viernes, 31 de agosto de 2007
Video Making it happen
Link del video con subtitulos en español: http://www.avid.es/es/profiles/lazytown/MakeItVideo.shtml
Mas links interesantes subtitulados:http://www.avid.es/es/profiles/lazytown/TheWorkFlowVideo.shtml
jueves, 30 de agosto de 2007
miércoles, 29 de agosto de 2007
Entrevista en español, Clarin Jun 2007
Héroe de la vida natural
Creador y protagonista de la serie "Lazy Town", que promueve el deporte y la vida sana, hoy estrena una versión teatral para la Argentina
Por Laura Gentile
Vino dos veces a la Argentina y es capaz de enumerar más de cinco futbolistas locales sin repetir y sin soplar. El atleta y empresario Magnus Scheving es el queridísimo Sportacus, héroe de LazyTown, la serie islandesa que enseña a los chicos a preferir las frutas y verduras a la comida chatarra y a hacer ejercicios en lugar de pasarse horas viendo TV.Lanzada en América Latina en marzo de 2005 por la señal Discovery Kids, la serie se ve hoy en 109 países. En Islandia, gracias a su ejemplo aumentó un 22% la venta de frutas y verduras. Es tan popular en aquella isla de hielo que hasta tiene un tipo de moneda de intercambio que los chicos pueden utilizar para entrar a diversos eventos deportivos y lugares de recreación. A partir de hoy, con una producción local entrenada especialmente en Islandia, podrá verse la versión teatral con todos los personajes de la serie.
Desde su país, Scheving atiende a Clarín. Además de amable y simpático, es verborrágico, como si llevara su energía física al discurso.Así cuenta que antes de crear LazyTown, trabajó durante 16 años como conferencista y motivador. "Viajaba por el mundo hablándole a la gente de la vida sana —cuenta—. Salí a hablar con madres y padres sobre cómo criar chicos sanos. Entrené a azafatas de líneas aéreas. También trabajé para el gobierno para ayudar a los chicos a mantenerse alejados de las drogas, etc".En esos años comprobó que todos los padres buscaban lo mismo. "Cuando se crían chicos —afirma— es el mismo problema en la Argentina que en Islandia y el mismo en Londres o en Corea".Según su síntesis, los padres quieren cuidar a su hijo en siete temas: que esté seguro y educado, que coma sano, que no mire demasiada televisión ni pase demasiado tiempo frente a la computadora, que respete las reglas y no lastime a otros chicos, que sepa compartir, que no mienta.
Originalmente Lazy Town empezó como un libro. "Escribí tres —cuenta Magnus— y fueron best-sellers en Islandia y después hice dos musicales con entradas agotadas durante cuatro años. Luego tuvimos una emisora de radio las 24 horas para chicos".Después de 10 años en Islandia, dijeron "OK, llevemos esto al mundo" y empezaron con la TV. Crearon el programa y lo vendieron a los Estados Unidos, algo no muy habitual para series realizadas en Europa. En 9 meses lo vendieron a 96 países.
¿Por qué decidió interpretar usted mismo a Sportacus?Al principio, era muy difícil explicarle a la gente qué era LazyTown. Si les hubiera preguntado a 50 médicos qué es una persona sana, no podrían explicármelo. Yo iba a hablar de salud, algo que nadie podía explicar, poniéndolo en el programa de TV y sin mencionar la palabra. Necesitaba mostrarlo en vez de hablar.
¿Por qué la serie nació en Islandia y no en otra parte?En primer lugar, la salud es un tema importante en los países escandinavos. Y en segundo lugar, porque integridad es algo que se consigue en Islandia solamente. Por ejemplo, si usted trata de venderle algo malo a los niños, los padres saben dónde vive uno, es un país pequeño.
¿Por qué eligió América Latina para realizar la versión teatral y no Europa o los Estados Unidos?Lazy Town es muy popular en Sudamérica, creo que tiene que ver con la música. Y también porque les gusta moverse.
¿Puede decirnos algo sobre la obra?Van a estar todos los personajes. Va a estar Robbie Rotten, va a es tar Sportacus, va a estar Stephanie, llevaremos la nave, vamos a volar, va a haber muchísima música. Los chicos podrán participar, podrán moverse. Creo que será muy excitante.
Entrevista, Oct 2005
October 2005
By Anna Carugati
Magnus Scheving is not just a world-class athlete, entertainer and writer in his native Iceland. He is the creator and star of the children’s series LazyTown. What started as a book and a lifestyle philosophy for kids, advocating healthy eating and exercise, has turned into a top-rated TV series. As LazyTown’s hero Sportacus, Scheving jumps, flips and does airborne splits, and in the process is a very positive impact on children’s lives around the world.
TV KIDS: How did the idea for LazyTown come about?
SCHEVING: Thirteen years ago, I started as a public speaker. I went around the world to talk about fitness on behalf of the government. I saw there was no role model for health for children and I really wanted to do something about this. I asked myself, is it doable to make an entertaining TV program about a healthy lifestyle for kids? I held more than 4,000 live events in 52 different countries. And I jumped up and down with kids and parents, and I figured out that there were two things that kids really liked: they like to move and they don’t want to be talked down to; they want to be treated with care and respect.
And parents asked me the same questions again and again. I boiled them down to seven main issues that were important to all parents, whether they were in Iceland or Canada or Uruguay or Korea. When you are raising children you want them to be safe; you want them to be educated; you want them to eat healthy foods; you want them to go to sleep early and brush their teeth; you want them not to hurt other kids; and you want them to learn how to share things. Then I said to my team, ‘Guys, we are never going to compromise; we only want to do the best.’ I put my team to work for eight years in Iceland, which is an ideal test market, because it’s a small population and you can get feedback quickly and easily. We worked for eight years because we wanted to try our concept on two generations of young children.
TV KIDS: How did LazyTown the TV series get started?
SCHEVING: LazyTown started as a book. Then we did two musicals, which sold out for four years. Then we stopped, because I couldn’t jump anymore! We produced videos and board games. We have our own 24-hour radio station for kids. We had a national campaign in Iceland that increased vegetable consumption by 13 percent and decreased soft-drink use by nearly 16 percent in only 30 days. We got a Scandinavian health award for that campaign. Then we did 11 other books.
I then traveled around the world, attended 400 meetings to see what other people were doing. I was asked, ‘Why are you traveling to Germany and Japan?’ I did it because I really wanted to see what was being done in other markets, Why are they successful? Why do they have properties? How much money do they have behind it? Why do kids like it?
We decided that to get critical mass and spread the LazyTown lifestyle, we wanted to go on TV. We made a style guide and a presentation for TV stations. We went to the biggest market in the world, the U.S., and sold it to Nickelodeon. They took a big chance, because we said we wanted to produce this series in Iceland. They said, OK, we want 35 half-hour episodes. I said I want to shoot this in HD, because I want this to be of the best quality possible and have live characters, puppets and CGI backgrounds. So in Iceland we built a high-tech studio. We shot LazyTown and people said this is too good for children’s TV, and I said, you are preaching to the wrong guy!
LazyTown premiered on Nickelodeon in the U.S. in August of 2004, and it reached the Top 5 kids’ programs in only ten days. In Canada, in just 30 days it became extremely successful. In South America, it was sold to Discovery Kids. We sold it to Germany and in two weeks it became number one; and in Norway it became number one in only one day. It will air on the Disney Channel in Spain, France and Italy. It recently premiered on the BBC and on Nickelodeon in the U.K.
Everywhere LazyTown has aired, it’s gone straight to the top.
TV KIDS: If you get young children to understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle, can it have a long-lasting impact on them?
SCHEVING: What we have seen here in Iceland for 14 years is proof of that. The health minister of Iceland recently announced on TV that for the first time in ten years, obesity is not increasing. Reporters asked what the main reason was, and he said LazyTown. When I walk down the street in Iceland, I see teenagers who were little children when I started LazyTown. They show me push-ups and handstands. And when I have foreigners with me, it’s really strange—I have to explain what is happening!
Yes, it can have a huge impact. I have thousands and thousands of e-mails from kids who haven’t smoked or have started to exercise because of LazyTown. It has motivated people to change their lifestyles.
