Tuesday, December 9, 2008

STRATAMAGIZING



One of the things I enjoyed most (when I wasn't in a complete panic) about the daily grind of making an animated TV show were the huddles. The ones where me, my Proton Powered Producer, Evil Extinguishing Editor, and Powerful Post Production Supervisor planned out our next move. In the non-stop madness of series production, there's ALWAYS too much to do... so every couple hours, we'd find ourselves huddled up, strategizing over what the best plan of action was.

Should we be cutting the animatic for episode 43B first?

Or locking picture for episode 30A?

Maybe we should we get that pesky color meeting out of the way.

But wait... retakes for episode 32A should be getting here any minute.

Hold up... a storyboard artist just passed out. Get the smelling salts...

Okay... where were we? What? The sheet timer is waiting for episode 37? Crap.

And someone send the dogs after my assistant- he's chewed through his chains and escaped again.



I know it doesn't sound like much fun- but there's something exhilarating about it... especially when you've got a crack team of production specialists you know and trust working with you.

So here we are again as we begin production of a new pilot. Yesterday was the first day of production and there I was, pacing back and forth in front of my mighty, mighty producer's office.

Who's gonna do storyboards? How long have they got?

How can we do storyboards if we don't know what one of the main characters looks like?

Wait... we were supposed to start storyboards TODAY?

We've got a casting call with the Disney folks at 2:00 and whatshisface is coming in at 10:30. Is whatshername available or is she still working on 'Princess Character and the Birdie Num Nums'?

What? That production shut down? That's AWESOME... i mean AWFUL. (But now I get the pick of the litter! MWA HA HA HA!)


SIGH...

It's good to be home.

4 comments:

Christine Y. Chong said...

It's good to be busy. :3 It sounds so exciting.

Tanya said...

Hahaha...sounds like you're keeping busy. :D Hearing what goes on behind-the-scenes reminds me of high school journalism (or journalism in general) - there's so much to do, and it gets so crazy, but there's this exhilarating rush that goes along with it.

There are differences of course, but that's what it reminds me of. And if I'm on at all with that parallel, then I'll at least have that experience before I get inside a studio. XD

nothanks said...

Wow,looks like your very busy,Mr.W.I mean when I get older(I don't want to grow-up)I want to go into animation and I know its really tough,I mean just look at how busy you are.By the way,who's going to do the voices?

Anonymous said...

what next animated feature are you planning? ¿if you could, would you return to Cartoon Network?