Klara and Pim move to a new house in the suburbs with their mother Lucy. Everything feels strange and unfamiliar, and adjusting to their new life will take time. Amid all this change, the children’s grandparents offer a comforting sense of familiarity.

Watch Episode 1: ‘The Water Buffalo’’ on ABC iView or download the entire series for your school to own from the ACTF Shop. 

Reflect

After watching the episode, take a moment to think, pause and reflect by yourself, then share your thoughts with a partner. Discuss the following questions:

• Which images or moments stood out for you?

• What felt familiar?

• What felt unusual?

• What questions are you left with?

• What would you like to know more about?

Explore

In pairs, list everything you noticed and can remember from the episode. For example, the characters, creatures or places. Then, as a class, complete a chart on the board with one column headed ‘Ordinary’ and the other headed ‘Unusual’. 

• Go through your lists and decide together where each item fits.

• Discuss your choices, you may have different ideas and perspectives.

• Could something seem ordinary to one person but unusual to another?

Tales from Outer Suburbia is inspired by Shaun Tan’s book of stories of the same name. Many cities have a busy inner city in the middle, with suburbs spreading out around it. Outer suburbia is at the edges of the city, the places furthest from the centre. These areas can feel quiet, ordinary, and easy to overlook.

Shaun Tan grew up in Hillarys, a suburb on the edge of Perth. Living there helped shape his imagination as well as the landscapes in the book and television series. He is interested in how familiar places can feel so normal that we stop noticing them, until we slow down and really look.

Of the below concept artwork of the vacant lot where the water buffalo lives, Shaun Tan says, 

“These kinds of landscapes are based on memories of growing up in suburban Perth, with various drainage pits and lots of shortcuts through the bush between home and school, where people had dumped their old TV sets, bed frames and washing machines. There was (and is) always a strong feeling of an unconscious world right next to the conscious one, a place of easy forgetting, not unlike similar ‘dark’ spaces in old fairy tales all over the world.”

Have you ever noticed places in your suburb that seem forgotten or a little strange, like abandoned shops, empty car parks, broken park benches, or a dark space between buildings? These overlooked places hold endless imaginative possibilities.

Shaun Tan notices small, everyday details and imagines new stories for them. He has wondered who might live in an overgrown empty block, imagined a walnut shell as a tiny suitcase, and thought about how a television aerial might be decorated for a special celebration.

Reflect

Look closely at Shaun Tan’s concept artwork and share your impressions with the class.

• What do you notice first?

• How does the place feel?

• What details make it seem ordinary or unusual?

• If you were writing a short label for this artwork, how would you describe it?

Now look at the screenshot from the first episode.

• What ideas or details from the concept artwork can you see in the final setting?

• How has Shaun Tan’s early artwork influenced the look and mood of the scene?

Explore

As a class, create an ideas board. Have a moment of reflection on the two questions below and write your answers on a sticky note.

• What do you see every day without thinking about it? 

• What ordinary thing or place could seem a bit strange if you look closely? 

Share your ideas with the class and add your sticky note to a class board. The board can be used for inspiration. You could even go for a walk as a class and take notes of the little details you might usually miss in your suburb. You can keep adding to your ideas board, as you become better at noticing the everyday things around you. 

Create

Find an overlooked place in your suburb (or around your school) and spend some time observing it. What does it look like? How does it feel? Who might have passed through it before?

Create a concept drawing of your forgotten place like Shaun Tan.

Now write a short story inspired by this place. Think about:

• Secrets it might hold

• Whether something magical or unexpected could happen there

• Who might discover it, and what they would find

If you would like to share your story email us at education@actf.com.au with the following details:

• The location of your chosen place

• Your story

Extension

• Write a short paragraph comparing Shaun Tan’s suburban experiences to your own, focusing on how familiarity shapes imagination. 

• Write a short reflection comparing your perceptions with those of someone from a different suburb or cultural background, explaining why something might feel ordinary to one person but unusual to another.

• Identify how visual and audio cues in the episode create a sense of strangeness, linking it to Shaun Tan’s ideas about noticing the overlooked.

• Research a real outer suburb (local or elsewhere in Australia) and imagine a story that could happen there. Create your own concept artwork or storyboard for this story.

Reflect

Watch the short clip where Clara is exploring her new house and discuss with a partner what you learn about each character in the scene. 

• What does each character’s costume and hairstyle communicate about them? 

• What does each character’s dialogue (what they say) and tone of voice (how they say it) communicate about what they are like and how they are feeling?

• How do the characters’ facial expressions, gestures and movements add to your understanding?

Use the worksheet (below) to help you organise your thoughts.

The opening titles introduce the world of Tales from Outer Suburbia – how it looks, how it feels, and what kind of story it is. As a class, watch and listen to the opening titles.

 As a class, discuss the following questions:

• What feels ordinary about this world?

• What feels unexpected or unusual?

• What do you notice about colour and light?

• How do sound and music affect the mood?

• This is the viewer’s first impression of the world. How would it feel different without the water buffalo?
  

Create

As a class, create a simple storyboard of the opening titles. Draw one image for each shot. How do these shots work together to introduce the world of the show?

In this episode, Klara and Pim have moved with their mum, Lucy, to a new suburb far from their old home. They’re missing their friends and their dad and trying to figure out what life looks like now. As they explore unfamiliar streets and hidden places, they slowly start meeting new characters. Along the way, they begin to rethink what family means, and how it can change and grow in new ways.

Reflect

As a class, discuss the following questions:

• What do you learn in this episode about the changes facing Klara, Pim and Lucy?

• What are some of the different ways these characters respond to these changes? What does it tell you about them and the different ways these changes are going to affect them?

The strangeness that Klara and Pim are feeling comes to life in Klara’s encounters with Kat and Esme, and Pim’s meeting with the Water Buffalo. Share your thoughts about each of these encounters.

Create

Write an individual response to the theme of change that is introduced in the episode. Use the worksheet below to write down your ideas.

In his stories, Shaun Tan uses imagination to make the everyday world unusual, and this idea is at the heart of the television series. Shaun Tan says he likes to think of the people who read his stories as co-creators, who find their own meaning.

Reflect

Read ‘The Water Buffalo’, the first story in Tales from Outer SuburbiaI, and work with a partner to answer the following questions:

• How did the story make you feel?

• Choose a few words to describe the feeling.(curious, surprised, amused, unsettled, nostalgic…)

• How do the pictures and words work together?

• What things in the story feel ordinary?

• What things feel strange or unexpected?

• What surprised or puzzled you most?

Share your ideas with the class.

Think about the story in the book and the story from the television episode. Discuss the following two questions with your partner:

• What parts of the story appear in the television  episode?

• What has been expanded, changed or added?
  

Explore

This can be a whole-class, partner or individual activity. Shaun Tan says his stories invite readers to be co-creators. Compare the story and the television episode:

• How does each version leave space for the audience to imagine or interpret?

• How do sound, movement and performance change the experience?

• Which version feels more mysterious? Why?

Draw two columns labeled, Story and the other labeled Television Episode. Note similarities, differences, and what each medium adds or leaves unsaid.

While Shaun Tan’s stories and his unique way of seeing the world are a special ingredient in this series, an animated television series is a hugely collaborative process.

Watch this video to take a peek into the ideas shared during the character design and development process.

Reflect

Share two or three design features that stood out to you and add to your understanding of the characters you met in this episode. 

Visit the website of art director Thomas Campi to view more character designs.