We parents—all of us—are really struggling, because we are bad role models. We work too much. We’re never home. We don’t have time to live a balanced life. LazyTown is about balance—not eating junk food all the time, and not eating carrots all the time, it’s in the middle. A healthy person is a person who has balance. If you get that early, without realizing you are doing it, it goes into your subconscious, then you succeed.
If you play tennis or play golf, you do it because you love the game. When you are hitting the ball in tennis, you’re not thinking, ‘This will give me great thighs.’ Same with golf—you are walking outside in the fresh air. That’s why it’s good for older people—they go out and walk without realizing how far they are walking.
TV KIDS: How did you pitch the show to Brown Johnson [the executive creative director of preschool television at Nickelodeon]? She told me you had the whole crew doing push-ups? Tell me about it.
SCHEVING: [Laughs] Basically, we are a little strange! This is entertainment, and if you can’t entertain a person in a room who is listening to you pitch your show, then you surely cannot be entertaining on the screen, that’s my philosophy. When we talked to Brown, the whole crew was there. We just showed them a little of the LazyTown lifestyle. They did push-ups and jumps with us.
I had a joke with my crew. I had 163 people working on LazyTown here in Iceland for more than 14 months. There were 40 foreigners, and the rest were Icelandic. They are now working on the Clint Eastwood movie that is being shot [in Iceland]. In December, as a joke, all my crew had to do 100 push-ups in one hour—otherwise they were not going to get paid. Everybody did it. And it was very funny, because there was one guy struggling—he was at 98 and there were only 30 seconds to go. The whole crew was cheering him on, Go for it! He barely made it. We do a lot of physical activity as entertainment.
TV KIDS: When you started as a public speaker years ago, did you ever think you’d reach this level of success today?
SCHEVING: Not really. I’m an extremely rich man in the sense that I have a good family, great people who work for me, and I do something that I like—that is everybody’s dream. I have always been extremely proactive. I jump the same height if I have two kids in the room or 6,000. I always do my best. It doesn’t come as a surprise that I’m trying to do my best. If that brings me where I am now, then I’m happy.
I am really proud of the reaction I’m getting to LazyTown. I got an e-mail from a grandmother who lives in Idaho. She wrote, “I went to visit my daughter, my grandson came to the door and he was eating carrots. I walked into the kitchen and asked my daughter, ‘Why is he eating carrots? He never eats them.’ And my daughter answered, ‘I don’t know. He’s watching this program called LazyTown and I have to run down to the store and buy carrots.’ He was playing all the characters from the show: Sportacus, Stephanie and Robbie. You don’t realize what you are doing, you are changing the diet of a generation.” That was so gratifying.
Basically, kids are helping me! It’s what I have learned from them, not what I am teaching them. Everything I am doing on the screen is something I have learned from kids.
By Anna Carugati
Magnus Scheving is not just a world-class athlete, entertainer and writer in his native Iceland. He is the creator and star of the children’s series LazyTown. What started as a book and a lifestyle philosophy for kids, advocating healthy eating and exercise, has turned into a top-rated TV series. As LazyTown’s hero Sportacus, Scheving jumps, flips and does airborne splits, and in the process is a very positive impact on children’s lives around the world.
TV KIDS: How did the idea for LazyTown come about?
SCHEVING: Thirteen years ago, I started as a public speaker. I went around the world to talk about fitness on behalf of the government. I saw there was no role model for health for children and I really wanted to do something about this. I asked myself, is it doable to make an entertaining TV program about a healthy lifestyle for kids? I held more than 4,000 live events in 52 different countries. And I jumped up and down with kids and parents, and I figured out that there were two things that kids really liked: they like to move and they don’t want to be talked down to; they want to be treated with care and respect.
And parents asked me the same questions again and again. I boiled them down to seven main issues that were important to all parents, whether they were in Iceland or Canada or Uruguay or Korea. When you are raising children you want them to be safe; you want them to be educated; you want them to eat healthy foods; you want them to go to sleep early and brush their teeth; you want them not to hurt other kids; and you want them to learn how to share things. Then I said to my team, ‘Guys, we are never going to compromise; we only want to do the best.’ I put my team to work for eight years in Iceland, which is an ideal test market, because it’s a small population and you can get feedback quickly and easily. We worked for eight years because we wanted to try our concept on two generations of young children.
TV KIDS: How did LazyTown the TV series get started?
SCHEVING: LazyTown started as a book. Then we did two musicals, which sold out for four years. Then we stopped, because I couldn’t jump anymore! We produced videos and board games. We have our own 24-hour radio station for kids. We had a national campaign in Iceland that increased vegetable consumption by 13 percent and decreased soft-drink use by nearly 16 percent in only 30 days. We got a Scandinavian health award for that campaign. Then we did 11 other books.
I then traveled around the world, attended 400 meetings to see what other people were doing. I was asked, ‘Why are you traveling to Germany and Japan?’ I did it because I really wanted to see what was being done in other markets, Why are they successful? Why do they have properties? How much money do they have behind it? Why do kids like it?
We decided that to get critical mass and spread the LazyTown lifestyle, we wanted to go on TV. We made a style guide and a presentation for TV stations. We went to the biggest market in the world, the U.S., and sold it to Nickelodeon. They took a big chance, because we said we wanted to produce this series in Iceland. They said, OK, we want 35 half-hour episodes. I said I want to shoot this in HD, because I want this to be of the best quality possible and have live characters, puppets and CGI backgrounds. So in Iceland we built a high-tech studio. We shot LazyTown and people said this is too good for children’s TV, and I said, you are preaching to the wrong guy!
LazyTown premiered on Nickelodeon in the U.S. in August of 2004, and it reached the Top 5 kids’ programs in only ten days. In Canada, in just 30 days it became extremely successful. In South America, it was sold to Discovery Kids. We sold it to Germany and in two weeks it became number one; and in Norway it became number one in only one day. It will air on the Disney Channel in Spain, France and Italy. It recently premiered on the BBC and on Nickelodeon in the U.K.
Everywhere LazyTown has aired, it’s gone straight to the top.
TV KIDS: If you get young children to understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle, can it have a long-lasting impact on them?
SCHEVING: What we have seen here in Iceland for 14 years is proof of that. The health minister of Iceland recently announced on TV that for the first time in ten years, obesity is not increasing. Reporters asked what the main reason was, and he said LazyTown. When I walk down the street in Iceland, I see teenagers who were little children when I started LazyTown. They show me push-ups and handstands. And when I have foreigners with me, it’s really strange—I have to explain what is happening!
Yes, it can have a huge impact. I have thousands and thousands of e-mails from kids who haven’t smoked or have started to exercise because of LazyTown. It has motivated people to change their lifestyles.
We parents—all of us—are really struggling, because we are bad role models. We work too much. We’re never home. We don’t have time to live a balanced life. LazyTown is about balance—not eating junk food all the time, and not eating carrots all the time, it’s in the middle. A healthy person is a person who has balance. If you get that early, without realizing you are doing it, it goes into your subconscious, then you succeed.
If you play tennis or play golf, you do it because you love the game. When you are hitting the ball in tennis, you’re not thinking, ‘This will give me great thighs.’ Same with golf—you are walking outside in the fresh air. That’s why it’s good for older people—they go out and walk without realizing how far they are walking.
TV KIDS: How did you pitch the show to Brown Johnson [the executive creative director of preschool television at Nickelodeon]? She told me you had the whole crew doing push-ups? Tell me about it.
SCHEVING: [Laughs] Basically, we are a little strange! This is entertainment, and if you can’t entertain a person in a room who is listening to you pitch your show, then you surely cannot be entertaining on the screen, that’s my philosophy. When we talked to Brown, the whole crew was there. We just showed them a little of the LazyTown lifestyle. They did push-ups and jumps with us.
I had a joke with my crew. I had 163 people working on LazyTown here in Iceland for more than 14 months. There were 40 foreigners, and the rest were Icelandic. They are now working on the Clint Eastwood movie that is being shot [in Iceland]. In December, as a joke, all my crew had to do 100 push-ups in one hour—otherwise they were not going to get paid. Everybody did it. And it was very funny, because there was one guy struggling—he was at 98 and there were only 30 seconds to go. The whole crew was cheering him on, Go for it! He barely made it. We do a lot of physical activity as entertainment.
