Renegade Animation: Creative InspirationsIntroduction| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Male Speaker: Tell me about the show, Goofy.
| | 00:08 | Goofy Grape: The show? What show?
| | 00:11 | Ashley Postlewaite: We don't have
tons and tons of expensive equipment.
| | 00:15 | What we have is people and that's
really our key ingredient and what makes us,
| | 00:20 | I think what sets us apart from others.
| | 00:22 | Goofy Grape: Hahaha, I'm kidding.
Come one, we're talking about Funny Face, right?
| | 00:26 | Darrell Van Citters: My big thing, I suppose you
would it call my soapbox, is I don't think the tool
| | 00:30 | should dictate the results.
| | 00:33 | I think you should dictate the results,
and then use the tool to get there.
| | 00:36 | Goofy Grape: Ah well. It's not like that.
It's actually... eh, it's more like...
| | 00:40 | Goofy Grape: They didn't tell you what the show was about?
Does anybody know what this show's about? Anybody?
| | 00:44 | Ashley Postlewaite: In our business,
I mean really every character has two actors.
| | 00:48 | It has its voice actor and then it has
its animator who is really the actor, who
| | 00:53 | is making that character come to life.
| | 00:56 | Goofy Grape: Is that a plantain? Oh, my cousin there is a
plantain. You know her parents still aren't speaking to her.
| | 01:02 | Darrell Van Citters: I really have a hard time
with saying, okay, that's as far as it's going to go,
| | 01:05 | so let's just crank it out.
| | 01:07 | That's not inspiring to me. That doesn't
make me want to get up and come in the morning;
| | 01:11 | it's telling you
stories with characters.
| | 01:13 | Male speaker off camera: We were talking about the show.
It would be just peachy if you could expand a little on the show.
| | 01:20 | Goofy Grape: Oh, absolutely! Huhhhh (taking a deep breath.)
| | 01:24 | Goofy Grape: Mwa, mwa, mwa (muffled.)
| | 01:26 | Goofy Grape: Is that good? Because
don't think I can expand anymore.
| | 01:31 | (Music playing.)
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| Workspace| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:11 | Ashley Postlewaite: Hi! I am Ashley
Postlewaite. Welcome to Renegade Animation.
| | 00:14 | We are a 2D animation house, digital 2D.
We've sort of worked on a paperless
| | 00:19 | 2D pipeline here.
| | 00:21 | So we've put away most of our paper and
pencil and now working with computers.
| | 00:28 | Even though all of our work is based
on traditional animation fundamentals.
| | 00:34 | This is a project very near and dear
to our heart called Funny Face.
| | 00:38 | It's actually characters from the
60s and 70s that were a drink mix,
| | 00:42 | a competitor of Kool-Aid.
| | 00:44 | The storyboard department is right over here.
| | 00:48 | So we took the old fashion animation
desks and retrofitted them, re-engineered
| | 00:53 | them to hold the computer so that
the artist could stay oriented to their
| | 00:59 | drawing board in a way
that they were familiar with.
| | 01:02 | The backbone of our pipeline here is Flash.
| | 01:05 | So this storyboard artist work with
the dialog track in their earphones and
| | 01:12 | they get what's called a radio play
and that's what starts their work,
| | 01:16 | the script and the radio play.
| | 01:18 | And then they put the drawings
together and start really formulating how the
| | 01:22 | episode will look in terms of
camera moves, compositions, storytelling
| | 01:28 | points, timing, all those things are
worked out here in this department by the
| | 01:32 | storyboard artist.
| | 01:33 | So after the storyboard is approved
by the client, we usually have some
| | 01:37 | revisions back and forth with
the director and the client.
| | 01:42 | Then the storyboard moves to the
design department and they take the
| | 01:47 | storyboard that we've just seen and
create all of the visual elements that are
| | 01:52 | necessary there.
| | 01:53 | So the backgrounds, the automobiles, the
props, the characters, anything you see
| | 01:59 | on screen has come through this
department and been literally designed.
| | 02:05 | Here at Renegade we every once in
a while still get called upon to do
| | 02:09 | traditional animation so we keep a
couple of setups here, the old fashioned way
| | 02:15 | where we actually do use paper and
pencils and erasers and shoot pencil tests,
| | 02:20 | and work more traditionally.
| | 02:24 | And most of the time when that
happens we have an arm wrestling match with
| | 02:27 | all the artists who want to work on
it because the guys miss drawing with
| | 02:31 | paper and pencil.
| | 02:32 | So we keep a little setup
just for those occasions.
| | 02:35 | So here in this room we bring
in the music, the sound effects and
| | 02:41 | the voice work, and mix them altogether.
| | 02:44 | We built this room a couple of years
ago and now we can't imagine living without it.
| | 02:48 | So this is something that I think a
lot of place is used to take out of house,
| | 02:53 | but the technology has
become much more accessible.
| | 02:55 | So now we do it all in-house which
is great because the director and
| | 02:59 | the executive producers and people don't
have to be wasting time in their cars.
| | 03:03 | So this is the opposite side
of the room we were just in.
| | 03:07 | So this is where the actors will stand
or sit and as you can see we are set up
| | 03:11 | for four actors here.
| | 03:13 | We like to record what's referred to
as radio show style, so we put as many of
| | 03:19 | the actors together in the booth as we
can and have them working opposite one
| | 03:23 | another because we think you get more
human connection, more comedic timing,
| | 03:29 | more-- just the connection between
characters happens much better when the
| | 03:33 | actors are actually here together.
| | 03:35 | We post the storyboards here
outside of the animation bullpen.
| | 03:40 | In this case, these are some storyboards
for the Mr. Men Show that we are working on.
| | 03:44 | We do this for a number of reasons.
| | 03:46 | One, the animators can take a look
and we know who has each sequence.
| | 03:51 | More specifically then the animators can
look at who they have to hook up to and
| | 03:56 | who hooks up to them.
| | 03:58 | So that if it is a continuity shot
they can check with each other and also
| | 04:03 | it allows us to really look in an
overview at which scenes are similar to
| | 04:08 | which other scenes.
| | 04:09 | So that we could either combine them and
give them to the same animator, so that
| | 04:13 | they can economize or can just
make sure that they all tie together.
| | 04:19 | Right now, we have two teams of
animators, the Lions and the Tigers, working.
| | 04:23 | So each one of them have their
board and get their assignments.
| | 04:27 | In our business, I mean really
every character has two actors.
| | 04:30 | It has its voice actor and then it has
its animator who is really the actor,
| | 04:35 | who is making that character come to life
and bring that vocal performance to life.
| | 04:40 | So, down here are editorial suites.
| | 04:44 | This bigger of the two editorial
suites is for clients to come in view but
| | 04:50 | also for something we called sweatbox
where everybody comes in, all the heads of
| | 04:56 | the departments come in and see the
animation together for the first time.
| | 05:00 | It's called the sweatbox because Walt
Disney used to do this very process in a
| | 05:06 | very small room, hunched over a Moviola.
| | 05:09 | And so it was hot in the room because it
was a small room but also it was --
| | 05:12 | you were sweating because Walt
Disney was looking at your work.
| | 05:15 | So that sweatbox reference has
endured and we still called it that in
| | 05:21 | our process too.
| | 05:23 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:36 | That's pretty much
Renegade Animation in a nutshell.
| | 05:39 | We thank you for coming to visit us,
and we hope that you'll be seeing shows
| | 05:43 | that we produce for years and years
into the future as we continue to try and
| | 05:46 | pioneer digital paperless 2D animation.
