Little People, Big Feelings: Inside the Engine of Tiny Souls Media

Before we even dive into the developmental psychology, the award nominations, or the broadcast machinery of the ABC, there is the familiar geographic sorting-out that inevitably happens when Brisbane creatives connect across time zones.

Speaking over a video link from Vancouver, Shadi Toloui-Wallace hears our editorial desk is in Woolloongabba and immediately smiles.

“I grew up in the western suburbs—Kenmore, Fig Tree Pocket,” she shares, her accent carrying a hybrid cadence formed over fifteen years in Canada after finishing her degree at QUT. “My mum’s Canadian, my dad’s Australian, and after uni I just wanted to spread my wings. It was an easy fit to land with family in Vancouver, and I’ve called it home ever since.”

Joining from Brisbane is Dr Neika Masroori, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Queensland who completed her doctorate at UC Berkeley. Together, they represent the twin pillars of Tiny Souls Media: Toloui-Wallace driving the creative entrepreneurial engine as founder, and Dr Masroori steering the academic and pedagogical research as Head of Education and Research.

Their flagship preschool series, Zip and the Tiny Sprouts, recently claimed Best Web/App Series – Original at the international Kidscreen Awards, earned nominations at the Australian Writers’ Guild AWGIE Awards, and rolled out across ABC Kids and ABC iview. It is a vibrant, 52-episode 2D animation brought to life in Brisbane by Fade In Studio’s division, K Love You Bye.

Yet talking to the team, you quickly realise the screen is merely the welcoming front door to a much larger, grounded ecosystem.

The Kitchen-Table Wireframes

The origins of Tiny Souls trace back to the strange, hushed stillness of 2020. Toloui-Wallace had spent years as a touring musician, but with stages abruptly shuttered worldwide and a first child on the way with her husband, Jason Bienia, life shifted into a domestic focus.

Looking across the market at children's entertainment, she saw plenty of bright lights and frantic comedy, but a stark absence of emotional intentionality. There was almost nothing modelling how to repair a friendship after a disagreement, how to sit with frustration, or how to treat the natural world with patience.

“I had this vision of it becoming a staple in people’s homes as a reference point for social and emotional learning,” Toloui-Wallace recalls. “At the time, my husband would look at me and say, ‘You’re crazy. This is insane.’”

A sprawling 52-episode animated series was far beyond their horizon. Instead, the beginning was pragmatic and boot-strapped.

“The show was literally pie-in-the-sky back then,” she says. “How do you start something like that? Where do you get the money? Honestly, the app came first as a way of making money as an independent musician. People weren’t buying songs anymore, but they’d buy an app if it had activities and tools to foster these values in children. It was the pandemic—everyone was desperate for this material. I learned how to code. I learned how to build wireframes with my husband. We’d be building this thing in our apartment late into the evening after his day job.”

Collaborating with her mother, an early childhood educator, Toloui-Wallace began pairing original music with play-based emotional tools. The app established the pedagogical core; the animation would eventually become its visual narrative extension.

Why Humour is a Serious Business

To understand why Zip and the Tiny Sprouts works on screen, you have to talk to Dr Masroori. With a background in early childhood developmental psychology, she is acutely aware that teaching emotional intelligence to four-year-olds is fraught with creative traps.

“Children are allergic to anything that sounds preachy or didactic,” Dr Masroori points out. “Social and emotional learning isn’t learned through lectures. It’s learned very similarly to how children learn language: through relationships, and through thousands of tiny interactions at mealtimes, transitions, tiffs, and repairs. And they learn it through the magical language of childhood, which is stories.”

Rather than designing characters who serve as pristine moral beacons, Harmony Hollow’s forest friends—Zip, Aria, Riff, and Hum—are deliberately written with flaws and contradictions.

“They’re not these perfect, two-dimensional role models,” Dr Masroori explains. “A character might be nervous, and then overcome that with courage. Or they might be bored, and get creative. Within an episode, they experience setbacks and make mistakes. A child watching can think, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve felt that—where I really wanted that shell and didn’t want to share it with my friend, but then realised the friendship was more important.’ They see the process of repairing after a conflict.”

Masroori smiles when reflecting on her own professional perspective: “Part of what makes the show so powerful—which may sound strange coming from a developmental psychologist—is that it’s actually very funny. Humour is disarming to a child. Because the characters aren't perfect, it’s much easier to learn from them.”