TV KIDS: When you started as a public speaker years ago, did you ever think you’d reach this level of success today?
SCHEVING: Not really. I’m an extremely rich man in the sense that I have a good family, great people who work for me, and I do something that I like—that is everybody’s dream. I have always been extremely proactive. I jump the same height if I have two kids in the room or 6,000. I always do my best. It doesn’t come as a surprise that I’m trying to do my best. If that brings me where I am now, then I’m happy.
I am really proud of the reaction I’m getting to LazyTown. I got an e-mail from a grandmother who lives in Idaho. She wrote, “I went to visit my daughter, my grandson came to the door and he was eating carrots. I walked into the kitchen and asked my daughter, ‘Why is he eating carrots? He never eats them.’ And my daughter answered, ‘I don’t know. He’s watching this program called LazyTown and I have to run down to the store and buy carrots.’ He was playing all the characters from the show: Sportacus, Stephanie and Robbie. You don’t realize what you are doing, you are changing the diet of a generation.” That was so gratifying.
Basically, kids are helping me! It’s what I have learned from them, not what I am teaching them. Everything I am doing on the screen is something I have learned from kids.
Entrevista en español del The New York Times, Feb 2007
Febrero 25, 2007
Por SARAH LYALL GARDABAER, Islandia
A primera vista, salvo por los músculos que se marcan bajo su camisa de vestir ajustada al cuerpo, Magnus Scheving se parece poco a Sportacus, héroe hiperactivo promotor de la salud, a quien interpreta en el internacionalmente exitoso programa infantil de televisión "LazyTown".
A diferencia de Sportacus, Scheving no posee un delgado bigote negro que sobresale de forma exagerada como si hubiera sido electrocutado recientemente. Ni tiene su hogar en un dirigible en el cielo.
Pero tanto él como su otro yo están dedicados a una sola y apasionada causa: lograr que los niños perezosos hagan ejercicio, coman alimentos que les hacen bien y, en general, lleven vidas más saludables. Y Scheving, creador y presidente ejecutivo de la vasta compañía de entretenimiento y licencias conocida como LazyTown Entertainment, de alguna forma se ha convertido en una de las figuras mejor conocidas y de máxima exportación de Islandia. "LazyTown" se transmite actualmente en 106 países.
Scheving, de 42 años, ha trabajado, frecuentemente de manera simultánea, como conductor de programa de entrevistas, orador motivacional, actor, director, escritor, carpintero, instructor de acondicionamiento físico, dueño de un gimnasio, embajador de un estilo de vida saludable, comediante, emprendedor y competidor de aerobics.
En una entrevista reciente, en la sala de reuniones de LazyTown, en el suburbio de Gardabaer, en Reykjavik, habló de esas y otras ocupaciones, y puntualizó sus comentarios al escribir en un pizarrón blanco, como si diera una conferencia.
Dejó patente un encanto contagioso, una saludable habilidad para reírse de sí mismo y una tendencia a los comentarios hiperbólicos no relacionados con la conversación.
"Cuando tenía quince años, tenía un sueldo mayor que el Primer Ministro", anunció. De sus habilidades como carpintero, expresó: "En la planta baja verá que hay un baño de vapor que yo mismo construí en un fin de semana".
LazyTown Entertainment, fundado hace doce años, ahora es tan influyente en Islandia que cuando organizó una promoción en la que los niños podían intercambiar "dinero" especial de LazyTown por productos saludables, las ventas de frutas y verduras se incrementaron el 22 por ciento en un mes.
El programa retrata a una comunidad cuyos niños son tentados a cada instante por los dulces y la pereza ofrecidos por el villano más dejado del mundo, Robbie Rotten. Sin embargo, inevitablemente son salvados por Sportacus, quien repele la comida chatarra mediante el hábil uso de raquetas de tenis, reparte manzanas y zanahorias como "dulce deportivo" que incrementa la energía y nunca entra caminando a una habitación cuando con igual facilidad puede dar un doble salto mortal.
Scheving, de 1,70 metros de estatura, hace él mismo las escenas de acción, con la ayuda de tres "hombres de veintitantos años", dijo con orgullo. Pensó cuidadosamente cómo bautizar a su creación - "quería que tuviera deportes, pero no quería llamarlo 'Sportsman'"- y su potencial para una mayor explotación.
"Tarzán era un concepto fabuloso, pero en realidad uno no puede vender su ropa, porque andaba desnudo".
Scheving creció en Borgarness, pequeño poblado a 90 minutos al noroeste de Reykjavik. Estudió arquitectura, pero se dio cuenta de que tal profesión era inadecuada para su ambición ilimitada. Cuando tenía veintitantos años, un amigo le apostó que no podría aprender y sobresalir en un deporte poco convencional: aerobics de competencia.
"En mi opinión, es uno de los deportes más difíciles en el mundo", dijo, y enumeró varias razones en el pizarrón. Ganó una medalla de plata en el Campeonato Mundial de Aerobics, en Japón. Ganó el campeonato europeo, dos veces. Otros premios siguieron. ("¡Maria!", gritó, al llamar a su asistente personal. "¿Cuándo fui deportista del año, 1994 ó 1996?).
"Mi filosofía es: 'Aprende mientras vivas'", dijo. "LazyTown trata de balance. Aún no estoy ahí.
"Hay muchas cosas que quiero hacer", afirmó. "Quiero aprender italiano. Quiero aprender a jugar mejor tenis. Básicamente, quiero motivar al mundo".
martes, 28 de agosto de 2007
Entrevista, Dic 2004
Magnus Scheving has just turned 40. He's Icelandic, a world-class athlete, an entrepreneur, a carpenter and father of two. And he's on a mission to motivate children with a concept he has created, called LazyTown. Magnus has been honing and testing LazyTown for eleven years in his home market. In January he went into production with the first LazyTown television series, which is now airing daily on Nick Jr. in the US. One Nickelodeon mum e-mailed the show saying her kids loved the 'LazyTown Movement'; an unwittingly apt description of this concept, which is so much more than a TV series. We met Magnus Scheving, the high-energy creator, producer and star of this brave new show.
The LazyTown studio sits in a field of inhospitable, craggy black lava. About 130 people work on the show, a quarter of them from overseas. Like many highly persuasive people, Magnus has gathered around him old friends, colleagues and people who understand him in order to achieve the impossible. In November 2003 the building was an empty shell. Six weeks later the studio was built and filming had started, a 'can do' possible only in Iceland, Magnus suggests. As well as the world-leading technical facilities in-house there are teams of puppeteers, wardrobe fixers, designers, marketers and the most stylish staff common room you could hope to encounter. Called The Hudson Room, it's based on the Hudson Hotel in New York and has a pink felted billiard table, animal-skin cushions and oversized clocks. The attention to detail is consistent with everything at LazyTown and everything about Magnus Scheving. Having 130 employees doesn't stop him overseeing every detail of the production. But life in-house isn't at all tense or puritanical. There is even ice cream in the restaurant on Fridays.
LazyTown SynopsisWe talk in the evening after a full day's filming, a shareholder meeting and other engagements are over. Magnus rarely finishes at the studio before midnight. His conversation is punctuated by swoosh, vroom, k-pow noises and I realise these noises are identical to the special effects we hear in the series, another example of the LazyTown team replicating exactly what Magnus asks for. He jumps up frequently to scribble on a white board or reaches for a video to illustrate a point. He is wearing a Superman t-shirt. 'Terrible logo slapping,' he says. 'But it makes me feel like him!'
The LazyTown studio sits in a field of inhospitable, craggy black lava. About 130 people work on the show, a quarter of them from overseas. Like many highly persuasive people, Magnus has gathered around him old friends, colleagues and people who understand him in order to achieve the impossible. In November 2003 the building was an empty shell. Six weeks later the studio was built and filming had started, a 'can do' possible only in Iceland, Magnus suggests. As well as the world-leading technical facilities in-house there are teams of puppeteers, wardrobe fixers, designers, marketers and the most stylish staff common room you could hope to encounter. Called The Hudson Room, it's based on the Hudson Hotel in New York and has a pink felted billiard table, animal-skin cushions and oversized clocks. The attention to detail is consistent with everything at LazyTown and everything about Magnus Scheving. Having 130 employees doesn't stop him overseeing every detail of the production. But life in-house isn't at all tense or puritanical. There is even ice cream in the restaurant on Fridays.