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| Ashley's story| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:09 | Ashley Postlewaite: Well, when people ask me how
I got started in animation, I really go back to
| | 00:13 | being a kid, and sort of
falling in love with the theater.
| | 00:17 | When I was five or six, my parents
took me to see a play and I just sort of
| | 00:21 | went nuts for theater and I wanted so
badly to be in this children's theater company,
| | 00:29 | but you had to be 10.
| | 00:30 | So finally when I was seven, my mom
kind of talk the guy into letting me try it,
| | 00:34 | and said that he could send me
home if I wasn't old enough to like hang
| | 00:39 | with the bigger kids.
| | 00:40 | And basically I never left.
| | 00:43 | I was with that company all the way up
through college actually and the great
| | 00:48 | thing about it and the man who ran it
when I joined, Tom McKenzie still a mentor of mine,
| | 00:53 | was that Tom made you
learn every aspect of the theater.
| | 00:58 | If you wanted to be in the play,
you had to work crew for another play and
| | 01:03 | you had to learn about the box office
and you had to sew costumes and
| | 01:05 | you had to hang lights, and you had
to usher, and do all of those things.
| | 01:11 | So I learned love and appreciation for
each one of those departments and also
| | 01:18 | learned that actually what I like to do
best was organize all those departments.
| | 01:22 | So I really at a very early age,
I think I stumbled upon what I love to do most,
| | 01:28 | which is produce the
stuff and work with the people.
| | 01:31 | So by the time I left for college,
I would come back every summer and run
| | 01:36 | that summer company.
| | 01:37 | So again, at a young age I was really
fortunate to have experience in things
| | 01:43 | that I think most people maybe don't
get to do until they are little bit older,
| | 01:47 | like hiring and in one case
firing, and budgeting and planning and
| | 01:55 | all those things, that it was like
running my own little company of 100 kids
| | 02:02 | making these plays every summer.
| | 02:03 | And then having done that for a great
number of years after getting out of college,
| | 02:09 | and doing a couple of more
years of theater, I just decided it was
| | 02:12 | time to poke around and maybe see what
producing in film and television would feel like.
| | 02:17 | And that's when I met Darrell, my
business partner, and the people at Warner Brothers
| | 02:22 | and start to learn about animation,
and really found my people again.
| | 02:28 | Because by and large, the animators I
met and the editors I met and all the
| | 02:32 | people involved there were in
animation because they love the craft.
| | 02:37 | They weren't coming into Los Angeles to
be famous. They were coming because they
| | 02:41 | loved what they did and that
felt very much like theater to me.
| | 02:48 | So I felt like I recognized these
people and they were my kind of people.
| | 02:55 | So I learned a ton. I went to work for
Darrell at Warner Brothers and that's
| | 03:00 | where I really learned about animation
and really there are some very senior
| | 03:04 | people at Warner Brothers in the
unit that we worked with and I really
| | 03:09 | learned from all of them and kind of,
in many cases one editor comes to mind,
| | 03:15 | who I just said flat out, very early on
in my work there, "I don't know anything
| | 03:19 | about editing. I don't know
what you do and how you do it,"
| | 03:23 | and he took me under his wing
and taught me all about it.
| | 03:26 | And I think if I hadn't have told him
that I didn't know anything, he might not
| | 03:31 | have thought to become a teacher to me.
| | 03:34 | And I think about that a lot, because
he would pull me into his office and
| | 03:38 | show me what he was doing and why he
was doing it and how to do it and how
| | 03:43 | long it takes and all of those things
which I think make a person a better
| | 03:47 | producer, if you've really been in
each of those departments kind of
| | 03:51 | dissecting what those people need.
| | 03:53 | So I was very grateful for that
experience and feel like I really learned a ton
| | 03:57 | about animation while I was there at
Warner Brothers before striking out with
| | 04:02 | Darrell to start Renegade.
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| Darrell's story| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:09 | Darrell Van Citters: I think probably what I
got in animation for was the humor part of it.
| | 00:15 | I really enjoyed the humorous aspect of animation.
| | 00:19 | First, I was watching it when I was
just a mere teenager. I was watching
| | 00:25 | cartoons with my sister one day and
we happened to watch I think it was
| | 00:28 | 'Rabbit of Seville' Chuck Jones'
film written by Michael Maltese.
| | 00:32 | When I was watching that and I thought
to myself there is a lot more here than
| | 00:37 | just a cartoon, because it was a lot
more intellectual than a lot of the cartoons
| | 00:41 | I had been watching.
| | 00:42 | And that one really was kind of
one of those moments where just
| | 00:46 | something clicks in your brain.
I said, that was pretty cool.
| | 00:49 | That showed me there could be something more than
what everybody kind of associated with cartoons.
| | 00:54 | My formal education in animation,
I started in 1975. I came to CalArts in the
| | 00:59 | first year of the Disney-
sponsored Character Animation program.
| | 01:03 | And I met some other like-minded
people that were also very passionate about
| | 01:07 | animation, but none of us knew anybody
else like us, we never knew where else to
| | 01:11 | find any information, so we all ended up there.
| | 01:13 | Some of those people where John
Lasseter, Brad Bird, John Musker, Jerry Rees.
| | 01:20 | There was quite a number of people
who had a lot of interest in animation.
| | 01:24 | In the next year, we had some more
people who were also extremely interested,
| | 01:27 | and the program has gone very
well with a lot of interested people.
| | 01:31 | And we spent all of our time talking
about animation and learning our craft.
| | 01:36 | We have guest speakers from the
business come up and talk, sometimes sanctioned
| | 01:40 | through the school, through
our programs, and other times
| | 01:41 | I'd send them a letter,
in the days before emails.
| | 01:47 | Send them a letter and ask them to
come up and speak and a lot of them did.
| | 01:49 | And so we learned a lot from having that,
and gradually we were all picked off,
| | 01:54 | and ended up at Disney over the years.
| | 01:57 | What kinds of projects we did at Disney,
because we all came out through the system,
| | 01:59 | we all learned as apprentices,
which I am sorry to say, it doesn't seem
| | 02:03 | to be much in the business anymore,
but we all learned under other animators and
| | 02:07 | we gradually learned our craft that way.
| | 02:09 | And a great deal of us started to
work on 'The Fox and the Hound.'
| | 02:14 | That was first our animated picture, although
people like Brad and John started on 'The Small One'.
| | 02:19 | Some of us continued in the features.
I started branching out and worked in some
| | 02:24 | special projects, some stuff of
television and also some shorts.
| | 02:28 | I left Disney after about 8 years and
went out into the freelance world and
| | 02:33 | that was very instructive for me.
| | 02:34 | I learned a lot doing it that way,
because again you are on a budget, you are on
| | 02:38 | a schedule and things have
to be turned around quickly.
| | 02:41 | So that was very informative to me.
| | 02:43 | From there I started picking up a lot
of freelance work at Warner Brothers
| | 02:48 | using their characters and I'd always
loved the Warner Brothers characters so
| | 02:52 | that one just kind of-- over time
they decided they liked what I was doing
| | 02:55 | enough to bring me in-house.
| | 02:57 | So I went in to Warner Brothers in
the Classics Characters division.
| | 03:01 | And I was a Creative
Director there for three years.
| | 03:04 | I needed another assistant to help me
out there and Ashley had been working
| | 03:08 | on 'Bugs Bunny on Broadway' and she'd dealt
with our department for a little while there.
| | 03:14 | So she understood a bit about
animation and she liked the people who she met
| | 03:19 | with in our division.
| | 03:21 | So it worked out. I hired her when she
was looking for work and she became my
| | 03:26 | assistant for about a year.
| | 03:28 | And then after we finished the
Hare Jordan spot for Warner Brothers,
| | 03:32 | the Nike Bugs Bunny Michael Jordan
commercial, it just seemed like the time
| | 03:37 | was right to leave.
| | 03:38 | So Ashley and I in our evenings sat down
and hammered out a business plan over about
| | 03:43 | six months and that was very instructive too.
| | 03:47 | It gave us a roadmap for what we were
going. Even if some of it turned out to be
| | 03:51 | inaccurate, it was the best we could do.
| | 03:53 | And at least we had a vision for where
the company was going to go and to this day,
| | 03:57 | that business plan
has still served us well.
