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henrykathman · 6 years

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Email Transcript with Nick Cross

The following is a transcript of my email correspondence between myself and Nick Cross, head art director for the Cartoon Network short development program done as research for my video Into the Unknown: A Critical Analysis of Over The Garden Wall. Unfortunately, the initial Tumblr ask that spurred this interview has been lost to time, but I hope you enjoy this transcript.

Best Wishes.

Monday 9/26, 1:09 PM

Hi Henry

I'd be happy to help you out in any way I can

Nick

Tuesday 9/27, 11:43 PM

Hello Mr. Cross,

Thank you very much for contacting me. I'm sure it is very clear that I am big fan of Over the Garden Wall, so I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate you answering some of my questions. I should point out that I will need to provide a transcript of your responses for my professor, so I will be saving all of these email correspondences.

With that, here are my questions:

One of the key aspects I wish to highlight in my project are the various factors that influenced the creation of Over the Garden Wall. The first influence I would like to ask about is in the show's art direction. Many critics have noted that the art direction of the show very much mirrors grisaille paintings and the works of Gustave Doré; what was it about these art styles that you found inspiring? Are there any other art forms that influenced the show's art direction?

My second question relates to design. What were some of the directions you were given when designing and creating the backgrounds and the characters? I'm particularly interested in how each chapter seems to reflect a different time period in both costumes and architecture. Was this a conscious design choice from the start? How did you choose which time periods to evoke? Did you have to research anything for the shows art direction?

Thirdly, I am curious about the influences on the show’s writing. The story contains themes and characters evocative of gothic literature as well as the traditional “hero’s journey” tale. From where was the inspiration for the writing style drawn? What other factors influenced the writing?

This show seems to have been inspired by early cartoons as well. I know that the episode “Chapter 8: Babes in the Woods” was inspired by the early Disney cartoon "Alice's Wonderland," though I am curious to know what other classical cartoons influenced the show and why. I am also particularly curious about the “Highwayman” musical number. The uniquely fluid animation style seems reminiscent of an early Fleischer Studios Rotoscope cartoon. What made you want to storyboard this scene this way?

Finally, something I have noticed about cartoons in recent years is that the creators are often influenced by the shows that they grew up watching. What were some shows from your childhood that particularly influenced your career in animation, and specifically the creation of “Over the Garden Wall”?

I greatly anticipate your responses, and I may need to ask some follow-up questions in the future if your schedule permits. Thank you once again for helping me with my project, I will be sure to let you know when I finish. If you know anyone else on the show's crew that would be interested in answering some questions, I would be really appreciate it. Thanks again for your time!

Best Wishes,

Henry Kathman

[email protected]

Monday 10/3, 10:03 AM

Hey Henry

Sorry this took so long, I was a bit busy last week.

Here's my answers, let me know if you have any follow ups or need clarification on anything

Thanks!

Nick

When Pat approached me to work on the pilot, he sent along a huge folder of artwork for inspiration. Along with Gustave Dore, these included the work of Childe Harold, Edward Lear, Harrison Cady, Ivan Shishkin. We also used old chromolithographs for inspiration on the look of the show. So all of this mixed together along with the styles and techniques of myself and all the artists that contributed to the show made it what it became.

Pat wanted it to basically take place in a colonial america style setting. Which meant we had to do a lot of research on the look of everything from that time period. Right down to what door latches look like. One of the board artists pointed out early on that door knobs are a relatively new thing and in the 1700's they didn't exist so we had to research what those looked like. If you watch the show, you'll see all the doors have different handles and latches that are all historically correct...For the episode with the mansion, we had to make sure the architecture of the two halves looked different. For Endicott we made him have a Georgian style mansion - we based the interior on Jefferson's Monticello estate mainly, and for Marguerite - we based hers on the Palace of Versailles which is much more decorative.

I wasn't really involved in the writing of the show. That was really Pat's main focus. I was involved mostly in the look of the show.

There were a ton of cartoons that influenced it. Probably more than I can mention. I am hugely influenced by cartoons from the 1920's and 30's. The work of Ub Iwerks and the Van Bueren studios are amazing. I have this memory that I kept pushing for a weird Fletcher bros. style dance number in the show...that particular episode had a song that Pen Ward wrote with the Highwayman and it fit in there. Pat boarded it and then we talked about having it done in a rotoscope style which would mean the animation would have to have been very particular. This sort of animation is difficult to get an overseas studio to do since it would be a lot of work (ie. animating it on 1's - which means they would have to draw twice as many animation drawings) and so it would be kind of unfair for us to demand they do something like that. So I basically volunteered myself to do it. It was a fun challenge and it sort of lends a weird mood to the scene.

