me.

Coky Giedroyc the director was fully behind my bold ideas and trusted me to experiment. We didn’t play it safe because the story demanded that we shouldn’t.

Her vision for the programme was equally daring so we worked collaboratively to keep pushing each other and yet supporting each other’s approach - the key to a good designer-director relationship.

Lisa Marie Hall is the production designer for What Remains.

What Remains begins on Sunday, 25 August at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on What Remains
BBC Writersroom blog: Writing a whodunit: What Remains

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

We were given escorted access to parts of a prison and thus got an idea of the tones, textures and details of the cells, corridors, the detention block, the visits hall, together with the visitors' entrance and its security. 

For the first series the producers, director and myself decided we wanted our prison to have a contemporary look, which suited the feel of the show and would be a change from the brick cells and blocks often seen on TV.

Filming in a prison was not possible as the security issues of getting a film crew and their equipment in and out are too great. So we had to find a location to adapt into our fictitious HMP Highcross. Sheffield, by the way, does not have a prison.
 
Painted concrete block walls and shiny floors proved to be the industry standard and this led us to look at modern schools since we were filming over the summer holidays. 

We found a South Yorkshire school which worked well, with their canteen becoming our visits hall, one classroom corridor our security area and another corridor the wing – which is where the cells are.
 
We built a cell inside a classroom off our wing, taking off the existing door and putting in a fake cell door.
 
We found companies that supply real prison door locks and observation hatches, beds, cell furniture and toilets, together with visit hall tables.

With fixed seating and a low central tables, the latter are designed to minimise physical contact between prisoners and their visitors - reducing the possibility of contraband being smuggled in. 

The second series presented a new challenge – we were filming in term time, so would not have access to the school - but our prison had to look the same.

We did not have the budget to build the sets from scratch in a studio, so our location department looked for similar buildings.
 
We settled on an empty office that had a good ceiling height. One corner worked well for the visits hall.

We had to build over the windows to make them as much like the originals as possible and constructed the other walls from plywood flattage. We'd stored the closed visits booths from the previous year, so fitted these in too.

By contrast we decided to build much of the wing out of block, sand and cement. Film and TV sets are usually built with plywood on wooden frames and finished with paper, paint or plaster to suit. 

When needing a brick or block finish, for example, moulded sheets of plaster are fixed on to the plywood, filled and painted to look like the real thing.

This is a labour-intensive process and can work well for bricks, if not the blocks, which have a crisper finish and a very distinctive patina. 

We settled on real blocks (actually cinder instead of the heavier concrete) as they would also allow for actors to knock against the walls without them moving or the plaster getting damaged.

Again, we'd kept all the cell doors, bars and gates, noticeboards and cell furniture from the first series, so with hired pool tables, the wing has much of the look of the original.

As you can see, there were many other locations in Prisoners' Wives. Designing the families' houses afforded us the chance to show the characters through their home environment, with their choice of furniture, decoration and everyday objects.

By contrast, the interesting thing about designing the prison was that, outside the cells, it was largely devoid of any individual's personal touch. It's an institution after all, with a specific routine.

Despite the efforts of the prison staff to make the environment as humane as possible, I wanted to show the impact its hardness can have on people, both visitors and inmates alike.

Chris Roope is the production designer on Prisoners' Wives.

Series two of Prisoners' Wives begins on Thursday 14 March at 9pm on BBC One. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.