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| Becoming Renegade| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:08 | Darrell Van Citters: The name Renegade Animation
came from my years in freelance. I would call myself
| | 00:13 | Renegade Production because I left
Disney and I've always been seen there as a
| | 00:17 | bit of a renegade, although I
never felt like I was a renegade.
| | 00:19 | Ashley Postlewaite: So, we started Renegade in
my spare bedroom and Darrell's garage, mostly his garage.
| | 00:24 | He had converted it into a little
studio for himself and it was little.
| | 00:29 | It was like one car garage and I would
set across from him at his desk and make
| | 00:38 | phone calls and figure stuff out and we
had freelance-- well, everybody except us
| | 00:43 | was freelance at that point.
| | 00:44 | Darrell Van Citters: The animators would come
pick up from my garage and took drop off and we would
| | 00:48 | send the stuff out to Camera, which was
just down the street in Burbank, and
| | 00:53 | it was a very smooth operation.
| | 00:55 | But at a certain point, actually the
point when I decide I was going to get married,
| | 00:59 | we had to figure out something
else besides my garage, because that just
| | 01:03 | wasn't going to cut it anymore.
| | 01:04 | Ashley Postlewaite: And we're like rather than move
again with the offices, I think it is time to get
| | 01:10 | our first office and of course,
promptly at that moment business just
| | 01:14 | completely dried up.
| | 01:15 | Darrell Van Citters: And we'd started in a
downturn in the commercial business, but we were going
| | 01:20 | to do it either way and we have
managed to survive and thrive in spite of the
| | 01:24 | downturn and we did real well for a while.
| | 01:25 | Ashley Postlewaite: A good number of years
there was only commercials. There wasn't really
| | 01:30 | internet stuff going on.
| | 01:32 | So, commercials were the best
way for us to get open and stay open
| | 01:38 | and grow and really kind of solidify
our reputation as a high-end boutique house.
| | 01:44 | Darrell Van Citters: We still occasionally dip our
toes back in entertainment, and that was part of
| | 01:49 | the original business plan was to get
back in the entertainment and long-form storytelling
| | 01:53 | because that was
really where my heart was.
| | 01:54 | Ashley Postlewaite: We had learned sort of the
landscape of advertising agencies and clients and
| | 02:02 | so we thought that would be the way to
really get ourselves started and get cash
| | 02:05 | flow in the door, generally speaking,
and it's still this way. When you are
| | 02:09 | awarded a commercial contract, there is
a payment upfront, which helped us a lot,
| | 02:14 | because we didn't-- Darrell
and I didn't have any money.
| | 02:16 | We didn't raise money to start the
company and we didn't have a lot of money
| | 02:20 | to start the company.
| | 02:21 | So, it wasn't like we went out, bought
a lot of equipment, rented a big place
| | 02:26 | and then figured out what to do.
| | 02:27 | It was more like the jobs had
to help us build the company.
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| Business & production philosophy| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:08 | Ashley Postlewaite: I mean, I am
sure Darrell feels the same way.
| | 00:10 | Sometimes it's when you wake up and go,
is this my company? Like, I am not old
| | 00:14 | enough to be having a company like this.
| | 00:18 | So, there are those moments of sort of
surprise when you find yourself at the
| | 00:21 | helm of something that you have built,
where at the same time there is--
| | 00:28 | I think, Darrell and I have both
always taken very seriously the fact that
| | 00:33 | how we conduct ourselves is
how our company will conduct itself.
| | 00:38 | And so, we do think a lot about
culture and I think and we have insisted upon it
| | 00:44 | being that way, for selfish reasons,
mainly because that's the only way I
| | 00:49 | want to live, that's the only way I
want to function, that's the only way
| | 00:52 | Darrell wants to function.
| | 00:53 | I don't want to be upset at work
everyday. I don't want to be frantic.
| | 00:56 | I don't want our clients to be frantic.
I don't want our employees to be frantic.
| | 00:59 | Darrell Van Citters: And then when we started
doing things on our own, we were aware of having worked on
| | 01:04 | a lot of commercials that combine
a lot of action and animation,
| | 01:06 | that the production philosophy at
a lot of those places was panic.
| | 01:09 | We have a tight schedule and we'd whatever
we need to do to get to make that schedule.
| | 01:14 | So, if that means working on Saturday,
Sundays, working still 3 a.m.,
| | 01:18 | we are going to do it.
| | 01:20 | And I looked at it and I said,
I don't think you need to do that.
| | 01:22 | I think you plan the stuff out in
advance, you don't need to run in
| | 01:25 | panic mode all the time.
| | 01:27 | So, one of our founding philosophies,
and I think we have managed to institute
| | 01:32 | it very well here, is we
don't operate in panic mode.
| | 01:34 | Ashley Postlewaite: One thing that has been super,
super important to me is my involvement in the
| | 01:39 | entrepreneurs organization. Just
have had a fantastic experience with
| | 01:45 | the organization for several reasons.
| | 01:47 | One is, I have a small core group here
in Los Angeles that I have been meeting
| | 01:51 | with for 8 or 9 years every month,
who are my sort of confidential personal
| | 02:01 | Board of Advisors and I serve in
that capacity for them as well.
| | 02:07 | We share all kinds of information and
questions and thoughts and things that
| | 02:15 | we really wouldn't have anywhere to
share them with, if not for this group.
| | 02:19 | These are not conversations you
necessarily would have with your friends or
| | 02:23 | your family, especially if it's
something sensitive, whether it's a personnel issue
| | 02:30 | or cash management issue or
anything that is very, very important to
| | 02:37 | your business. To have a place where you can go
that's safe and confidential has been amazing.
| | 02:44 | Darrell Van Citters: Well, I think one of the
benefits of doing something like animation is the
| | 02:48 | chance to collaborate. You get to work
with a lot of good people and what I like
| | 02:52 | about it is I am constantly
surprised by what somebody else brings to the
| | 02:55 | process and that's the fun of it, to me.
| | 02:58 | If I had to do everything, I would
find it rather tedious and I know I don't
| | 03:02 | have all the good ideas, but if you
start off with your idea and then somebody
| | 03:07 | builds on it, somebody else builds on
that and you start to get more than you
| | 03:10 | would have ever gotten if somebody was
just saying, this is my vision and I am
| | 03:13 | going to follow it all the way through.
| | 03:15 | To me a Director isn't the boss. They
are the guide and that's the way I look at
| | 03:18 | this thing and I think that's part of
the reason that the staff here is the way it is,
| | 03:25 | is we don't -- I am not trying
achieve a vision. We are trying to all
| | 03:29 | work together and get the best result we can.
| | 03:31 | My big thing, what I suppose you can
call it my soapbox, is I don't think the tool
| | 03:36 | should dictate the results.
| | 03:39 | I think you should dictate the
results and then use the tool to get there.
| | 03:42 | Every show, every episode we would work
to improve both the production pipeline
| | 03:48 | and how the animators use the tool, so
that I think by now, not only do we have a
| | 03:52 | very good production pipeline, but I
think we have animators who understand how
| | 03:55 | to make this tool work for them
instead of being hidebound by it.
| | 03:59 | Ashley Postlewaite: We are a technology-based
company in that we are doing digital paperless 2D
| | 04:05 | animation, but we don't have tons
and tons of expensive equipment.
| | 04:10 | What we have is people and that's really
our key ingredient and what makes us,
| | 04:16 | I think what sets us apart from others.
| | 04:18 | Second to that though, I mean we
realized a very long time ago, even in our
| | 04:24 | very early years that in order for us to
make a company that was worth something
| | 04:29 | in the long run, we have to create
some stuff that we own and we are not
| | 04:34 | dissimilar from any kind of service
business in the world I think. You know,
| | 04:38 | that is always looking for that
thing that we can begin to make money off of,
| | 04:45 | while we are sleeping or doing other things.
| | 04:49 | Because in a service, I mean, we can
get bigger and bigger and bigger in terms
| | 04:52 | of service as demand calls for us to,
but there is only so many hours in the day
| | 04:58 | and service is based on the
amount of work that you are doing.
| | 05:02 | So, I think what has to set our sorts
of company apart is our attention to and
| | 05:11 | our dedication and our investment in
some things that we own. That could be
| | 05:17 | technology-based, it could intellectual
property-based, which it is in our case,
| | 05:21 | and I think in most cases. That's our hedge.
Has it worked? Mmm, come back and talk
| | 05:27 | to us in a couple of years and we will see.
| | 05:30 | It certainly makes our life more
exciting and gives us something to sort of hope for
| | 05:34 | and work toward, but it is that
thing that I think puts us into the next
| | 05:42 | phase of where our company was
hopefully always meant to go.