LazyTown SynopsisWe talk in the evening after a full day's filming, a shareholder meeting and other engagements are over. Magnus rarely finishes at the studio before midnight. His conversation is punctuated by swoosh, vroom, k-pow noises and I realise these noises are identical to the special effects we hear in the series, another example of the LazyTown team replicating exactly what Magnus asks for. He jumps up frequently to scribble on a white board or reaches for a video to illustrate a point. He is wearing a Superman t-shirt. 'Terrible logo slapping,' he says. 'But it makes me feel like him!'
How did you create the concept of LazyTown? When we began to devise LazyTown we analysed other kids' shows. In general they have emotional storylines involving friends, or they are about conflict, good vs evil. We wanted to combine these two elements, as well as being useful and entertaining. This is very difficult; if you put up on a shelf all the qualities a kids' show should have and then try to add an educational element, something important always falls off.
Why is it called LazyTown? If we'd called it HealthyTown or HappyTown no-one would have watched. And because we have all been in LazyTown. LazyTown is a lifestyle. It's about choices and children learning that choices have consequences.
Why has it taken so long to evolve? Eleven years ago we had the right message but it was the wrong time. Health wasn't an issue. Everything healthy was boring and tasted bad. I was working in the health industry and realised there was something missing. A role model for kids.
Why is the idea still potent, 11 years later? Because how you raise your kids won't change over time. All parents want their children to be healthy and happy, to share, to sleep well and so on. The other thing is that over these years we have tested LazyTown on two generations of young children. We have been involved in 3,800 events for children. It's important to know your audience.
But you have only tested the concept in Iceland Iceland is the perfect test market. You can't sell to kids without integrity here people know where you live! Only the very biggest brands survive here. And I also believe that you can't win the world championships before you win at home.
CheeriosRobbie Rotten isn't much of a baddie, is he? Robbie is going nowhere. He's the status quo. We all know some-one like that, who says "no let's not go out, its too cold/expensive/whatever."
Robbie Rotten is played by stage actor Stefan Karl and has the same pantomime physicality and brooding presence of Jim Carrey. It takes hours to apply his villainous chin and he embodies the status quo, the 'can't be bothered person' who never does anything and tries to ruin everyone else's fun.
But you have only tested the concept in Iceland Iceland is the perfect test market. You can't sell to kids without integrity here people know where you live! Only the very biggest brands survive here. And I also believe that you can't win the world championships before you win at home.
CheeriosRobbie Rotten isn't much of a baddie, is he? Robbie is going nowhere. He's the status quo. We all know some-one like that, who says "no let's not go out, its too cold/expensive/whatever."
Robbie Rotten is played by stage actor Stefan Karl and has the same pantomime physicality and brooding presence of Jim Carrey. It takes hours to apply his villainous chin and he embodies the status quo, the 'can't be bothered person' who never does anything and tries to ruin everyone else's fun.
You said it was hard to write LazyTown stories. Why? To write stories involving a human athletic hero you need to be a world class athlete. Most writers are not sporty and most athletes don't write. It is very difficult to communicate the get-up-and-go.
LazyTown is actually very old-fashioned, isn't it? Yes, it is very traditional. It's not about fashion. We wanted to get back to right and wrong. When you take your kids to see a Pikachu movie, what do you talk about in the car on the way home? We wanted a show that provided tons to talk about and discuss with your kids.
Is there too much obsession with children's weight and fitness? LazyTown is not about being fit or losing weight. In fact some of the least healthy people I know are in the health business. It's about living life to the fullest. It's about being motivated. Happy kids move. Unhappy kids don't. So with LazyTown we're saying Go! Go quickly! Go slowly! It doesn't matter where, just GO!
Why is Sportacus a man in costume? Well, this morning I got a letter from some kids in a school near here. They said they loved eating sport candy (what LazyTowners call apples) and danced and sang along to the show. There is only one thing to do when you get a letter like this you get in the car and drive to the school and do some jumps for them. That's why Sportacus is a real person. If you put Superman and a costume character on a stage, what can they do? We go to kids and get them jumping around. We show them it is humanly possible to do these things.
Vital StatisticsWhy did you choose to use puppets for some of the characters? We trialled all the options live action, CGI and puppets. Puppets work because each of these characters has a flaw. Stingy, for example, won't share. This would be hard with a real child actor. Also you can do slapstick things with puppets, like have things fall on their heads.
Vital StatisticsWhy did you choose to use puppets for some of the characters? We trialled all the options live action, CGI and puppets. Puppets work because each of these characters has a flaw. Stingy, for example, won't share. This would be hard with a real child actor. Also you can do slapstick things with puppets, like have things fall on their heads.
Stephanie looks quite like Barbie, doesn't she? She is half human, half puppet —or rather half make-believe. She sits in the gap between Barbie and Britney, and I believe parents do want their daughters to make a transition between the two.
Ziggy, who loves the sweet things in life. The puppets are designed by Magnus and made in London by Neal Scanlan (who won an Oscar for his work on Babe) using fabrics Magnus chose specially in New York many years ago. Between takes, they are tended to like children and placed in wooden boxes, like cots, to be safe.
You created LazyTown before your own children were born. Why have you got this mission? Because I believe you can change things. If you push, things move. When you don't have kids you drive differently, you aren't afraid of flying. You know? We went to 260 meetings with entertainment companies and were surprised at how many people we met didn't have kids.
What did you do before LazyTown? I wanted to be an architect, trained as a carpenter, built houses (including my own) and then became a world class trainer. I even trained air stewards. When I started to invent LazyTown, that's when I decided to travel, research and became an aerobics champion.
What did you do before LazyTown? I wanted to be an architect, trained as a carpenter, built houses (including my own) and then became a world class trainer. I even trained air stewards. When I started to invent LazyTown, that's when I decided to travel, research and became an aerobics champion.
The LazyTown Economy and Energy BookWhy do you play Sportacus? We tried to find someone else. Interviewed a lot of people. But in the end there was always something missing.
Doesn't it make the character vulnerable, depending on you? There will be other Sportacus characters. I hope there will be a girl. Perhaps the next Sportacus will approach us perhaps it will be some-one watching now.
Doesn't it make the character vulnerable, depending on you? There will be other Sportacus characters. I hope there will be a girl. Perhaps the next Sportacus will approach us perhaps it will be some-one watching now.
A Nickelodeon mum emailed the show and referred to the LazyTown movement. Do you agree it's a movement? It's definitely more than a TV show. When we started we wrote down all the possibilities: radio, health centres, products, movies, promotions, toys, TV, etc and made sure that LazyTown could do them all.
The LazyTown Economy is a unique concept. Can it be exported? I hope so! It took four years of hard work to get the deal. I wanted to tackle the attitude that you get everything for free, which it's easy to have as a child now.
Was the Energy Book project as hard to get off the ground? Yes, we had to distribute it to some parts of Iceland where the authorities didn't cotton on. In the award we've just been given for the project, the government said we had changed the diet of a generation. Fizzy drinks sales dropped by 16% and fruit and veg sales rose by 12%.
How have you funded the last nine years? By jumping up and down a lot. And by persuading people to come and work for very little money to begin with. And by not over-stretching. When we have an idea like the LazyTown recipe book, we go to partners who can help and then to retailers, get the money together and then make the product.
Now the show is airing on Nick Jr. in the US and being licensed, how does it feel to
be letting someone else in? Fortunately Nickelodeon is a great believer in the creator so we have been very lucky. As well as kids liking it, the ratings reveal that 260% more mums are watching in the same time slot.
What will you do next? I am going to launch the GO! Campaign, a world live tour of LazyTown. There will also probably be a movie. And I'd like us to be involved in the Olympics. These are all ideas we have tested in Iceland.
How does it feel to be getting close to the end of shooting the series? It's been a hard year. Being world champion was nothing compared to this. It's easy to lose balance when you work this hard. So as soon as filming is over I'll take some time off with my family.
