An all-girl puppet band from Australia is getting its first big break, thanks to a funding injection from Screen Australia and YouTube.

Rainbow Bop—a YouTube channel that reconstructs classic nursery rhymes to make them more modern and inclusive—is one of four projects that has been selected to receive US$97,500 in production funding from Screen Australia’s Skip Ahead initiative.

Brisbane-based creators Amy Parry and Sara Taghaode plan to use the cash to develop a six x five-minute live-action series called The Rainbow Bop Show that will launch on YouTube and the YouTube Kids app. Each episode sees band members Stella, Sunny, Luna and Cloudia slide down a rainbow to Earth in order to cheer up kids having a bad day with their joy of music. Parry is writing scripts and directing, with Taghaode producing, and Aussie musician/performer Emma Dean will handle music direction and songwriting.   

This year’s ninth edition of Skip Ahead is committed to supporting a minimum of one project aimed at younger children. Since Skip Ahead launched in 2014, the majority of its selections have targeted older Gen Z viewers. 

The only kids projects previously supported by the fund are Crafty Kingdom—an animated fantasy series produced by Like a Photon Creative and based on Charli and Ashlee Kelly’s hit YouTube baking show Charli’s Crafty Kitchen—and science YouTuber Toby Hendy’s Finding X: A Mathematical Short Film.

Parry and Taghaode are currently attending workshops with Skip Ahead’s other three 2024 recipients in Sydney, where they are developing their projects with support from industry leaders including acclaimed director George Miller (Mad Max movie franchise), comedian Jordan Raskopoulos (The Ronnie Johns Half Hour), scriptwriter Clare Atkins (Nona & Me) and former Skip Ahead recipient Lyanna Kea (Life of Kea).

The goal of Skip Ahead is to help online creators with existing YouTube audiences improve their storytelling abilities and create projects with higher production values. Eligible entries must have a channel with at least 25,000 subscribers or a YouTube video that has been viewed more than a million times.

Skip Ahead submissions are assessed based on creativity, audience potential, viability and team/industry skills development.

To date, the program has provided more than US$3 million in funding to creators including Danny and Micahel Philippou of RackaRacka fame (Talk to Me) and Aunty Donna (1999).