Ariel Zhang dazzles children while doing what she loves with educational game
For Ariel Zhang, acting and singing have always been her passions. Growing up in Beijing, China, she always loved being on stage, whether portraying a character or belting out her favorite song. Now she is a celebrated actress, and whenever she has the opportunity to sing while acting, it is truly her childhood dream come true.
While working with the interactive children’s computer game Preschool Play with the company Skoolbo, Zhang was able to do just that. Playing multiple characters in the game, Zhang used both acting and singing to educate pre-school children ages 3 to 5, helping them learn Chinese, English, letters, numbers, and important learning skills to help them grow.
“Merging acting with singing, is something that I want to keep doing, and this project opened my vision of how to improve and how to explore this industry. Then the idea of creating something where the main target is kids, well it is something that you can feel very excited about. The fact that I could be doing something educational with my talents is inspiring,” said Zhang.
Skoolbo is an educational gaming platform is available in 50,000 classrooms worldwide. The team behind Skoolbo has spent the past 12 months building Preschool Play, including working with Hi-5 director Jonathan Geraghty to write, compose and film more than 1000 educational songs for the new platform.
Skoolbo was founded by Shane Hill — a world leader in edtech. Prior to Skoolbo, Hill founded 3P Learning and led the creation of Mathletics, World Math Day and Spellodrome — the 3 largest educational platforms of the time. In 2013 Shane was awarded the Global CSR Award for his contribution to education.
Skoolbo has a great partnership with CIT who are based in HK & China. CIT is the first Chinese Company to have licensing deals with Mattel and Scholastic, and created Bodhi and Friends the number one China PreSchool TV Brand. Bodhi and Friends IP will be incorporated into PreSchool Play. Zhang was extremely happy to work with such an experienced team, and knows the importance of the work they were doing.
“I know from experience that studying is really tough, especially for kids, who need to prepare and study for the future. It’s important to help both them and their parents with their education, without forgetting that they’re only kids. With Skoolbo, they can learn different languages while having fun. In my case, learning a different language opened up so many doors for me. I’m happy to help them to learn without the need of them to be inside a classroom all day long, so they can study anywhere,” she said.
Finding someone that could not only sing and act, but also speak both English and Chinese fluently was pivotal to the success of the game. Colin Brown, the Producer and COO of Skoolbo, knew that Zhang was the exact person who could make the Chinese version of PreSchool Play successful.
“Ariel is amazing. She is a pleasure to work with. She’s polite, hardworking, conscientious, extremely talented and with a lovely smile and a wonderful voice. I can’t imagine completing this production without her. Ariel is a very high quality actress. She is very consistent in her singing, choreography and timing. She is able to perform at a high level, hour after hour and day after day. She is a tremendous asset for any production,” said Brown.
Depending on the story that was being used for that particular section of the game, Zhang’s versatility as an actress shone through, as she had to play various characters such as Cinderella, a pirate, a sailor, a fairy, or her personal favorite, a mermaid. This may have seemed like a challenge to many actress, but for Zhang, she decided to do it in a way that would resonate with her audience: channeling her inner child.
“I think in this particular project, since we were shooting so many different things in a short period of time, the way I found to relate to my characters, was more about my idea of transmitting happiness, knowledge and a message to the kids. I was different to them since I was playing everything in the way a real kid would do it,” Zhang described.
Keeping with the theme of being educational, Zhang says that even though she is a seasoned actress and at the top of her field, the project was a learning experience for herself as well. This was her first time working in a game rather than a film or show, where you only have to get in the mind of the single character you are playing and truly connect with them. With PreSchool Play, constantly switching from character to character, and learning almost twenty different songs on a daily basis, this was not possible, and allowed for her to become even better at her craft.
“I learned that no matter what the difficulties you could find in the way, you have got to overcome them. Another thing, is that since we’re playing songs for kids, I learned a better way to reach them. This project gave me another mission on my journey, which is be an example for the new generations,” Zhang concluded. “I’m so proud that I got to be part of Skoolbo, because at some point, I’ll be more than happy to show these educational videos to my children.”