Did you predict that children's health would become a critical issue? When travelling I met children and parents who shared the same concerns about well-being. Now that it's on everyone's agenda it's the perfect time to launch LazyTown. The good thing is that as other people are just coming to the subject we have 11 years experience behind us.
Tips para mantener niños activos
On your marks ...Magnus Scheving's top 10 tips for getting kids active
1 Take 10 minutes a day, preferably before dinner, and do something active together. Ask the kids to come up with diff erent kinds of movement. Write each one on a piece of paper, put it in a bowl and pick one each day. That is the movement you have to do.
2 Teach the kids dances from when you were young. Play music - loud - and dance together. Or ask the kids to teach you new dances.
3 Hide fruit around the house and have a scavenger hunt. With very few props you could turn it into a pirate story. Remember that kids have a big imagination.
4 Take a walk around your old neighboorhood and tell the kids stories from when you were young. "This is where we used to play football - and this is where I learned to ride a bike."
5 Use the garden. Build a "castle" (you can use a cardboard box). You are the evil dragon that is protecting the treasures in the castle. The kids have to get the treasure.
6 Teach the children the games that you played when you were young, such as hide and seek, freeze tag etc.
7 Turn the living room into something exciting, for example, a "pool full of dangerous crocodiles". Arrange pillows and furniture so the kids can jump and/or climb between them.
8 Hide old clothes around the house. The kids have to find them and dress up. Have a healthy prize for the funniest dress combination.
9 One hour a week, try something new. How about ice skating, sledding, volleyball or bowling?
10 Think of a word, for example "kangaroo" (don't tell the kids). Take the kids for a walk, or cycle together. On the first corner, stop and ask them to spot a thing that starts with the first letter in your word. Write it down. Continue asking the kids to find things with letters that match your word. When you are home you have to jump like a kangaroo 20 times! To end the day, tell the kids about kangaroos and where they come from. What I like about this is that we're doing many things together at the same time. I can teach basic traffic rules, we're practising the alphabet, we're doing something active and we're learning about new things.
1 Take 10 minutes a day, preferably before dinner, and do something active together. Ask the kids to come up with diff erent kinds of movement. Write each one on a piece of paper, put it in a bowl and pick one each day. That is the movement you have to do.
2 Teach the kids dances from when you were young. Play music - loud - and dance together. Or ask the kids to teach you new dances.
3 Hide fruit around the house and have a scavenger hunt. With very few props you could turn it into a pirate story. Remember that kids have a big imagination.
4 Take a walk around your old neighboorhood and tell the kids stories from when you were young. "This is where we used to play football - and this is where I learned to ride a bike."
5 Use the garden. Build a "castle" (you can use a cardboard box). You are the evil dragon that is protecting the treasures in the castle. The kids have to get the treasure.
6 Teach the children the games that you played when you were young, such as hide and seek, freeze tag etc.
7 Turn the living room into something exciting, for example, a "pool full of dangerous crocodiles". Arrange pillows and furniture so the kids can jump and/or climb between them.
8 Hide old clothes around the house. The kids have to find them and dress up. Have a healthy prize for the funniest dress combination.
9 One hour a week, try something new. How about ice skating, sledding, volleyball or bowling?
10 Think of a word, for example "kangaroo" (don't tell the kids). Take the kids for a walk, or cycle together. On the first corner, stop and ask them to spot a thing that starts with the first letter in your word. Write it down. Continue asking the kids to find things with letters that match your word. When you are home you have to jump like a kangaroo 20 times! To end the day, tell the kids about kangaroos and where they come from. What I like about this is that we're doing many things together at the same time. I can teach basic traffic rules, we're practising the alphabet, we're doing something active and we're learning about new things.
Entrevista en ingles, Nov 2006
Magnús Scheving, the man behind the moustache, talks to Simon Mills
Friday November 24, 2006
The Guardian Photograph: Getty Images
Not sure if you happened to be watching the Nick Jr channel at 9.30 the other morning, but if you were, you would have seen something extraordinary: the sight of a grown man of dynamic, northern-hemisphere extraction, dressed in a cobalt blue-and-white tracksuit, using nothing but a pair of skilfully manoeuvred tennis racquets to deftly deflect volley after volley of marshmallows as they were fired at him from a cannon contraption by a dastardly Jim Carrey-lookalike.
Then, still under attack from the evil, e-number hurling adversary, this man with the extraordinary moustache, this man called "Sportacus", blurred his way on to a skateboard and threw a series of wildly balletic, aerobic, pantomimic shapes as he did so.
Finally the chisel-faced hero (think Freddie Ljungberg in a Power Ranger's costume) demanded a jolt of fortifying "sport candy" (aka an apple) from a little girl with pink hair, before he set about finishing off his enemy by kicking dozens of footballs at him. Then he returned to his Daz-white spaceship in the sky by way of a wind-powered airborne bicycle.
Now, if you have absolutely no idea what we are talking about here, may I be the first to say: "Mu-um! Da-aaad! Old person! Duh! Like ... where have you been?" And second, I will explain that this is LazyTown, the fastest-moving, fastest-selling kids' TV show of the moment, now broadcast in 103 countries and currently showing on BBC, CBBC, CBeebies and Nick Jr in the UK.
Spin-offs of the Icelandic show include books, a stage musical, a radio station, bottled water, Sportacus action figures, interactive games, costumes and, crucially, a highly successful anti-obesity and healthy eating drive that in Iceland achieved 100% participation from its four- to seven-year-old target-market and was directly responsible for a 22% increase in the sale of vegetables nationwide. Sportacus even managed to persuade Iceland's cinemas to sell snack packets of baby carrots to kids instead of the usual ice cream and popcorn. Nowadays, kids in Iceland go to bed at exactly 8.08pm, because that's when Sportacus goes to bed.
This weekend the show is nominated for a Children's Bafta for best international show. "LazyTown is not just a town, it's also a state of mind," says Magnús Scheving, the Iceland-born star who plays Sportacus, when I meet him. "It's the negative influence on your shoulder making you lazy and not caring about anything." Scheving is also the writer and director of the show, and the CEO, creator and co-founder of LazyTown Entertainment.
In the TV show, Sportacus is always hovering over LazyTown inspiring kids to switch off their video games console and to stop eating junk food. "To get up and do something RIGHT NOW! To be energetic! It's all about energy and excitement!" says Scheving.
In the adrenaline-fuelled Trumpton that is LazyTown, the camera is always moving. The drama is high-energy, relentless, short-attention-span stuff; a clever mixture of computer animation, CGI, flesh-and-blood actors, animatronics and latex puppetry. The sets and props are free of straight lines, the soundtrack is an aurally unpredictable cacophony of parps, honks and tinny organ chords. The colour palette is a trippy, hyper-real rainbow of vision-zonking, 64-bit intensity while LazyTown's songs have the gnawing, novelty-hit insistence that puts one in mind of the Aqua back catalogue. For God's sake, don't watch it if you have a hangover.
Scheving certainly won't. "I've never been drunk in my life," he says. "I've never even tasted beer."
He looks good on it, too: he is an enormously likeable, showroom-condition 42-year-old who, if he wasn't committed to battling global obesity, could quite easily become the forth member of A-Ha. He is apparently a big hit with mothers worldwide, but in real life is as good as married to his partner of 17 years, Ragnheidur Melstead, LazyTown's head of business affairs, and they have three young children.
How is he at home? "Lousy husband but good father, I think," he says with a grin. A very good father, by the sound of it. "At the weekends I usually have around 50 kids running around in my back garden. They are all friends of my kids. I know all their names. We have barbecues, put up tents, and play soccer. I love it."
I meet up with Scheving at the Sanderson hotel in London, where he is holding court at a corner table of the trendy Spoon restaurant, talking to the waiter in fluent Swedish and ordering off-menu (steak frites, medium rare, a salad to start) with the casual insouciance that evidently comes naturally to a multimillionaire kids' TV entrepreneur.
He is a busy man. This is the first of two visits to London inside one week, he tells me. Recently he went to Australia for just 48 hours; last year he went to New York more than 50 times. Things were never like this for the Playaway crew.
