Q&A with Joanna Hepworth, Creative Director at A Productions
Skwigly and Bristol Animation Meetup (BAM) continue our series of articles dedicated to the Bristol animation scene.
Having worked in the animation industry for 18+ years, Bristol-based Joanna Hepworth is currently positioned as Creative Director at A Productions, a studio whose recent output includes JoJo & Gran Gran, Bea’s Block, Love Monster, My Friend Maisy, The Musical World of Mister Zoink, animated segments for Sesame Street and the associated specials Furry Friends Forever: Elmo Gets a Puppy and The Nutcracker Starring Elmo and Tango, which Joanna co-directed and directed respectively.
In her current role, Joanna is responsible for overseeing and strengthening A Productions’ creative vision to ensure each show has its own unique and authentic voice. Following the studio’s recent return to independent ownership and ahead of their involvement in recently announced upcoming projects that include Hyperlight – Battle of the Guardians (with Scrawl Animation) and The Underglow (with Gigglebug Entertainment), Skwigly caught up with Joanna to learn more about her role, where the studio is positioned in the current animation landscape and the value of Bristol as a region for animation production.
Joanna Hepworth (Image: A Productions)
When we last spoke, you were animation director (Love Monster) at A Productions. Now you’re a creative director. Let’s have a catch up on what happened in the interim, how you rose through the ranks.
After finishing Love Monster for CBeebies in 2020, I was offered the opportunity to direct on Furry Friends Forever: Elmo Gets a Puppy for Sesame Workshop, the second Sesame Street special animated by A Productions, after The Monster at the End of the Story. This led onto much more animation work for A Productions, including our work on a series to go in the Sesame Street show itself: Elmo and Tango’s Mysterious Mysteries.
Getting to work on the actual Sesame Street show was a really big moment for me. After all, it’s Sesame Street – an icon of children’s television. Then we developed the animation and design look for Sesame Street: The Nutcracker Starring Elmo & Tango, where the classic story of The Nutcracker is retold with beautiful songs. Then we worked on another series for Sesame Street, Nature Explorers, where Elmo and the team go on adventures to discover different parts of nature.
Since then, we’ve done quite a few YouTube shorts with Sesame Workshop too, covering topics from mental health awareness, to current topics like teaching children and families how to prepare for and respond to emergencies. We also provided animation services for a Pip and Posy spinoff, Pip and Posy Let’s Learn, which was produced by Magic Light Pictures for Sky Kids. We were thrilled to get to work with these well-loved characters!
Earlier this year, I became creative director of the studio, which means I’m responsible for shaping A Productions’ artistic vision and strategy. I work closely with Katie Barba, our development producer, who heads up our development slate. We have won some great pitches and have some exciting productions coming down the line, but we can’t talk about them just yet!
Pip and Posy Let’s Learn (© Magic Light Pictures)
Sesame Street is obviously a pretty big fish, and not only that, it came with the official introduction of a new character?
Yeah! The first special, Furry Friends Forever: Elmo Gets a Puppy, marked the introduction of Tango, Elmo’s puppy, a brand new character, which we helped to create. It was a joint effort between us and Sesame Workshop. What a dream! We knew she was always going to become a puppet…
A ‘muppet’, I think, is the official verbiage.
You are absolutely right! But she’s a permanent resident of the street now, and that’s just insane to me. I look on social media and they’ll post a little thumbnail of whichever celebrity is on the show at the time, and Tango is often there – it still blows my mind when I see her.
So in this current role that you just touched upon, can you go into a little bit about the day-to-day of it and how it differs from prior roles.
As creative director, I oversee the creative direction of all our projects, so that includes both our service work and our original IP development. I ensure that each show has a unique voice and that all our shows are delivered to a consistently high creative standard. Telling stories authentically is a core part of our ethos and it’s my job to make sure we are embedding this across all our productions. My role also means I head up a lot of our pitching work, bringing teams together to develop our pitch decks, whilst I also continue to regularly direct productions for the studio.
With development, as I mentioned, I’m working with Katie, who tends to review submissions and share anything that she feels is of interest with me. We discuss if it’s something that we think is worth taking forward. There are various stages of development, so it could be that we’re still developing the idea. For example, there’s a show that’s really close to us that we’ve been working on for over a year, that came to us as just a little snippet that we thought was really good. We ran with that, and have been building that with the original creator. So, some things like that are bare bones, other things are fully-formed ideas that come to us, and we’re either working on the designs, the pitch deck or script, various stages.
Sesame Street: The Nutcracker Starring Elmo and Tango (©2022 Sesame Workshop)
Does the studio have any kind of solicitation for ideas, pitches, things like that, or is it more that you guys go out and scout for things?