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| Digital workflow: storyboards| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:09 | Darrell Van Citters: Generally, at Renegade,
we are not involved into script writing on work for
| | 00:12 | hire projects. When it's our own
project, say like the Funny Face project, and
| | 00:15 | we are responsible for the writing, but
either way when we get the script then
| | 00:20 | we hand it off to-- each script
goes to the several board artists.
| | 00:24 | So, the board artist is responsible for
that entire segment and John and I for
| | 00:29 | example would discuss what we plan
on doing with that script, if there is
| | 00:33 | anything that we feel could done
better with just visuals over dialog or things
| | 00:37 | that we might want to hit that are
indicated in the script, but not necessarily
| | 00:40 | indicated in the dialog.
| | 00:42 | Anything we can do to punch it up
visually, so that we are telling a story
| | 00:44 | through pictures and not just reciting the dialog.
| | 00:46 | John D. Anderson: We have the sound, the sound
has been recorded, which is great, so that really
| | 00:50 | helps to go along, read the script,
listen to the voice records because
| | 00:55 | you can really hear the emotion in
the voice recorder as opposed to just
| | 00:58 | reading it on the page. And then I will
actually do something really archaic and
| | 01:02 | that's on paper.
| | 01:03 | Just some really quick thumbnails.
I mean this is very-very rough and just like
| | 01:09 | really quick, like kind of what I am
thinking, before I do anything else and
| | 01:13 | then show them to Darrell and say, okay,
this is kind of what I am thinking.
| | 01:16 | It's a very-very rough thumbnails,
what do you think and we will discuss more
| | 01:20 | about the arc of the whole show.
| | 01:22 | Darrell Van Citters: One of the great things about
doing it the way we do it here in Flash is that
| | 01:25 | you are actually creating an animatic
as you go, so that you can tell if the
| | 01:29 | story points are working by playing it
back against the sound track immediately
| | 01:32 | and it makes it much easier to make
those changes if we need to make them.
| | 01:35 | John D. Anderson: Absolutely!
| | 01:36 | After I have my thumbnails,
I would take it to Flash.
| | 01:40 | Basically this is an empty Flash
page and then just going from my
| | 01:45 | thumbnails, referring to them and what
Darrell and I talked about, I will just
| | 01:48 | start sketching it out.
| | 01:50 | Just really-really rough, again just
shapes, kind of where this stuff is going to go.
| | 01:56 | Really no more than that.
| | 01:57 | (Video playing. Inaudible.)
| | 02:00 | And at this point, I will start timing
it out, because we are doing animatics
| | 02:04 | directly instead of going into just a
paper board and then going into animatic.
| | 02:09 | So, again this is just really, really rough.
| | 02:10 | But where he says corn, I decided
that there needs to be an action so.
| | 02:16 | (Video playing. Inaudible.)
| | 02:17 | So, it's just going to be like that.
| | 02:18 | So, I will basically go through
the entire movie like that in this
| | 02:22 | very-very rough form.
| | 02:24 | I mean just a feel, so you can feel
where there is action happening, and
| | 02:27 | that action is changing. Just basic action,
roughed out, placements, and most important, timing.
| | 02:34 | Because the timing is really crucial.
| | 02:36 | Darrell Van Citters: When John comes to me with
this animatic in this very rough form, we will just
| | 02:40 | discuss and see if it feels right
that those poses are coming right where he
| | 02:44 | thought they should come. If the staging
is right, we can tell instantly at that
| | 02:47 | moment if we want to change.
| | 02:48 | Maybe this angle isn't the best
or maybe we we want to do a little
| | 02:51 | slide-up angle on it, or maybe just
want to focus in tight around his face for
| | 02:56 | this particular part of the thing.
| | 02:57 | All of that gets discussed, and you
can see it played back against the sound
| | 03:00 | and know how it's going to work.
| | 03:03 | It's a very quick, amazingly quick way
to see how your story is progressing.
| | 03:08 | John D. Anderson: So, then I will go back and
with those notes and really from this part,
| | 03:14 | make any timing changes at this point,
make sure that's got all Darrell's notes
| | 03:18 | in there and then start cleaning up.
| | 03:21 | And all that means is I will go over the
drawing, a little tighter and a little darker.
| | 03:27 | So basically, you just see I have
just gone over what I have done here.
| | 03:30 | And it's a little more on
model. It's still fairly rough.
| | 03:33 | And I will probably do again, like this
would be a little tighter, but a little
| | 03:37 | more of a rough pass.
| | 03:38 | Darrell Van Citters: And while it's a lot closer
to model, you will notice that he is not concerned
| | 03:42 | with matching the exact model, because
one of the benefits of having a programs
| | 03:47 | like Flash is the
model's already predefined.
| | 03:49 | So, you know it's going to look right
when it's actually produced in the animation stage.
| | 03:53 | So, it isn't as important as it was in
the earlier days of doing animation for
| | 03:58 | television where you had to match, where
everything in that story would had to look
| | 04:01 | exactly like it was
going to be finally produced.
| | 04:03 | John D. Anderson: Here is an example of
something that's a little further along.
| | 04:06 | This is for a show called Funny Face.
| | 04:08 | This is kind of what it would like at the end.
| | 04:10 | It might even be a little tighter
than this. Again it doesn't have to be as
| | 04:16 | tight as some traditional boards,
but wit will have when it's finished
| | 04:19 | is actual, very clearly defined props.
| | 04:24 | I have done the character a little
darker here, so it's really easy to
| | 04:26 | see what's happening.
| | 04:28 | And it will have camera moves, so.
| | 04:29 | (Video playing. Beeping.)
| | 04:34 | All of that would be included in the
final animatic, the camera moves, gestures.
| | 04:40 | Here you get to a little more rough
area that I haven't cleaned up yet, but
| | 04:42 | you can clearly see that it's
almost like a finished show.
| | 04:48 | Everything is temp as far as sound
effects, but it does help to, it helps me
| | 04:52 | especially, if there is music in there,
it helps me get into the mood of what's
| | 04:57 | happening, even though it's temp, and
helps later on when they do music to figure
| | 05:01 | out what's going on, what was my idea.
| | 05:01 | Darrell Van Citters: Also it helps you to figure
out your timing, because you know I need to have this
| | 05:05 | much space for a sound effect,
or this much space for music.
| | 05:09 | So, that you don't just have really
everything stepping on one another.
| | 05:11 | John D. Anderson: That's absolutely true.
| | 05:13 | I love that, because it's so crucial,
especially to shows like this that
| | 05:18 | our timing has to be spot on. I mean
like by frames. It has to be a certain number
| | 05:22 | to get the joke across.
| | 05:23 | Having those sound effects in there, at
least temp, you hear when somebody gets
| | 05:27 | hit in the head with a mallet.
| | 05:28 | Oh! You hear that sound, you know how
long that's going to have to be held for
| | 05:33 | the comedy before it goes into--
| | 05:35 | Darrell Van Citters: The next little frame.
| | 05:38 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:40 | Newscaster: Grape prices have skyrocketed, as it appears a world-wide shortage is causing a run on the tasty little vine-ripened wonders.
| | 05:46 | Goofy Grape: La, la-la-la, la. La-la!
| | 05:51 | (Phone dialing and ringing.)
| | 05:53 | Apple: Ah yes, how much would
you pay for say a 50 pound grape, huh?
| | 05:56 | (Inaudible response.)