So I grew up in a time before cable tv...most of the cartoons I watched as a kid were old cartoons from Disney, Warner Bros and Hanna Barbera, as well as public domain cartoons. Since many of those were theatrical shorts, and not necessarily meant strictly for kids, the quality was high as well as very innovative. There were no 'rules' back then and they were still figuring things out, so there is a wild sense of experimentation...so I think it shaped the way I view animation now. I've worked in animation for twenty years at this point, and for most of my career that sense of experimentation has been frowned upon. But when I started at Cartoon Network on OTGW, it was great because Pat was very open to my ideas and the network was very hands-off when it came to the look of the show. It felt like we were making an independent film in a lot of ways and so I loved it and went nuts with the visual aesthetic. That was a huge influence-just being allowed to try something new ha.

Friday 10/7, 5:25pm

Hello Mr. Cross,

Thank you so much for all of your answers, they have been a really big help in writing this script. I just have two small follow up questions left for you if you wouldn't mind answering.

The first is just a bit of specification: When you said that Patrick McHale gave you the works of Childe Harold for inspiration, were you referring to the artwork of the Lord Byron poem collection Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (as painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner) or a separate artist entirely. I'm certain it's the former though I wanted to be sure, just in case.

My second follow up question, many of the artist you showed me were known for creating art based off of classic fairy tales and fairy tale like situations. How important was it to make the show something like a fairy tale, and why?

Those are the only questions I have left for you. Thank you once again for answering my questions and for helping to make such a great show. Have a good weekend.

Best Wishes,

Henry Kathman

[email protected]

Friday 10/7, 6:11pm

Childe Harold is the name of the illustrator, I've attached one of his illustrations.

The show was very much meant to be a modern fairy tale. The art style is meant to seem like something from another time and the fact that the characters are lost children in the woods, witches, ghosts, wolves and woodsmen is on purpose. I think those types of stories really resonate with people especially when you want to make it a slightly scary story for kids.

Thanks again

Nick

#into the unknown #text #interview

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theminatureone-blog · 7 years

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Timeline: The History of Animation

Pre-1900s Technique: Praxinoscope

Praxinoscope means ‘action viewer’. It was invented in 1877, by Charles-Emile Reynaud. This is a pre-cinema animation device, which uses series of pictures to create a movement. The pictures are located in a cylinder wheel, and when the wheel turns, the pictures create continuous movement of what’s in the picture.

1900s Technique: Stop Motion

It was first seen in the movie called Humpty Dumpty Circus by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton, which was a 1897 movie. Stop Motion, is an animation technique to make an object or person seem to move on its own. The object or person, is changed little by little for each frame and taken a photograph. The film The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) by Tim Burton is another example for this technique, where every single character is made by waxes and moved for each frame of the movie. 1906

James Stuart Blackton makes the Humorous Phases of Funny Faces using chalk drawing and stop motion technique. This is usually cited as first animated cartoon by historians. Blackton started making it in 1904, and released it in 1906.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Animated_GIF_from_the_1906_HPFF_by_Blackton.gif 1908

Emile Cohl makes an animation film Fantasmagorie. This is also considered one of first animated film by many and it uses the same technique as James Stuart Blackton, that is stop motion. 1910’s Technique: Rotoscoping

This is similar to Live action reference method, but more like motion capture. Rotoscoping was first used by Max Fleischer, and it was a method where the live action movies were projected onto a glass and animators could draw actions, frame by frame from those footages.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Waking_Life_rotoscoping_372.jpg

Key Frame Animation

Key Frame Animation is consisted of drawings which are beginning and end points, or important movements happening. It is just like a framework. The main idea is just to draw specific frames, and then depending on choice, leaving it as it is or filling in the blanks. 1912

Windsor McCay makes a 6 minute long silent animated film called Story of Mosquito using stop motion as well. It was very popular back then. 1914 Windsor Mccay makes Gertie the Dinosaur to be the first cartoon to use keyframe animation. This is the first movie to Feature a dinosaur. http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbyy8eagSa1r6ja9oo1_500.gif 1910’s Technique: Cel animation

Invented in between 1914 - 1915 by John Bray and Earl Hurd. This is also known as traditional animation, where every layer and scene is drawn by hand, on a paper. Until the computer animation came, this technique was the main form of animation. Cels are transparent papers with drawings on them. It allows the animators use the same frame again and again to save time and labour. They would only draw the moving objects rather than everything in the scene on transparent cells. This is used in popular cartoons such as Simpsons and Adventure time. 1916

Earl Hurd starts a series called <i>Bobby Bumps</i> which uses cell animation technique.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k109/mrgrum/popeye1-52.jpg 1920

Walter Disney starts working for an animation company called Kansas City Slide.