A bit of both. Internally, Katie offers one-to-ones where she will look at any idea from anyone that’s currently working with us. She encourages any stage of an idea, whether it’s “I’ve just got a mood board” or “Here’s the start of an idea”, and she talks it through with them. We also accept pitches from anyone via our website. So there are a couple of avenues. We are open to pitches all year round and she’s always on the lookout for something that really feels like a good fit for us.
As part of the work that you have to do, then, do you have to keep abreast of the overall, wider landscape of children’s media and what’s happening – trends, themes, that kind of thing?
Absolutely. Of course, it can be challenging because there’s so much stuff out there, including shows that haven’t been broadcast yet. You don’t want to be developing a show that’s the same as a show that already exists. So, the more insight the better really. Equally, you want your show to stand out in a world where there are huge amounts of choice, so keeping on top of how people consume media, what matters to our audiences, what’s coming next, it’s all crucial information.
When it comes to new IP development, is a major conscious concern having certain representation and diversity within it?
Yes, absolutely, telling stories authentically is core to our ethos, making inclusive and diverse representation crucial to achieving this goal. It’s not just about the stories we tell, but who is telling them. It’s a process we go through in anything we are developing. We are always challenging ourselves to do better and there is certainly more to be done.
And you’ve been at A Productions for quite a while now, and before this current stretch, I think you had done shorter-term work for them. From that perspective, then how what are some ways that you feel the studio’s evolved and grown with the times, or just sort of grown in general.
Yes, I used to work for A Productions pre 2019 as a freelancer, quite a lot has changed since then. Looking after the team and ensuring they are happy at work are top priorities for us. The studio has worked really hard over the years to foster a welcoming, inclusive work culture that celebrates everyone’s diverse skills and backgrounds. We are now a female-led business with a strong gender balance across the studio and we are passionate about nurturing talent in under-represented communities. The studio now offers everything from staff workshops, training and mentoring to apprenticeships and we do a lot of outreach work, there’s a huge amount that goes on in the ED&I space. There’s all sorts of other benefits now too including flexible and hybrid working, social events, one to one wellbeing support, even free art tutorials. Last year we had a party to celebrate 40 years in business, which was a lovely opportunity to reflect on the journey the studio’s been on.
You’ve also recently joined the Board of Trustees for Bristol’s prestigious Encounters Film Festival. Can you tell us a bit about your history with the festival and what drew you to this role?
I used to volunteer for the Encounters starting back in 2007 and owe a lot of my connections, both personal and professional to it. It was a great hub for local animators to get together, an opportunity to network and see old friends whilst watching some great films. It was a great starting point for my career and I want to ensure we are still championing emerging talent and celebrating filmmakers, especially in animation as it’s one of Bristol’s greatest exports! Encounters is such a renowned festival on the circuit that I hope we can bring film and animation to audiences outside of the industry too, and that I can help the festival bring to a new generation, just like it did for me.
Encounters Film Festival 2026 Animation Jury (L-R: Rayna Denison, Joanna Hepworth, Grant Orchard)
For the 31st edition of Encounters you were part of its Animation Competition Jury – how did you find this experience and what impressions of the current animation landscape did you come away from it with?
It feels cliche to say it was a great experience, but it was, though it was also tough. I love talking about films, but it can be a really hard topic when trying to pick ‘the best’. It’s a really personal thing. There are some films you love but you can hear other audience members react to them differently. There were 45 films in competition, all completely different, with a range of backgrounds and funding avenues and I was blown away by the quality. But you really must go with your gut, luckily myself and the other jury members agreed completely on the final winners. So we spent a lot of the time discussing why we loved them! There were a lot of conversations around funding in the UK too with several UK directors mentioning they made their films in their spare time and were essentially, self-funded, highlighting the decreasing amount of funding opportunities in the UK at the moment. The feelings about the industry in general these last few years don’t seem to be reflected in the quality and quantity of work showcased here though. People are still so passionate about their craft and it was a joy to see!
Having been in Bristol for a while, what would you say are the town’s main strengths as an animation locale?
It’s always been a hub for creativity and artists and people that just love making their own things. I just think we’ve got this wonderful group of creative people here. London is massive for that kind of thing as well, but it feels here it’s much more organic, people wanting to make their own stuff, not just in animation, but in a general artistic way. It’s very welcoming for that kind of thing; I feel like you’re not going to get snubbed as an artist in Bristol. From a practical point of view, even though we’re not a massive city, we’ve got so many post-production houses, all the things we need as a studio that most people would have to travel to London for, we’ve got a lot on our doorstep. That is really useful to us as an animation studio.
To see more of the work of A Productions, visit aproductions.co.uk
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