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| Digital workflow: design/layout| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:08 | Peter Rida Michail: So, we receive completed
story boards and approved story boards from the
| | 00:12 | Director, and here in design, we will
slug through the board, and pick,
| | 00:20 | start picking out key backgrounds.
| | 00:22 | What key backgrounds are are just
backgrounds that we'll be punching in on.
| | 00:28 | In this case, this is the key background.
| | 00:29 | After our key background is designed,
this will be sent on to the next
| | 00:35 | department and they will be able to
punch in on all of these different
| | 00:41 | backgrounds for the boards.
| | 00:44 | So, all of these backgrounds that
are for all of these scenes, comes from
| | 00:50 | this one key background.
| | 00:52 | And I will be able to punch in here and
we build them on all different keyframes.
| | 00:57 | So, all the different backgrounds
that they will need is in this one file.
| | 01:02 | Ashley Postlewaite: And the great thing is each
one of those elements that is made here in design,
| | 01:06 | is a separate symbol but is named
according to a naming convention that we have
| | 01:13 | developed here at the
studio through asset management.
| | 01:17 | So, that each of those pieces then
goes into the library to be used again.
| | 01:21 | You can see Pete scrolling through here,
how they are made and then the reverse
| | 01:26 | of that of course is when he is
looking at a story board and he needs
| | 01:29 | Mr. Grumpy's house, or whatever, he can
type that in and it goes straight to that
| | 01:34 | file on the server and if
we have already created Mr. Grumpy's house,
| | 01:38 | boom, he clicks it on to
his desktop, does whatever alterations
| | 01:42 | he wants to do with it,
and he is off and running.
| | 01:43 | Peter Rida Michail: So, when the project came to
Renegade, it was these children's books that everyone
| | 01:47 | was familiar right from the 70s and
the client just wanted to give it more of
| | 01:53 | a modern look to it.
| | 01:54 | But still without straying too
far away from these originals.
| | 02:02 | So, Renegade was in charge of just
giving this property and updated look, and
| | 02:10 | still keeping it familiar.
| | 02:12 | So, here is actually our
Little Miss Helpful next to the classic look.
| | 02:18 | Ashley Postlewaite: The legacy, classic.
| | 02:19 | But really the backgrounds in the books
were mostly white. For broadcast, that
| | 02:23 | just wasn't going to be something
that would work and when they weren't white,
| | 02:26 | they were bright, bright colors,
where on a printed page, your eye can
| | 02:30 | figure out where it supposed to go but
in action it would have been really,
| | 02:35 | we thought, very busy.
| | 02:37 | Peter Rida Michail: We wanted to try
something different, something new.
| | 02:40 | We felt like the characters were
getting lost in a lot of these backgrounds.
| | 02:45 | So, for a good month or two,
we were just experimenting.
| | 02:51 | We started experimenting with
different looks and so we figured we would
| | 02:56 | just break all that up with doing textures.
| | 03:01 | For that we actually went into Painter
and started building our own library of
| | 03:09 | different textures and different
colors that we could choose through,
| | 03:14 | as production went on and just
start designing right over them.
| | 03:19 | Characters popped off the screen a
lot more, than having just a flat
| | 03:23 | color behind them.
| | 03:24 | Ashley Postlewaite: That's one of our
biggest challenges I think in this show,
| | 03:28 | is that we have the 25 or now 28 characters,
all of these shapes as Pete says,
| | 03:34 | these solid shapes of colors, and
it's almost I felt like, oh, my Gosh!
| | 03:38 | What colors are left to put in the background
that they could really pop again?
| | 03:42 | And that's where Pete, I think, did
such a fantastic job with introducing these
| | 03:45 | textures to really make Dillydale
this lovely really colorful place.
| | 03:50 | We have gotten really wonderful
feedback from fans of the books, who grew up
| | 03:56 | with them, who really like what Pete
and other people at Renegade did, which
| | 04:02 | is really gratifying.
| | 04:03 | It's always a little scary
to tinker with something.
| | 04:05 | So, there's 100 million
of these looks in print.
| | 04:08 | So, it's a little nerve-wracking I think.
| | 04:10 | Peter Rida Michail: Absolutely!
| | 04:11 | Ashley Postlewaite: But fun!
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| Digital workflow: animation| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:09 | Darrell Van Citters: Here we have Joey Adams who
is our supervising animator in charge of all the
| | 00:14 | animation that comes out of the group
of animators that we have both in house
| | 00:17 | and the freelance.
| | 00:18 | And here you can see what Joey gets as a scene.
| | 00:20 | All of the assets have been placed
within the scene. In fact if you click off,
| | 00:23 | you can see the storyboard underneath it.
| | 00:25 | he is clicking everything off.
| | 00:25 | You can see this. Here is a very raw
version of the storyboard panel which
| | 00:31 | doesn't give you a lot of acting and
there is a lot of room for the animator to
| | 00:37 | bring something to life in there.
| | 00:38 | Joey gets the assets here. They are
all placed within the scene approximately
| | 00:43 | where they need to be, the size, and
a general idea of what's going on with
| | 00:48 | the animatic there.
| | 00:49 | So now it's up to Joey to bring this
scene to life and he has got all of the
| | 00:53 | library assets to bring this character to life.
| | 00:56 | Joey Adams: Yeah. One of the things that we do
that I think is really important is to have the
| | 01:05 | model that's placed in by the technical
directors, who put all the assets into the file.
| | 01:12 | The asset that they give us basically
has everything that's created for that
| | 01:17 | character in stock already in there.
| | 01:20 | You see there is all the different angles of
the character. Inside the character we have--
| | 01:25 | Inside each arm is all different kinds
of arm bends and different types of arms.
| | 01:30 | Even inside the hand itself
there is 50 different hands.
| | 01:38 | So we don't have to go hunting around
for assets to reuse assets. Reusing
| | 01:44 | assets is kind of the name of the game.
| | 01:47 | when you are doing Flash for broadcast
because it just helps you go faster and
| | 01:50 | it helps everything stay on model.
| | 01:52 | This set up that the animators get
even though nothing is moving, there is --
| | 01:57 | the framing is established, the size
of the character with relation to the
| | 02:02 | background and the props.
| | 02:03 | All that stuff is established at the TV
phase and so a director can go through
| | 02:07 | and look at all those cut together.
| | 02:09 | And we're not going to run,
theoretically, we are not going to run in any
| | 02:14 | problems with framing or problems
with continuity or size comparisons
| | 02:19 | between the characters.
| | 02:20 | All that stuff can be ironed out
before the characters are even animated.
| | 02:24 | Darrell Van Critters: And what enters the process
is the chance for errors, because if he is doing that,
| | 02:30 | the next guy is taking the next
scene and he is doing that, and
| | 02:32 | they aren't necessarily talking to each
other because they're both concentrating on
| | 02:35 | getting their work out.
| | 02:36 | Joey Adams: When we get an episode that's ready to
go, which means it's completely set up by the TDs,
| | 02:42 | I will look through the storyboards
and we will divide it up to each person
| | 02:48 | based on, usually I will do it
based on what people's strengths are.
| | 02:52 | If there is someone who is much better
at acting, I will give them a scene maybe
| | 02:57 | where there is some funny acting
that needs to play a certain way.
| | 03:01 | And you know they are going to nail it
or you give something that
| | 03:05 | is very effects heavy, like
right now we are doing goo.
| | 03:09 | There is a scene where there is
goo spraying all over the place.
| | 03:12 | So someone who is better at effects
animation is going to get some of that stuff.
| | 03:15 | People have different strengths,
and you try to divide the scenes based
| | 03:19 | on what people's strengths are and how
you are going to get the best, each scene
| | 03:23 | to be the best it can be.
| | 03:24 | Darrell Van Critters: I think a lot of people who
are familiar with Flash are already aware of this
| | 03:28 | but it's always fascinating me to see
just how many levels are involved in a
| | 03:33 | scene to bring a character to life.
| | 03:34 | This is far more than you would have
ever done in the old days of traditional
| | 03:37 | limited animation and it makes it a
much more complex way to animate but
| | 03:42 | it's amazing what you can achieve with it too.
| | 03:43 | Joey Adams: So you can see
Mr. Nervous talking on the phone
| | 03:47 | and he kind of can't believe what he is hearing
| | 03:52 | and then he freaks out.
| | 03:53 | We've got probably four strong poses
there telling the story and then each part
| | 04:03 | moving on its layer, and then
we have the face is also moving.
| | 04:06 | And then inside the face,
we have all the acting.
| | 04:10 | Again, we have got the-- we pull the vocal
track into the symbol where the facial features are.
| | 04:19 | And now all the facial features you see
on these layers, this is the mouth and
| | 04:23 | the eyes, the glasses, the eyebrows;
| | 04:29 | and then he will-- the animator
will do the facial performance.
| | 04:34 | (Mr. Nervous: Snails in your corn?
I didn't even know that was possible?)
| | 04:38 | (Mr. Nervous: Great.