John Bray makes an animated series called The Debut of Thomas CatThis used an process a called brewster colour process which is named after Percy D. Brewster who invented it. Additionally this has been billed as first colour cartoon, and original traditional hand drawn cartoon is now presumed lost.

http://www.everwonder.com/david/felixthecat/gallery/balloonsA.gif 1923

Walter Disney started a series called Alice Comedies which used live action animation technique. Alice existed before Mickey Mouse and Other Disney Princesses. This Show ran up until 1927.

1928

Walter Disney starts a series called Steam Boat Willie. This remarked the birth of our beloved star who is popularly know a Mickey Mouse. It was also a notable for being one of the first movie to make use of synchronous sound.

http://media1.giphy.com/media/y6Yu1CsMjNqNi/200.gif 1930’s Technique: Live Action Reference

Even though it’s not actually a technology development, this technique was really useful for every animator. First used by Art Babbitt, this is a technique of watching people movements and observing them, and then transfering the movements to drawings. Thi method technique was used in most of the movies you can think of, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarf to Lion King. Live Action Reference can be seen as an early version of motion capture technique, used by CGI.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/05776947a5f59b62277bd290acd0b05d/tumblr_ncfchzHGQH1qetpbso2_1280.jpg

Stereophonic Sound Technology

Commonly known as stereo, this is the technique of the reproduction of sound. The technique was invented during 1930s, by the engineer named Alan Blumlein, but the technology was first used in animation, in the movie called “Fantasia” by Disney Pictures in 1940.

During this decade live action reference was very popular technique it was later used in popular cartoons such as: Scooby Doo, the Flintstones, The Fairy OddParents, Inspector Gadget, Casper and many more.

https://33.media.tumblr.com/95f3547ac4bf4799c99ea71ff3ce01e3/tumblr_muhqsj0TAO1rf73xqo2_250.gif 1940

Disney studio releases a movie called Fantasia. This was the first movie to use stereophonic sound technology. 1966 - 1967

Lapis and Permutation by James Whitney. He is considered father of computer animation, also used motion control in these short films.

http://www.bluntmetaphysics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/whitney.jpg 1967

Hummingbird by Charles Csuri and James Shaffer, is one of the first animations. It consisted of over 3000 images and 25 sequences which were generated by computer.

1971

Metadata It was the first 2D short film made by only using a graphic tablet. It was produced in Canada.

The Point was the first animated film made for Television that was more than 60 minutes long. This particular movie was 70 minutes long.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pjpxNmoqPro/UZwJd-n3pnI/AAAAAAAABbY/XeqWfACI4fI/s1600/Pointless+Forest.jpg 1975

Great was the first animated film to win an Oscar award. It was directed by Bob Godfrey. Moreover, it won an British Academy of Film and Television Arts award in 1976 for best animated film.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NrHZ-DRp-GU/UDxQslm23-I/AAAAAAAABNo/wSdf-7tflFU/s1600/1975+-+Great.png 1900s Technique: CAPS Animation

CAPS is short for Computer Animation Production Systems. Founded by Disney and Pixar in late 1980s, this technology is a mix of softwares to colour the animators drawings with digital inks and paintings, rather than traditional ones. It replaced Cel Animation, because CAPS was much more cheaper way of colouring animation.For example it was used in the movie 101 Dalmatians. 1980s Technique: CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery

CGI is the application of computer graphics to create images, videos, games, commercials, films etc. This technique is the one we know as “computer animation”, where movie makers use only 3D modeling and computer graphics to create the scenes, characters and lightings. Although there is no specific date of the beginning of CGI, it is seen taken off in films in the 80s and later becoming a major part of the film industry. 1982

The Works, created by Lance Williams from the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab, could have been the first animated movie but was never completed. 1983

Osamu Dezaki’s Golgo 13 is the first anime to utilize CGI technology.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/6dbe553cfb86438e29531f4757d0194b/tumblr_mub0t1aT9I1r8oyaho1_500.gif 1983

Rock and Rule is the first Canadian animated feature film to use computer graphics. It was entirely produced in Canada. 1984

Alvy Ray Smith and Lucasfilms (later splitting off into <b>Pixar) creates The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. is the first CGI animation that uses motion blur and a squash and stretch motion. It is loosely based on Mickey Mouse. Modelling program that they used at that time could only use geometric shapes such as spheres, cones, cubes, etc. Therefore, to create a shape a tear drop they stretched the sphere to infinity.

https://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lowvfjfDSs1qlv01zo1_250.gif 1985

Walt Disney Picture’s The Black Cauldron is the first animated movie with CGI effects. This was the first Disney animation that did not contain any songs are neither performed by characters nor in the background.

http://31.media.tumblr.com/29a7759c41e831b0bee0310c24e5daa9/tumblr_nben7iSbhx1r3vhy7o5_r1_250.gif 1986