Scheving tells me that earlier in the week he was lunching in a similarly fashionable London diner and witnessed a hostile couple grumble loudly about some roustabouting children who wouldn't stay at their table with their parents and used the aisles as their playground. The complaint was quickly challenged by the voice of a woman who countered that everyone in the room should be delighted to see any kids running around. "There are two types of people in the world," he says. "People who like kids, and people who don't. People who complain about kids screaming on aeroplanes and in restaurants and those people who love kids and enjoy their energy and enjoy hearing the noise they make and get off on their energy. I am one of those people who happens to love kids."
This morning, his press officer tells me, he opened a Sportacus branded sports centre in Wembley and, using his healthy mix of aerobic moves and upbeat, invigorating, "get your move on" banter, he had 500 kids eating out of his hand.
"The worst mistake you can make with children," says Scheving, "is to talk to them in a condescending, patronising way and think that you can teach them something. You have to understand that it is you who will be learning from them. You have to get into their world and see things from their perspective. You have to be always moving and being positive and making sure that something exciting is always just about to happen."
Scheving's overachieving CV is varied, to say the least. Just listening to him describe it is exhausting. At first he wanted to be an architect but ended up as a carpenter, a skill that helped him build his own house. "And by that I mean physically built the house," he says. "I laid every brick and roof tile."
Then, on a whim, a woodworking pal bet Scheving that he couldn't become world champion at a sport of his workmate's choosing inside three years. Clearly, frozen tundra carpenters have a finely honed sense of humour because he chose for Scheving competitive aerobics, a cult-appeal sporting pursuit that finds contenders attempting a series of increasingly technical "jumps" - a conventional star jump, say, which is completed by the aerobic master landing, up-ended, on a single hand, instead of two feet. To become a champion, one has to complete as many of these fairy-dusted technical feats inside two minutes.
And guess what? Scheving, a tenacious chap, actually did it. Well, just about. Within the allotted three years he was silver medallist in the world aerobics championships, winning the European championships in 1994 and 1995.
He notices me smirking. "You think aerobics is not a cool sport?" he says, playfully. "I think you are wrong. It requires amazing discipline - flexibility, fitness, knowledge. And you have to do it with a big smile on your face. Also, I once performed in front of 10,000 screaming women. I tell you something, I'd rather do that than kick a ball around in front of a few men." He is non-competitive these days but Scheving still likes to maintain peak aerobic form. "I already did 4,000 jumps in my room today."
The contests gave him a taste for performing. He landed himself a chatshow on Icelandic telly and he became a much in-demand motivational speaker, talking to adults about a range of subjects including drugs, ageing, business and happiness. "More than 400 live events in 52 countries," he beams.
He found his niche with kids when Icelandic parents, concerned that their nation was now ranked as one of the world's top-10 fattest countries (20% overweight, 3% morbidly obese), continued to ask him the same questions about their children's exercise and nutrition programmes. So, back in 1991, inspired by his own three kids and on a mission to educate through entertainment, Scheving reinvented himself as a sort of spandex Jamie Oliver, aka Sportacus, the all-active, fruit-and-fibre saviour of LazyTown.
Unusually, the first waves of merchandising and spin-offs came before the TV show because Scheving, determined that LazyTown should always strive for the highest quality, wanted to do his research first. Ten years of meticulous research, as it turned out.
"When I was researching the show (back in 1999) I discovered two things. First, that hardly anyone who was making kids' shows actually had kids of their own, and second, that the budgets were always so much lower than for adult shows. Why? Why do they have to be cheap? When I am 65 I won't be caring about quality. But when you are a kid your senses are on fire and you have a highly tuned perception of quality." Accordingly, each episode of LazyTown costs $1m. "It's the most expensive children's show in the world," Scheving claims.
LazyTown is made in a purpose-built studio just outside Reykjavik that Scheving boasts is among the most technologically advanced in the world. Facilities include a huge green screen, a $1m, 27.6m-pixels Viper FilmStream Camera and a specially commissioned 70 terabyte processing unit that is kept under carefully climatically controlled conditions in case of spontaneous combustion.
Uniquely, the LazyTown studio has the ability to project ultra-high-definition backgrounds on to its green screen stage and shoot them directly, the various latex and humanoid players interacting with visible images rather than imagined ones. "We are above industry standard in HD," says Scheving.
The studio's maverick trickery recently engendered a jaw-dropping "how are they doing this?" response from a visiting Hanna-Barbera representative. CGI wizards who have also worked on Troy and The Last Samurai now work on LazyTown and in October the studio got a visit from Quentin Tarantino, who was researching special effects for his latest project. "He was totally amazed by the whole thing," says Ágúst Ingason, LazyTown's executive vice-president.
The Kill Bill director, puppet master of some memorably violent aerobic interludes, must have been delighted to note cinematic nods to Uma Thurman's yellow tracksuited character, the Bride, in LazyTown's blue-tracksuited Sportacus. But Scheving isn't planning on venturing into adult entertainment just yet.
What is so refreshing about LazyTown is the way it is aimed squarely at young kids and doesn't make any attempt at arch, recherché pop-culture references for the parents. It's a purist approach that has won over the lazy kids of little Iceland (population just 300,000), got them to eat "sport candy" instead of teeth-rotting candy, inspired them to "get their move on", to play soccer and tennis instead of sitting around in front of the X-Box. "I know it's ironic that they have to sit and watch TV to learn this stuff," says Scheving. "But television can be inspirational for healthy living. Remember Jane Fonda's work-out videos?"
So, is Sportacus, the Fonda de nos enfants, capable of taking on the rest of the world? "Oh, LazyTown will conquer the whole world," says Sheving confidently. And with that, he picks up a pair of tennis racquets and starts batting his five-quid plate of french fries across the room, much to the surprise of the Prada-clad mojito drinkers at the bar.
Then, still under attack from the evil, e-number hurling adversary, this man with the extraordinary moustache, this man called "Sportacus", blurred his way on to a skateboard and threw a series of wildly balletic, aerobic, pantomimic shapes as he did so.
Finally the chisel-faced hero (think Freddie Ljungberg in a Power Ranger's costume) demanded a jolt of fortifying "sport candy" (aka an apple) from a little girl with pink hair, before he set about finishing off his enemy by kicking dozens of footballs at him. Then he returned to his Daz-white spaceship in the sky by way of a wind-powered airborne bicycle.
Now, if you have absolutely no idea what we are talking about here, may I be the first to say: "Mu-um! Da-aaad! Old person! Duh! Like ... where have you been?" And second, I will explain that this is LazyTown, the fastest-moving, fastest-selling kids' TV show of the moment, now broadcast in 103 countries and currently showing on BBC, CBBC, CBeebies and Nick Jr in the UK.
Spin-offs of the Icelandic show include books, a stage musical, a radio station, bottled water, Sportacus action figures, interactive games, costumes and, crucially, a highly successful anti-obesity and healthy eating drive that in Iceland achieved 100% participation from its four- to seven-year-old target-market and was directly responsible for a 22% increase in the sale of vegetables nationwide. Sportacus even managed to persuade Iceland's cinemas to sell snack packets of baby carrots to kids instead of the usual ice cream and popcorn. Nowadays, kids in Iceland go to bed at exactly 8.08pm, because that's when Sportacus goes to bed.
This weekend the show is nominated for a Children's Bafta for best international show. "LazyTown is not just a town, it's also a state of mind," says Magnús Scheving, the Iceland-born star who plays Sportacus, when I meet him. "It's the negative influence on your shoulder making you lazy and not caring about anything." Scheving is also the writer and director of the show, and the CEO, creator and co-founder of LazyTown Entertainment.
In the TV show, Sportacus is always hovering over LazyTown inspiring kids to switch off their video games console and to stop eating junk food. "To get up and do something RIGHT NOW! To be energetic! It's all about energy and excitement!" says Scheving.
In the adrenaline-fuelled Trumpton that is LazyTown, the camera is always moving. The drama is high-energy, relentless, short-attention-span stuff; a clever mixture of computer animation, CGI, flesh-and-blood actors, animatronics and latex puppetry. The sets and props are free of straight lines, the soundtrack is an aurally unpredictable cacophony of parps, honks and tinny organ chords. The colour palette is a trippy, hyper-real rainbow of vision-zonking, 64-bit intensity while LazyTown's songs have the gnawing, novelty-hit insistence that puts one in mind of the Aqua back catalogue. For God's sake, don't watch it if you have a hangover.