Something else to worry about.)
| | 04:41 | On this level and then back up a level
where everything is moving with that face.
| | 04:47 | The performance on the face
has already been animated.
| | 04:50 | Now, the animator will move
the face around on the body.
| | 04:54 | (Mr. Nervous: Snails in your corn?
I didn't even know that was possible?)
| | 04:57 | (Mr. Nervous: Great.
Something else to worry about.)
| | 05:00 | Darrell Van Critters: A key part of the
performance in any scene comes from the actor who does
| | 05:04 | the initial voice recording and that cues
the kind of acting that the animator can
| | 05:09 | bring to it as well.
| | 05:11 | And there isn't an animator around
who doesn't enjoy a good strong vocal
| | 05:15 | track to play off of.
| | 05:17 | Joey Adams: A lot of times when you get a
really good read, you can listen to it and you can
| | 05:24 | see the acting right then.
| | 05:25 | You can know and you don't even--
sometimes it's like you don't even have to
| | 05:29 | think about where to go with the
character if you have a really good read.
| | 05:32 | It's kind of almost done for you.
| | 05:36 | And then other times you have to maybe
really listen to it a few times and kind
| | 05:41 | of act it out yourself and see what
someone would do if they were saying that.
| | 05:46 | And also taking into consideration
the character who is saying it and
| | 05:50 | their mannerisms,
| | 05:51 | and that's another thing that has to
do with, reuse and knowing the shows,
| | 05:57 | knowing what people have
done with that character before.
| | 06:00 | If there is a certain kind of take,
if a character gets afraid and they do a
| | 06:03 | certain kind of take, like you can use
that again because that's the way the
| | 06:08 | character acts in that situation.
| | 06:09 | (Little Miss Chatterbox: My can
of creamed corn is full of snails!!)
| | 06:13 | (Mr. Nervous: Snails in your corn?
I didn't even know that was possible?)
| | 06:17 | (Mr. Nervous: Great.
Something else to worry about.)
| | 06:19 | (Ding-dong. Doorbell rings.)
| | 06:20 | (Little Miss Chatterbox: Let me call you back,
Mr. Nervous. There's someone at my door.)
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| Digital workflow: post/finishing| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:10 | Ashley Postlewaite: So we are here in editorial
with Michael D'Ambrosio, the Editor at Renegade
| | 00:14 | Animation, and in editorial
basically at the tailend of the process when
| | 00:21 | animation is approved, it goes into a
folder on our server called ready for--
| | 00:27 | Michael D'Ambrosio: Shots to Avid.
| | 00:28 | Ashley Postlewaite: Shots to Avid, thank you.
| | 00:29 | Michael D'Ambrosio: Shots to Avid. Simply named.
| | 00:31 | Ashley Postlewaite: And that's where the
editorial department sweeps that folder and brings all of
| | 00:37 | that finished animation in scene
by scene and puts it into the cut.
| | 00:41 | We want to talk a little bit
about the sweatbox process.
| | 00:43 | Michael D'Ambrosio: Just building off of what
Ashley was saying is we get the animatic in and after
| | 00:52 | that process is done of kind of honing
that animatic, it goes off to animation.
| | 00:57 | Once we get the animation back,
we are dropping that cut in.
| | 01:01 | We are essentially assembling
the animation on top of the boards.
| | 01:05 | But often times, timings don't
work, certain gags won't work, certain
| | 01:11 | dialogue seems to not work exactly.
| | 01:13 | So, you have to go in there and you
kind of have got to fine-tune everything and
| | 01:19 | often times if there is time for me,
I will go ahead and take a first path
| | 01:23 | before we even start our
session, what we call the sweatbox.
| | 01:26 | Alright. So, you can see here what we have
here on this first video layer that I have
| | 01:31 | just highlighted are the boards.
| | 01:34 | In the case of Funny Faces, it was done
a little bit more traditionally where the
| | 01:41 | boards were actually drawn out in
digital format and then JPEGs were actually
| | 01:46 | sent to me as individual files and then
cut in the Avid with dialogue, more of a
| | 01:55 | traditional workflow.
| | 01:57 | That's then broken up, each one of those
is broken up into an individual shot and
| | 02:02 | then we go ahead and label that and
send that up as individual QuickTimes and
| | 02:08 | WAV files so it can run through our
pipeline and then it will go through design
| | 02:15 | and it will go through animation.
| | 02:16 | Once that's done, they create
QuickTimes and that comes back to me and it's a
| | 02:20 | simple over-cutting process at that point.
| | 02:22 | Ashley Postlewaite: The term sweatbox came from
Walt Disney calling his animators to look at picture
| | 02:30 | for the first time with him.
| | 02:32 | We still call it that, but it really
does speak to that first time, that the
| | 02:37 | Director and all the department heads
are seeing picture altogether and
| | 02:43 | the Director is calling out for retakes
and any department head here can say, hey!
| | 02:48 | Pete keeps his eyes on the designs,
Michael keeps his eyes on cuts that
| | 02:54 | are clumsy or not working to his
satisfaction. Joey will keep his eye on animation.
| | 03:01 | Where I am looking for standards and
practices stuff, things I know the client
| | 03:06 | is particularly worried about or
interested in and the director is looking at
| | 03:13 | the whole thing and the
overall picture and storytelling.
| | 03:15 | So also in editorial, Michael and
his crew really concentrates on the
| | 03:20 | precision aspects of it.
| | 03:21 | So it has to be within a tolerance
of a number of seconds for the network
| | 03:26 | over/or under, if it's an 11 minute.
| | 03:29 | In the case of this show, we have
1 minute extractable because the UK airs
| | 03:34 | 10 minute episodes.
| | 03:36 | So, editorial has to go in and find
that minute and cut it out and make a
| | 03:42 | 10 minute that works.
| | 03:43 | Mr. Menace is kind of lucious format
for that because we just make one of the
| | 03:47 | sketches a minute long, but when you
have linear storytelling in an 11 minute episode,
| | 03:51 | there is a lot more editorial
that goes into making a 10 minute that
| | 03:56 | works out of the 11.
| | 03:58 | So, there is a lot of that,
that the storyboard artists don't really
| | 04:02 | necessarily concentrate on. That's
more of the technical and I would say
| | 04:05 | housekeeping aspects of making our
deliverables perfectly to spec for whatever
| | 04:11 | network it's going to go on.
| | 04:12 | Michael D'Ambrosio: Some shows come together
brilliantly and occasionally a sketch will go by
| | 04:18 | without a change, without a timing
change, without me touching one frame.
| | 04:22 | There are other times we can't get through
three shots and I am having to work the film.
| | 04:30 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:34 | (Jolly Ollie giggling.)
| | 04:35 | (Jolly Ollie: Hey, Captain Black, whatcha doing?)
| | 04:37 | (Captain Black: Oh, I be sailing the great, grand seas,
Jolly Ollie. What's it look like I doing?)
| | 04:42 | (Jolly Ollie: Watching corn grow?)
| | 04:45 | (Crickets chirping.)
| | 04:46 | (Captain Black: Yar, me hearty.
I be day dreaming again!)
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Developing Funny Face| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:09 | (Narrator: Tonight we answer the
age-old question: what do fruit dream?)
| | 00:19 | (Goofy Grape: Nothing...