Pixar’s Luxo Jr. first used CGI technology for shadows in this short. Luxo Jr. later became their mascot. 1989

Disney’s The Little Mermaid is the first movie to use CAPS technique, even if it was just in the end scene of the movie. A re-release of the 3D version this movie was scheduled;however, it was cancelled in 2013 due to poor performances of other movies that were converted into 3D.

http://media2.giphy.com/media/qHY6ij6LYizle/giphy.gif 1990

Walt Disney Picture’s The Rescuers Down Under is the first film to use CAPS for the entire movie.

http://33.media.tumblr.com/e71e003fa62ebe9f24c03a9497d38d20/tumblr_mird8sM1T91qjj1swo1_500.gif 1991

Walt Disney Picture’s The Beauty and the Beast is the first film to combine hand drawn animations with computer animation. Until Disney-Pixar's movie UP this was the only animated movie to be nominated for an academy award for best picture.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/4b73a2ea1af71f64c84d9c2bb6415874/tumblr_inline_mwgxa8bDZL1rup8k6.gif

1994

Mainframe Entertainment, Alliance Communications, and BLT productions’ Reboot is Canada’s first computer animated TV series.

http://media.giphy.com/media/XGyZtXWTsybJu/giphy.gif 1995

Pixar’s Toy Story becomes the first CGI feature length animation. As stated on IMDB website "Each frame took 4 to 13 hours (depending on the complexity of the shot) of time on a RenderFarm consisting of 87 2-CPU SparcStation 20's, 30 4-CPU Sparc-Station 20's and a SparcServer 1000".

https://68.media.tumblr.com/5c8010dde98c336043094167cd3ce36d/tumblr_ndfs4oHYTD1st0dt8o1_250.gif 2000s Technique: Motion Capture

Motion Capture was first used in biomechanics studies in 1970s and 1980s, and then expanded to entertainment, education and animation. The idea is to record the movements of human body and using those data to animate and create characters on computer. Even though it was existed in 1970s, the first use of motion capture technique in movies, was in the film Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/d3cac2a4c20f3afc4894b559ef2708c5/tumblr_n6gwsmBfj91rqyzc2o1_400.gif 2001

John A. Davis, in partner with Nickelodeon creates Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius first CGI film made using off the shelf hardware. Off the shelf hardware are usually built and delivered by third party vendors. It was the first movie by Nickelodeon to receive an academy award nomination.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwd1jalLzA1qcntf5o1_r1_500.gif 2004

Warner Bro’s and Dreamworks’ Polar Express first uses motion capture, computer animation and 3D technology together. It was the first mainstream movie to be released as in 3D IMAX format. 2005

Disney’s Chicken Little is the first computer animated film in 3D Formats, Disney Digital 3D and RealD 3D. Originally the beginnings of the film were supposed to be traditionally hand drawn, but the plans changed later.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6r5lefgP91qm6oc3o1_500.gif

2006

Elephants Dream, directed by Bassam Kurdali, is the first computer generated animated film using open source software. Post production and texturing on this movie is done by using a software we all used in the class class GIMP.

http://33.media.tumblr.com/cb08efd78da1905f1d979fd02a2f4b0b/tumblr_mhou89eAnc1r2o0mno1_500.gif 2007

Flatland, animated by Ladd Ehlinger Jr., is the first CGI film animated by one person using Lightwave 3D and Adobe After Effects. This movie is based on a book of same name by Edwin Abbot, and about geometric characters living in a two dimensional world.

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu186/Andrei_STF3/Flatland2007DVDRIPXViD-CGshareth-2.png

Beowulf, directed by Robert Zemeckis, is entirely made with CGI known for realism, and also utilizing motion capture to incorporate the actor’s facial expressions. This movie was inspired by an Old English epic poem of the same name by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet sometime in between 8th and 11th century.

http://midpenbeowulf.wikispaces.com/file/view/Wealhtheow.gif/54287574/Wealhtheow.gif 2009

Plumiferos, directed by Daniel DeFlippo and Gustavo Giannini, becomes the first feature film to use open source software.It was originally titled Plumíferos - Aventuras voladoras. All 3D models, animation, lighting and render process were done under GNU and linux operating system.

Avatar, directed by James Cameron, is the first movie to use performance capture to create photorealistic 3D characters. On a talk James Cameron mentioned that he started working on the film as early as 1990's; however, the technology did not existed at that time for the film he was envisioning. 2010

Pixar Animation Studio and Walt Disney Pictures create Toy Story 3 is an 3D computer animated movie, became the first CGI animated feature length film to gross more than 1 billion dollars. This movie was nominated for 5 academy awards. It has received 99% like rating on rotten tomatoes as well.

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