Scheving certainly won't. "I've never been drunk in my life," he says. "I've never even tasted beer."
He looks good on it, too: he is an enormously likeable, showroom-condition 42-year-old who, if he wasn't committed to battling global obesity, could quite easily become the forth member of A-Ha. He is apparently a big hit with mothers worldwide, but in real life is as good as married to his partner of 17 years, Ragnheidur Melstead, LazyTown's head of business affairs, and they have three young children.
How is he at home? "Lousy husband but good father, I think," he says with a grin. A very good father, by the sound of it. "At the weekends I usually have around 50 kids running around in my back garden. They are all friends of my kids. I know all their names. We have barbecues, put up tents, and play soccer. I love it."
I meet up with Scheving at the Sanderson hotel in London, where he is holding court at a corner table of the trendy Spoon restaurant, talking to the waiter in fluent Swedish and ordering off-menu (steak frites, medium rare, a salad to start) with the casual insouciance that evidently comes naturally to a multimillionaire kids' TV entrepreneur.
He is a busy man. This is the first of two visits to London inside one week, he tells me. Recently he went to Australia for just 48 hours; last year he went to New York more than 50 times. Things were never like this for the Playaway crew.
Scheving tells me that earlier in the week he was lunching in a similarly fashionable London diner and witnessed a hostile couple grumble loudly about some roustabouting children who wouldn't stay at their table with their parents and used the aisles as their playground. The complaint was quickly challenged by the voice of a woman who countered that everyone in the room should be delighted to see any kids running around. "There are two types of people in the world," he says. "People who like kids, and people who don't. People who complain about kids screaming on aeroplanes and in restaurants and those people who love kids and enjoy their energy and enjoy hearing the noise they make and get off on their energy. I am one of those people who happens to love kids."
This morning, his press officer tells me, he opened a Sportacus branded sports centre in Wembley and, using his healthy mix of aerobic moves and upbeat, invigorating, "get your move on" banter, he had 500 kids eating out of his hand.
"The worst mistake you can make with children," says Scheving, "is to talk to them in a condescending, patronising way and think that you can teach them something. You have to understand that it is you who will be learning from them. You have to get into their world and see things from their perspective. You have to be always moving and being positive and making sure that something exciting is always just about to happen."
Scheving's overachieving CV is varied, to say the least. Just listening to him describe it is exhausting. At first he wanted to be an architect but ended up as a carpenter, a skill that helped him build his own house. "And by that I mean physically built the house," he says. "I laid every brick and roof tile."
Then, on a whim, a woodworking pal bet Scheving that he couldn't become world champion at a sport of his workmate's choosing inside three years. Clearly, frozen tundra carpenters have a finely honed sense of humour because he chose for Scheving competitive aerobics, a cult-appeal sporting pursuit that finds contenders attempting a series of increasingly technical "jumps" - a conventional star jump, say, which is completed by the aerobic master landing, up-ended, on a single hand, instead of two feet. To become a champion, one has to complete as many of these fairy-dusted technical feats inside two minutes.
And guess what? Scheving, a tenacious chap, actually did it. Well, just about. Within the allotted three years he was silver medallist in the world aerobics championships, winning the European championships in 1994 and 1995.
He notices me smirking. "You think aerobics is not a cool sport?" he says, playfully. "I think you are wrong. It requires amazing discipline - flexibility, fitness, knowledge. And you have to do it with a big smile on your face. Also, I once performed in front of 10,000 screaming women. I tell you something, I'd rather do that than kick a ball around in front of a few men." He is non-competitive these days but Scheving still likes to maintain peak aerobic form. "I already did 4,000 jumps in my room today."
The contests gave him a taste for performing. He landed himself a chatshow on Icelandic telly and he became a much in-demand motivational speaker, talking to adults about a range of subjects including drugs, ageing, business and happiness. "More than 400 live events in 52 countries," he beams.
He found his niche with kids when Icelandic parents, concerned that their nation was now ranked as one of the world's top-10 fattest countries (20% overweight, 3% morbidly obese), continued to ask him the same questions about their children's exercise and nutrition programmes. So, back in 1991, inspired by his own three kids and on a mission to educate through entertainment, Scheving reinvented himself as a sort of spandex Jamie Oliver, aka Sportacus, the all-active, fruit-and-fibre saviour of LazyTown.
Unusually, the first waves of merchandising and spin-offs came before the TV show because Scheving, determined that LazyTown should always strive for the highest quality, wanted to do his research first. Ten years of meticulous research, as it turned out.
"When I was researching the show (back in 1999) I discovered two things. First, that hardly anyone who was making kids' shows actually had kids of their own, and second, that the budgets were always so much lower than for adult shows. Why? Why do they have to be cheap? When I am 65 I won't be caring about quality. But when you are a kid your senses are on fire and you have a highly tuned perception of quality." Accordingly, each episode of LazyTown costs $1m. "It's the most expensive children's show in the world," Scheving claims.
LazyTown is made in a purpose-built studio just outside Reykjavik that Scheving boasts is among the most technologically advanced in the world. Facilities include a huge green screen, a $1m, 27.6m-pixels Viper FilmStream Camera and a specially commissioned 70 terabyte processing unit that is kept under carefully climatically controlled conditions in case of spontaneous combustion.
Uniquely, the LazyTown studio has the ability to project ultra-high-definition backgrounds on to its green screen stage and shoot them directly, the various latex and humanoid players interacting with visible images rather than imagined ones. "We are above industry standard in HD," says Scheving.
The studio's maverick trickery recently engendered a jaw-dropping "how are they doing this?" response from a visiting Hanna-Barbera representative. CGI wizards who have also worked on Troy and The Last Samurai now work on LazyTown and in October the studio got a visit from Quentin Tarantino, who was researching special effects for his latest project. "He was totally amazed by the whole thing," says Ágúst Ingason, LazyTown's executive vice-president.
The Kill Bill director, puppet master of some memorably violent aerobic interludes, must have been delighted to note cinematic nods to Uma Thurman's yellow tracksuited character, the Bride, in LazyTown's blue-tracksuited Sportacus. But Scheving isn't planning on venturing into adult entertainment just yet.
What is so refreshing about LazyTown is the way it is aimed squarely at young kids and doesn't make any attempt at arch, recherché pop-culture references for the parents. It's a purist approach that has won over the lazy kids of little Iceland (population just 300,000), got them to eat "sport candy" instead of teeth-rotting candy, inspired them to "get their move on", to play soccer and tennis instead of sitting around in front of the X-Box. "I know it's ironic that they have to sit and watch TV to learn this stuff," says Scheving. "But television can be inspirational for healthy living. Remember Jane Fonda's work-out videos?"
So, is Sportacus, the Fonda de nos enfants, capable of taking on the rest of the world? "Oh, LazyTown will conquer the whole world," says Sheving confidently. And with that, he picks up a pair of tennis racquets and starts batting his five-quid plate of french fries across the room, much to the surprise of the Prada-clad mojito drinkers at the bar.
Reconocimiento de la OMS
La Organizacion mundial de la salud le ha dado su reconocimiento por su admirable labor por la salud de nuestros niños.
"How healthy is your world?
28 December 2005
Magnus Scheving
Children's television personality
"The most important global health issues of 2005 are at opposite ends of the same spectrum. At one end, there are the truly shocking numbers of starving or malnourished children in developing countries. And, at the other end, there is the alarming rise in childhood obesity and a terrible lack of role models who can help promote healthy, balanced lifestyles in the more developed nations.
Increased attention must be given to both feeding children in developing countries and childhood obesity elsewhere in the world. Children must be provided with the food they need to ensure their health today and with the knowledge they need to manage their diet and exercise for their long-term health."
Magnús Scheving is the creative star of the children's series LazyTown. He is a writer, world-class athlete, entrepreneur and producer. He has been the producer and host of popular health-related children’s TV shows as well as producing and acting in other TV productions and commercials."
Magnus Scheving
Children's television personality
"The most important global health issues of 2005 are at opposite ends of the same spectrum. At one end, there are the truly shocking numbers of starving or malnourished children in developing countries. And, at the other end, there is the alarming rise in childhood obesity and a terrible lack of role models who can help promote healthy, balanced lifestyles in the more developed nations.