Cause we're just a bunch of fruit!)
| | 00:19 | Ashley Postlewaite: So one of the important things
for Darrell and I in the evolution of Renegade is
| | 00:23 | to expand from being just a service
company, to a company that owns intellectual
| | 00:29 | property or co-owns and
creates intellectual property.
| | 00:33 | So we are not different from almost
any other company I think in that regard.
| | 00:37 | Everybody, this is kind of the Holy
Grail of our industries to create that stuff
| | 00:41 | that we own, that can provide us with
legacy of revenue over time, and really
| | 00:49 | give the company a worth overall.
| | 00:53 | And so we have put a great deal of
time and energy into developing these
| | 00:57 | projects that are ours and the latest
greatest one is Funny Face, which is up
| | 01:02 | here behind me and we love Funny Face
for a million reasons, not the least of
| | 01:08 | which is when the guys who owned
the trademark on it actually found us,
| | 01:16 | and a) we remembered it fondly from
our childhood. It was a drink mix that
| | 01:21 | competed with Kook-Aid, and that were
series of TV commercials that people
| | 01:25 | around our age remember.
| | 01:28 | And we were looking at several different
ways to roll it out and there is no right way.
| | 01:33 | There is a million ways. Do we do
a TV show first, then we try and do a
| | 01:37 | movie, then we do interstitials, then
we try and do a couple of licenses or
| | 01:43 | make a toy or...? And where we
landed was to do a series of one minute
| | 01:48 | interstitials, 25 one minute
interstitials, which we would sell broadcast
| | 01:52 | rights to around the world.
| | 01:53 | Some territories program with
interstitials in their on broadcast. Not so much
| | 02:00 | in the US, so we are doing a web roll-
out here. And looking to, we have just
| | 02:06 | signed licensing reps around the world
and are just kind of cranking up the machine
| | 02:13 | to get it out there and it's
been really fun to sort of strategize what
| | 02:18 | we want the brand to be, what we want
the shows to be, what we might like our
| | 02:22 | licenses to be, and to have a core
that's so clearly just fun and funny.
| | 02:30 | Like we have talked to some of our
licensees about, with our toy licenses, and
| | 02:35 | with our other licenses, we want you to
look at whatever it is, and smile right away,
| | 02:41 | and laugh, and so if we
are going to do an iPhone app game,
| | 02:47 | let's make sure it's funny.
| | 02:49 | It's not just our characters running
around, but it's our characters running
| | 02:53 | around in a funny way.
| | 02:57 | So that's been a blast and completely
nerve-wracking as well, because it's all
| | 03:01 | our own money and things always
take longer than one would ever hope.
| | 03:06 | But we feel strongly that it's something
we have to do. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,
| | 03:11 | and we have got to take these
other risks in order to move the company
| | 03:15 | into the next phase.
| | 03:19 | So that's what we are working on right
now and we are very excited about it.
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| Sources of inspiration| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:09 | Ashley Postlewaite: It's fantastic that I could
co-own an animation company because I cannot draw to
| | 00:14 | save my life, and that's a source of
much good humor for everybody around here.
| | 00:22 | But I feel like I have a good eye and
I have sort of grown a good eye over the
| | 00:25 | years of working with
Darrell and working with Renegade.
| | 00:29 | Darrell Van Critters: I think if I had to say
one thing that really inspires me is the chance to,
| | 00:35 | because I don't think Flash is there yet,
is to keep exploring with the tool.
| | 00:39 | I really have a hard time with saying,
okay that's as far as it is going to go,
| | 00:42 | so let's just crank it out.
| | 00:44 | That's not inspiring me. That doesn't make
me want to get up and come in the morning;
| | 00:47 | it's telling you stories with characters,
that's really the thing that's inspiring.
| | 00:51 | And the best of them, Disney Films, Pixar Films,
I mean any of the great films, that's what inspires me.
| | 00:59 | I have a great deal of traditional
animation art here up on the walls
| | 01:02 | that I use for inspiration and
just to remind me of my roots.
| | 01:08 | This particular piece was done
for The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo
| | 01:11 | back in mid 60s, and I like this
one just because it shows some of the steps,
| | 01:15 | quick studies of the environments,
all done with colored pencil that was
| | 01:20 | really, really strong
draftsmanship, really strong shapes.
| | 01:24 | This one, who doesn't like character's
smoking cigarettes? I know I am big fan of it,
| | 01:28 | so that was the joy of that one and
what's even better is he's a full color cel,
| | 01:34 | smoking a black and
white cigarette, really cool.
| | 01:38 | This one is from Mr. Magoo's Christmas
Carol. That's always been one of my favorite
| | 01:42 | animated Christmas special.
| | 01:43 | In fact, so favorite that I just
finished writing a book on it which would be
| | 01:46 | coming out this summer.
| | 01:47 | And that was another case of where,
yeah, the animation isn't great.
| | 01:52 | In fact it probably would have been
improved had been done in Flash, the actual animation.
| | 01:56 | But there is lot of great design in it,
great color, and more importantly,
| | 02:01 | great story telling, great characters.
| | 02:04 | The songs in this are outstanding.
| | 02:05 | Ashley Postlewaite: My inspirations are more
about the people. I mean I love our product but I
| | 02:15 | really love taking care of people, and
whether that's our clients or employees,
| | 02:26 | I feel my best day is where I feel
like I have done a good job at that.
| | 02:33 | And I think that's just sort of the core
of my personality is I feel great joy when I
| | 02:40 | see somebody who works
here doing really great work.
| | 02:45 | I mean I am actually fed
by that in some funny ways.
| | 02:49 | Darrell Van Critters: Who was it
that said dying is easy, comedy is hard?
| | 02:53 | I mean really comedy is hard, and I
think that's part of what the joy of it is.
| | 02:57 | When you pull something off and you make
somebody else laugh, that's pretty cool.
| | 03:00 | That's hard to do because you can do a
lot of things for people where just go, huh?
| | 03:05 | A smile, they will chuckle internally.
| | 03:07 | But to actually make somebody break
out laughing, that's tough to do.
| | 03:10 | And I think that's one of things that
keeps me going too is working on these kinds
| | 03:13 | of project where we can pull that off.
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| Flash indies| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:10 | Darrell Van Citters: We actually
started using Flash around 1999.
| | 00:13 | Some of the other studios were
starting to do it and it was just before things
| | 00:16 | really got hot in dot-com.
| | 00:16 | Ashley Postlewaite: As we were banging on Flash
at the beginning, we really went at it with an
| | 00:24 | attitude of let's see if we can make
this tool do what we need it to do to still
| | 00:31 | be doing traditional animation,
even though we are switching tools.
| | 00:36 | Darrell Van Citters: My concern with using Flash was
I couldn't do the kinds of animation I wanted to do.
| | 00:41 | I wanted to do funny animation.
| | 00:44 | And so much of what animation was
being done then, the kind of animation was
| | 00:48 | being done, was kind of
scatological or meant to outrage.
| | 00:51 | It wasn't about personality,
it wasn't about humorous timing.
| | 00:54 | And we were concerned too because in
those days everybody had dial-up connections.
| | 00:58 | So we wanted to make sure that this
tool could actually play back at a speed
| | 01:01 | where you could understand the gags,
and the timing would be there that you
| | 01:03 | would normally see in film.
| | 01:04 | Ashley Postlewaite: So we spent lots of time
figuring out, because one the things Darrell is a
| | 01:08 | real stickler about, and one of the things
he is known for is impeccable comic timing.
| | 01:13 | And if you can't control how
stuff is coming over the internet...
| | 01:16 | Darrell Van Citters: So we figured out a way to make
the system work, make the tool work for us to do that.
| | 01:21 | So that you could even on dial-up,
you could still play back and you could still get
| | 01:24 | the timing of the gags.
| | 01:26 | And that was very encouraging and then
we went from there. We said, okay, well
| | 01:31 | what if we did this a little bit more, and
start to using it on more and more projects?
| | 01:35 | We were still doing
everything by hand at that point.
| | 01:36 | Ashley Postlewaite: But we were figuring out
how to link sound to picture, how to really make
| | 01:42 | sure that our timings stayed the way
we wanted them to be because that's
| | 01:46 | what's important to us.
| | 01:47 | Just moving it around isn't that
important to us, or we don't feel like--
| | 01:53 | it doesn't serve our purposes.
| | 01:55 | So on the artistic side, it was a
very much about how can we maintain our
| | 02:00 | integrity in terms of our
foundation in 2D animation, acting, design,
| | 02:06 | sensibility, all of that.
| | 02:08 | We're really looking at it as from
a service standpoint, this can be a
| | 02:13 | better experience for our clients. I mean,
we really felt like what if we could make this work.
| | 02:19 | And instead of waiting to get your stuff
back from Korea and hoping it was going
| | 02:23 | to look like what you wanted it to look like,
| | 02:26 | you could come to our office. We would
sit with you and look at it together.
| | 02:30 | If you didn't like it, we would send
the retake to the animation department
| | 02:33 | down the hall, make a change, maybe
show it to you before you leave that day,
| | 02:39 | maybe show it to you the next day.
| | 02:41 | But have a much more interactive
process with the clients than we could ever
| | 02:46 | have had traditionally.
| | 02:47 | And that's on the sort of production
side what we looked at as being the things
| | 02:53 | we wanted to preserve and also
even push forward by going digital.
| | 02:57 | Darrell Van Citters: Every time
we called up text support or something,
| | 03:01 | they'd say, well, it doesn't really do that.
| | 03:02 | I said, well, I don't
want to hear what I can't do.
| | 03:05 | Why can't it do it?
| | 03:06 | Can't you make it do it?
| | 03:07 | Don't tell me it can't do it because
I don't think that's a good attitude.
| | 03:11 | Let's make it work.
| | 03:13 | And even with the animators,
they said, it's not great. Flash is not a
| | 03:16 | great tool for animating.
| | 03:18 | But once you know how to make it do
what you want, you can bend it to your will,
| | 03:21 | and you can make it look like--
I think in terms of limited animations
| | 03:25 | it's far superior to what was being done
on television in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
| | 03:30 | Will that ever get to the
flexibility of Disney or Warner Brothers?
| | 03:33 | I don't know.
| | 03:34 | We are certainly going to try and go there.
