Kermit who?
Married puppeteers Justin and Lindsay Lee are bringing stories to life with handcrafted and decorated puppets made right here in GTA.
Blame the “Thunderbirds”. While working on a documentary and a new miniseries based on that 1960s British sci-fi television series (filmed “IN SUPERMARIONATION”), the Lees came up with a show of their own.
The couple met while studying radio and television arts at Ryerson University. A few years later, in 2015, they were sent to London, England, to work on “Thunderbirds”: Lindsay as a puppeteer and Justin as a director, editor and puppeteer.
“Lindsay and I like to corrupt English words for a reason,” says Justin. “One night, we were at home between filming days, and I said to him (to the tune of ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’), ‘Meek sheep, meek sheep, do you have any confidence?’ And she replied, ‘No, sir. No sir. I’m not confident. ‘
From there, the idea of Miikshi – A shy sheep scientist whose brilliant inventions lead her on adventures.. But once the Lees returned to Toronto, they resumed their day jobs – Lindsay as a book publicist and Justin as a visual effects artist in advertising – and put Miikshi on hold.
That was until Lindsay’s mother, Wendy, 58, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2017.
“Having her in that situation made us reflect on how we wanted to spend the rest of our short lives,” says Lindsay. Before she died, Wendy insisted that they use her life insurance funds to make her dream of creating her own program come true. “When my mom passed away, it was the kick we needed to do it.”
In July 2017, Lindsay quit her editorial job, and Justin took up part-time to help bring Miikshi to life. His first task was to find a cheap studio to rent. “We ended up finding a space in Whitby, which turned out to be the back room of a pizzeria,” explains Lindsay. “Often the pizza man, our landlord, would run to get to his car to make a delivery.”
The 400-square-foot space was tight, but the couple, along with their friend Jeffrey Mackey, worked for months, building puppets and elaborate sets. “We wanted everything to have a lot of dimension,” says Justin. “In Miikshi’s apartment, when he pulls a lever on the wall, the kitchen table goes from looking like a dining room table to a laboratory.”
Filming began in January 2018, and by December, the couple had completed five episodes, each about seven minutes long. They organized a screening at Little Italy’s Monarch Tavern and posted it on social media, expecting 20 people to attend. But about 200 people showed up, packed up the house, and cheered on Miikshi as he stopped a runaway train with his science skills and saved his city from a cosmic potato.
It just so happens that someone in the audience had a connection to Shaftsbury, a Toronto-based media production company, which came together to sell the series to broadcasters. Meanwhile, the Lees applied for and received money from the Independent Production Fund and the Shaw Rocket Fund to create 10 more episodes.
In late 2019, TVOKids signed up to stream them.. The network requested that the new shows take an educational approach, so the Lees reworked them to introduce simple scientific concepts, such as solar energy and weather, to their target audience of preschool-age children. The Lees found a larger production space near Downsview Park and were about to start filming when COVID arrived, halting production until September 2020. A year later, those 10 episodes were released on TVOKids.com. “If you go to TVOKids.com, they have ‘Arthur’ and ‘Paw Patrol’, and ‘Miikshi’ is right next to them,” says Justin. “There’s something really wild about it.”
So far, the Lees have received excellent feedback from both children and parents. “We have all of these clips on the show for adults to see,” Justin says. “Miikshi has an NPR farmhouse magnet on her fridge that says, ‘This agrarian life with Ira Grass.’ There are also tributes to Lindsay’s mom. “On the Miikshi jet, the rear fin has a ’58’ on it,” says Justin. “Wendy was born in 1958 and lived to be 58 years old. Miikshi’s robot is also called 58.”
Justin, a Korean Canadian, and Lindsay, a Sino-Jamaican Canadian, are also proud of the cultural details they have been able to incorporate. “In the third episode, Miikshi is eating dumplings,” says Justin. “We can call that a victory because there was some apprehension about having meatballs there instead of something like a sandwich.”
That same episode ends with Miikshi reading a book alone at home, which is what she had wanted to do all along. Having an introverted female lead who feels like she doesn’t belong is something that resonated with the couple. “Doing a show about a character who was different seemed very natural to us as minorities,” says Lindsay.
With the success of “Miikshi”, Justin and Lindsay now have two series in production. One, for CBC Kids, is “Power lines, ”About a new subway train that learns the“ layout of the tracks ”from turnstiles, traffic lights and other trains. The other, “The Shapeshifters,” follows a robot traveling through Canada learning how artisans make soap, clocks, dollhouses, and more.
Meanwhile, the audience for “Miikshi” has expanded to unlikely places. “We discovered that there is a Japanese Wikipedia page for ‘Miikshi,'” says Justin. “It is very detailed. It has all the episodes and character descriptions. “
Lindsay believes her mother would have been the show’s biggest fan. “I would have been sharing it all over Facebook,” says Lindsay. “She always encouraged my love for puppets. What made her happier was knowing that other people were happy. “
Reference-www.thestar.com