Increased attention must be given to both feeding children in developing countries and childhood obesity elsewhere in the world. Children must be provided with the food they need to ensure their health today and with the knowledge they need to manage their diet and exercise for their long-term health."
Magnús Scheving is the creative star of the children's series LazyTown. He is a writer, world-class athlete, entrepreneur and producer. He has been the producer and host of popular health-related children’s TV shows as well as producing and acting in other TV productions and commercials."
Entrevista en español
13 de mayo del 2007
Entrevista Magnus Scheving, actor y escritor
SONIBERTH JIMÉNEZ
EL UNIVERSAL
LazyTown se ha convertido en un fenómeno en el mundo entero. El programa infantil de televisión se transmite en 106 países. En Venezuela se puede ver a través de Discovery Kids.
Magnus Scheving es el creador y protagonista del colorido programa. Fue campeón europeo de Aeróbicos en 1994 y 1995, y obtuvo la medalla de plata en el Campeonato Mundial de Aeróbicos en 1994. Se convirtió en orador a favor de una vida más saludable y después se convirtió en creador, escritor, productor y hasta protagonista del popular programa infantil.
-¿Cómo fue el proceso de creación de LazyTown?
-La idea comenzó en Islandia. Yo era una especie de orador público, viajaba por el mundo hablando sobre el acondicionamiento físico. Eso fue hace como 15 años. Nadie le prestaba atención a eso. Entonces me dije: "¿Será posible hacer un programa simpático para niños sin violencia, pero con mucha acción?" Lo probé en Islandia y comenzó como un libro. Se llamaba Go-Go LazyTown, fue un best seller en mi país y luego hicimos musicales, cuyas entradas estuvieron agotadas por cuatro años. Luego hicimos una pequeña campaña e incrementamos el consumo de vegetales en Islandia en 22%. Después de hacerlo durante 10 años, me dije: "Muy bien, hagamos un programa de televisión basado en esto".
-¿Cuál es el éxito de LazyTown?
-LazyTown es el programa de televisión para niños que se ha vendido más rápido en la historia. Se vendió a 106 países en menos de nueve meses. Es todo un récord. Durante 10 años, mientras creaba LazyTown, viajé a más de 52 países para probar la idea. He hecho mover a niños en todo el mundo más que nadie. He estado con niños en Uruguay, Argentina, México, Corea, Japón, Islandia, Suecia, Noruega, Inglaterra, Estados Unidos y Canadá. Creo que hicimos bien nuestro trabajo. Pienso que ese es el motivo.
-¿Pensó que sería un "producto para exportar"?
-Sí, porque hay muchas cosas que son comunes para los niños de todo el mundo. Si los niños están felices, independientemente de donde vivan, se mueven. Uno dice: "¡Vamos al cine!", y se ponen a saltar: "¡Sí!" Es lo mismo en Venezuela que en Islandia. Lo segundo es que los niños comprenden el amor. Lo otro que descubrí con relación a los padres es que, cuando se cría a niños, es lo mismo en todo el mundo, se habla de las mismas cosas.
-¿Dejó la competencia deportiva definitivamente?
-Sí, la dejé, pero debido a que íbamos a filmar otros 18 episodios, hice más de tres mil saltos al día y necesité caminar sobre mis manos todos los días durante cuatro horas. El coordinador de guión que observa todo lo que se hace en el set, me dijo que yo había hecho más de 1.600 flexiones en una semana. Estoy cansado y retirado de la competencia, pero no retirado de la actividad física.
-¿Cómo combina su papel de papá con su papel de estrella de televisión?
-Trato de que en mi casa haya alternativas saludables, pero creo que no puedes obligar a los niños a comer algo. No es cosa de decirles: "Tienes que comer esto". En tu casa, ¿tienes frutas y vegetales? ¿Bebes mucha agua? ¿O es sólo comida chatarra? Tampoco es cosa de acusarlos. Creo que uno debe ser como un ejemplo para los niños en ese sentido. Uno debe ayudarlos a tomar decisiones.
-¿Vendrá a América Latina en una gira promocional?
-Estamos trabajando para hacer presentaciones en vivo en Brasil y otros países latinoamericanos este año.
- es una serie para niños y muchas madres ven el programa para verlo a usted¿ ¿Cree que es un hombre atractivo?
-Sportacus es parte de mí. Es exactamente quien soy yo.
Traducción: José Peralta
Entrevista Magnus Scheving, actor y escritor
SONIBERTH JIMÉNEZ
EL UNIVERSAL
LazyTown se ha convertido en un fenómeno en el mundo entero. El programa infantil de televisión se transmite en 106 países. En Venezuela se puede ver a través de Discovery Kids.
Magnus Scheving es el creador y protagonista del colorido programa. Fue campeón europeo de Aeróbicos en 1994 y 1995, y obtuvo la medalla de plata en el Campeonato Mundial de Aeróbicos en 1994. Se convirtió en orador a favor de una vida más saludable y después se convirtió en creador, escritor, productor y hasta protagonista del popular programa infantil.
-¿Cómo fue el proceso de creación de LazyTown?
-La idea comenzó en Islandia. Yo era una especie de orador público, viajaba por el mundo hablando sobre el acondicionamiento físico. Eso fue hace como 15 años. Nadie le prestaba atención a eso. Entonces me dije: "¿Será posible hacer un programa simpático para niños sin violencia, pero con mucha acción?" Lo probé en Islandia y comenzó como un libro. Se llamaba Go-Go LazyTown, fue un best seller en mi país y luego hicimos musicales, cuyas entradas estuvieron agotadas por cuatro años. Luego hicimos una pequeña campaña e incrementamos el consumo de vegetales en Islandia en 22%. Después de hacerlo durante 10 años, me dije: "Muy bien, hagamos un programa de televisión basado en esto".
-¿Cuál es el éxito de LazyTown?
-LazyTown es el programa de televisión para niños que se ha vendido más rápido en la historia. Se vendió a 106 países en menos de nueve meses. Es todo un récord. Durante 10 años, mientras creaba LazyTown, viajé a más de 52 países para probar la idea. He hecho mover a niños en todo el mundo más que nadie. He estado con niños en Uruguay, Argentina, México, Corea, Japón, Islandia, Suecia, Noruega, Inglaterra, Estados Unidos y Canadá. Creo que hicimos bien nuestro trabajo. Pienso que ese es el motivo.
-¿Pensó que sería un "producto para exportar"?
-Sí, porque hay muchas cosas que son comunes para los niños de todo el mundo. Si los niños están felices, independientemente de donde vivan, se mueven. Uno dice: "¡Vamos al cine!", y se ponen a saltar: "¡Sí!" Es lo mismo en Venezuela que en Islandia. Lo segundo es que los niños comprenden el amor. Lo otro que descubrí con relación a los padres es que, cuando se cría a niños, es lo mismo en todo el mundo, se habla de las mismas cosas.
-¿Dejó la competencia deportiva definitivamente?
-Sí, la dejé, pero debido a que íbamos a filmar otros 18 episodios, hice más de tres mil saltos al día y necesité caminar sobre mis manos todos los días durante cuatro horas. El coordinador de guión que observa todo lo que se hace en el set, me dijo que yo había hecho más de 1.600 flexiones en una semana. Estoy cansado y retirado de la competencia, pero no retirado de la actividad física.
-¿Cómo combina su papel de papá con su papel de estrella de televisión?
-Trato de que en mi casa haya alternativas saludables, pero creo que no puedes obligar a los niños a comer algo. No es cosa de decirles: "Tienes que comer esto". En tu casa, ¿tienes frutas y vegetales? ¿Bebes mucha agua? ¿O es sólo comida chatarra? Tampoco es cosa de acusarlos. Creo que uno debe ser como un ejemplo para los niños en ese sentido. Uno debe ayudarlos a tomar decisiones.
-¿Vendrá a América Latina en una gira promocional?
-Estamos trabajando para hacer presentaciones en vivo en Brasil y otros países latinoamericanos este año.
- es una serie para niños y muchas madres ven el programa para verlo a usted¿ ¿Cree que es un hombre atractivo?
-Sportacus es parte de mí. Es exactamente quien soy yo.
Traducción: José Peralta
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