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| Interview with Lynda| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:09 | Lynda Weinman: Hello, I am Lynda Weinman.
| | 00:11 | Welcome to another installment of
our Creative Inspiration series.
| | 00:14 | I am here today with Renegade
Animation people, Ashley and Darrell.
| | 00:20 | Thank you so much for coming.
| | 00:21 | Ashley Postlewaite: Thank you for having us.
Darrell Van Citters: Thank you for having us.
| | 00:22 | Lynda Weinman: Congratulations
on the success of your company.
| | 00:26 | What sorts of things do you offer that
distinguish you as being a great place to work?
| | 00:30 | Ashley Postlewaite: I think there are things
that are sort of "soft perk" type things that are more
| | 00:36 | traditional in terms of, we have
health insurance and 401(k) and all those
| | 00:42 | sorts of things that some creative companies
don't have or can't have, we try and provide.
| | 00:50 | Flexible work hours when people need them
for family reasons, and that sort of thing.
| | 00:58 | We absolutely try and have
in place whatever we can.
| | 01:03 | In conjunction with being a place where
when you come there to work, you feel
| | 01:09 | like you are part of a big thing.
| | 01:12 | You are part of a team.
| | 01:14 | You are part of a system that works.
| | 01:16 | The work is made easy and fun for you and that you
are really pivotal in the success of the whole company.
| | 01:23 | So I think those two things
together are the sort of double perk.
| | 01:28 | Some places can have all those other
things, vacation time and all that, but
| | 01:33 | it's not very fun to be there.
| | 01:35 | So I think it's the balance.
| | 01:36 | Darrell Van Citters: We also don't scream.
| | 01:38 | Ashley Postlewaite: Yeah, that helps.
| | 01:39 | Darrell Van Citters: Nothing is a panic.
We just don't operate in that mode.
| | 01:44 | We set aside time-- We make sure that
people know that family time is important,
| | 01:47 | that they don't have to work long weekends.
| | 01:50 | Lynda Weinman: It's rare in the
entertainment industry, very rare.
| | 01:53 | So I know you have really done a lot of
technical innovation around the way that
| | 01:57 | you are creating the animation.
| | 01:59 | Is that a draw from some of the
animators who work for you, do they like the
| | 02:03 | system that you have set up, and are
they expanding their skill set by working
| | 02:07 | for you in a compelling way?
| | 02:08 | Darrell Van Citters: Definitely, definitely.
| | 02:11 | It was a bit of a struggle at first
going completely digital, because like
| | 02:15 | myself, we grew up doing it on
paper, but now that they are adept at it,
| | 02:21 | they really do enjoy it, because they--
for example, when we do storyboards,
| | 02:25 | which are really animatics now, they are
basically creating films while they are
| | 02:28 | doing their work, which is kind of neat.
| | 02:32 | You are not just part of the
assembly line. You are actually creating the
| | 02:35 | beginnings of the project.
| | 02:36 | Lynda Weinman: So what kind of skill set do you
look for when you are hiring animators, and are
| | 02:42 | you expecting them to
understand the digital workflow?
| | 02:45 | Are you expecting to bring them up
to speed with your specific system?
| | 02:48 | Darrell Van Citters: It's a little of both.
| | 02:51 | We prefer people who are digitally ready,
but we also understand that there are
| | 02:56 | a lot of people who didn't grow up doing that as
their first tool, so we bring those ones along too.
| | 03:03 | At least from my angle what I look
for is people who know how to draw,
| | 03:08 | who have a foundation in animation skills,
and preferably have some real life experience.
| | 03:14 | I am not too hard-nosed on that,
because I remember when I was knocking on doors.
| | 03:17 | I will take people in as long as
they look like they have promise, but I
| | 03:22 | prefer a solid foundation and what's called, I
guess, what we refer to as old school fundamentals.
| | 03:29 | Lynda Weinman: Are you finding that people who
are coming to you are self-taught, or do they
| | 03:35 | get these skills in school?
| | 03:36 | Do you know some of the different ways that
they could get the drawing skills and get the right...?
| | 03:40 | Darrell Van Citters: Yeah, most of the ones that have the
drawing skills have gone to art school or an animation program.
| | 03:46 | The ones that are oftentimes the
weakest candidates are the ones who are
| | 03:49 | self-taught, particularly when it
comes to using Flash as an animation tool.
| | 03:54 | They are sometimes not aware of just
how many things that they don't know and
| | 03:59 | how many things that they could be doing better.
| | 04:01 | So those are the ones that
oftentimes are harder to hire.
| | 04:05 | Once they are hired,
it takes a little bit more training.
| | 04:07 | Lynda Weinman: So do you think that there are
going to be more opportunities for animators
| | 04:12 | going into the future or less?
| | 04:14 | Ashley Postlewaite: More, I have to hope more.
| | 04:16 | I think more.
| | 04:19 | I think it's like anything though.
We are getting so many-- there are so many
| | 04:25 | avenues, that in some ways the
audience is splitting apart, but in some ways
| | 04:31 | also you have large places, like lynda.com,
where many, many people can come once they find it.
| | 04:39 | I think that is going to make for more
opportunities and I think we are moving
| | 04:45 | to a place, I hope we are moving to a
place where also new and different and old
| | 04:51 | sorts of animation are all in the toolbox.
| | 04:54 | Whatever tool the given artist wants
to choose to tell his or her story,
| | 05:01 | they will choose.
| | 05:02 | 2D, clay, 3D, not just, oh, now
everything has to be 3D, or now everything...
| | 05:09 | I think we are getting to a moment where
it will be just "this is the story that
| | 05:15 | I have to tell and this is
the tool I choose to use."
| | 05:18 | The audience is sophisticated enough to
just go with a great story, regardless
| | 05:24 | of the medium it's being told in.
| | 05:27 | Lynda Weinman: So where do you
guys get your creative inspiration?
| | 05:30 | What inspires you and where
do you go to become inspired?
| | 05:34 | Darrell Van Citters: It's a lot
of places, but actually staff.
| | 05:39 | I have never felt that as a director
that it was my job to come up with all the
| | 05:43 | ideas or solve all the problems.
| | 05:44 | When you hire great people, they can
inspire you too, because you go,
| | 05:50 | "I hadn't even thought about that solution for
that," and that gets you going on another direction,
| | 05:53 | which gets somebody
else going on another direction.
| | 05:55 | So that's one way I find
it very inspiring. I don't know about you but.
| | 05:59 | Ashley Postlewaite: No, I would agree.
| | 06:01 | People are my primary source of
inspiration, I think, and then always,
| | 06:07 | we're all as creative people out there
always looking at art, always thinking about it,
| | 06:12 | always taking in different
creator's work as inspiration, but I agree with
| | 06:18 | Darrell completely. What just juices
us everyday and gets our brain going is
| | 06:23 | usually something our own staff is working on.
| | 06:27 | Lynda Weinman: Well, thank you so
much for sharing your story with us.
| | 06:29 | Ashley Postlewaite: Thank you for
having us and asking us to come and do this.
| | 06:33 | We really appreciate it. It has been a blast.
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