The scale of that impact becomes clear midway through our chat. When Dr Masroori offhandedly remarks that their educational platform is used in "almost 150 childcare centres," Toloui-Wallace gently jumps in:

“Three hundred.”

Dr Masroori gasps in real time. “Oh, three hundred? Oh my goodness! Okay, I need to update my stats. Over three hundred!”

That adoption rate across early learning services matters, particularly because of how the television episodes intersect with everyday life. In an episode titled Goodbye Grandma, the narrative explores grief when Aria’s grandmother passes away.

“Riff shows relationship skills by giving space, holding space, and trying not to rescue Aria from her emotions,” Dr Masroori says. “The show is an art piece; the real power is the conversation parents and educators can have afterwards. What did you notice? How did one friend hold space for the other? It builds a bridge from the story world to the child’s real life.”

Navigating the Brisbane Studio Floor

Translating academic pedagogy into genuine visual comedy was entrusted to Brisbane’s Fade In Studio, led by International Emmy Award-winning producer Peter Johnston (Doodles) and a seasoned local team whose credits include Bluey.

The creative friction between narrative hilarity and emotional intent required constant calibration. Early in the process, industry outsiders cautioned them about the tone.

“We were met with pushback from the outside,” Toloui-Wallace admits. “People would say, ‘You don’t want to be too didactic—it’s like putting too much broccoli in a chocolate pudding.’”

Instead, the writers and animators leaned in, often mining their own households for material.

“The animators put so much of themselves into the work,” Toloui-Wallace says. “They were writing heartfelt storylines from their own lived experience and bringing their own children to act and be reflected. They’d write funny scripts, and I’d look at it from the curriculum side and ask, ‘Okay, but what are they learning here?’ We had to constantly hone in on growth mindset and avoid that easy cultural trope of ‘I’ve achieved my goal.’ We had to embody that we’re all growing.”

That search for authenticity extended directly into the voice booth. Refusing the industry shortcut of hiring adults to mimic children, Tiny Souls insisted on authentic casting.

“All of our voice actors are within the age range of our audience,” Toloui-Wallace notes. “We have a non-verbal child with autism featured in an episode. We have a girl with Tourette syndrome who always wanted to be an actress, but never thought she could be because of her condition; she’s cast as a character with Tourette’s. Giving an audience to the diversity in our community and shining a light on what these kids have to offer was essential.”

The Reality of the Frontier

For founders reading about rapid broadcast deals and international awards, the reality of independent media production is often heavily romanticised. When asked about the financial realities of scaling Tiny Souls Media, Toloui-Wallace doesn't offer corporate platitudes.

“It isn’t easy getting financing for an endeavour like this,” she says frankly. “I’ve had to put myself in very vulnerable situations—being an open book, making calls that felt uncomfortable, leveraging relationships. Our mission is clear, so people want to be involved, but I’ve had to be transparent: you’re in this for the next decade. There might not be an immediate financial return.”

The personal sacrifice, she acknowledges, has been acute.

“The grind is so real,” she admits. “It has affected my parenting, my marriage, my relationships. As a creative, I want to be writing more songs, I want to be creating more stories, but we’re trying to build out other aspects of the business. Having a humble posture of learning—being open to feedback, accepting setbacks, and learning every day—is critical. I feel like I’m on the frontier of entrepreneurship.”

The Civic Screen

For Toloui-Wallace and Masroori, seeing Zip and the Tiny Sprouts broadcast nationally on ABC Kids feels distinct from any international SVOD deal.

“As an ABC kid myself, having grown up watching Rage at 8:00 in the morning and Play School, this is a full-circle moment,” Toloui-Wallace reflects. “It’s the pinnacle. To be regarded in amongst high-calibre Australian productions—the home of Bluey—is an honour, and we don’t take that responsibility lightly.”

With 52 episodes now rolling out across Australia, new storybooks in production, and educators actively feeding back from early learning centres, Tiny Souls Media is proving that children's entertainment doesn't need to be frantic to be captivating. Sometimes, making space for stillness and big feelings is the most radical creative choice of all.

Zip and the Tiny Sprouts is streaming free across Australia on ABC Kids and ABC iview. Tiny Souls Media’s educational resources and discussion guides are available at tinysoulsmedia.com.