At Magnetic Dreams, we've had the chance to work on a number of Sesame Street spots in the past including one-off parodies like BIRDWALK EMPIRE and recurring segments like COOKIE'S CRUMBY PICTURES, SUPER GROVER 2.0, and ELMO THE MUSICAL. Most often, we're creating 3D computer-generated worlds and characters to populate around Muppet performances shot on green screen. But, with ELMO'S CHRISTMAS DREAM, we had the great opportunity to re-imagine the characters for 2D animation.
The spot is a music video greeting card of Elmo and friends celebrating the holiday. I conceived of a somewhat hand-crafted aesthetic of cut shapes and oil crayon with graphic patterning introduced as the character textures. This approach allowed me to play to my love of Mary Blair and Maurice Noble and the final animated product is 2D After Effects puppeting much like that we used on BLUE'S CLUES. I think we were able to make some magic with an incredibly short turnaround andcreate something lively and quick.
This was an all-hands-on-deck-the halls way for us to end the year with an incredible crew: Creative Director Rickey Boyd co-directed with me while also boarding it and overseeing animation (it was also his idea to do those character-themed snowflakes). Abdel Pizzarro rigged these guys and he and Kimberly Cranfield animated the leads. Rhea Borzak animated the secondary characters and heads up the comp department of Judd Eschliman and Joel Gibbs on effects. And, producer and john-of-all-trades John Hamm was crucial in bringing it all together and making it happen even as he reminded us it was impossible.
Here's a closer look at my character and background art. Ernie in his full snowsuit still puts a grin on my face. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you, your friends, and family!
The Bay-ification of The Ninja Turtles has hit movie theaters, noses and all. These characters have been realized in so many iterations across every medium but I still enjoy that such an oddball concept can continue to have such cultural currency. The impending release resulted in a little reminiscing with color artist Emilio Lopez and director Roy Burdine about our time working on the 4Kids' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series in the early 00s. The series ran closer to the action roots of the comic book than the popular pizza eating version of the 80s. Aesthetically, the characters had an angular athleticism and the backgrounds were built around large swaths of black.
I wrote about the cinematic approach we had to color HERE but here are two more of my paintings, the first featuring one of my favorite places on the planet (the blue whale room of the Museum of Natural History in NYC).
By the end of the series, the Turtles visited dark alternate futures and went on an epic adventure tracing the origins of the original Shredder. There was the episode, Insane in the Membrane, that didn't originally air in America. Although it's notable for delving into Baxter Stockman's back story, his decomposing clone body gets his jaw kicked off by April O' Neil (!). And, another show had its plug pulled before we completed production because it featured the back alley surgery of conjoined infants who become two of the Turtles greatest enemies. Yeesh. Going after a lighter tone, the network sent the team to the future and rebooted the show as Fast Forward in 2003.
A flatter, brighter palette accentuated the change and I had the opportunity to develop the color for the core cast and vehicles:
I mean, really bright. I originally colored the "Dark Turtles" skin tones in off shades of green before they landed on something closer to their corresponding bandanna colors.
And, with their future swank penthouse headquarters and training dojo, here are a few of the Fast Forward Turtle backgrounds I painted:
Since moving to Nashville, I've been working with the local animation studio Magnetic Dreams as Art Director on a number of Sesame Street-related projects, specifically the new Sesame Street segment Elmo the Musical. Shot entirely on green screen, Magnetic is responsible for creating and compositing the fully computer-generated environment, effects, and any additional characters, like Velvet, Elmo's theater curtain companion.
If you check out the reel above, you can see that Magnetic, co-owned byMike Halsey and Don Culwell, brings the highest level of skill to a diverse array of projects and animation techniques. They've turned Marvel's Iron Man and Thor "motion comics" into mini blockbusters, designed motion graphics for videos for musicians like Taylor Swift and Shakira, and conjured creature and special effects for the feature film AFTER. Magnetic Dreams’ working
relationship with Sesame goes back a few years now, on CG-animated projects like Twiddlebugs and Super Grover 2.0, and Elmo the Musical is the next great step forward.
I've said before that my favorite part of working in a studio is how everyone's contributions go into making the whole greater than the sum of the parts. As I showed in previous posts, the look of a given episode often begins with Photoshop style frames by myself and freelance artist Astrid Riemer and storyboards by Rick Ritter. But, the team at Magnetic goes way beyond those initial designs to make them a reality for Elmo to play in. Since movie or TV credits rarely give you any real insight into the work people do, I thought I'd use this post to shout out some of my favorite contributions from the crew here on the first few episodes of Elmo the Musical so far.You can find pictures and bios for the following artists on the Magnetic website, here.
(Barnacles from SEA CAPTAIN: THE MUSICAL, CG models by Tim Crowson)
The creative director, Rickey Boyd, is also a Muppeteer who basically brought Nashville animation to Sesame Street and vice versa. He’s part of the Sesame family and he
couldn’t be more attuned to the needs of a shot at both ends of the
camera and production pipeline. But, I'm mostly in awe of how he can channel the spirit of the Muppets, with on-model Muppet anatomy, into his hand-drawn character designs.
(Barnacles from SEA CAPTAIN: THE MUSICAL, design by Rickey Boyd)
(Unused Asteroid character from PIZZA: THE MUSICAL, design by Rickey Boyd)
Producer, John Hamm, steadies the ship with brightly colored schedules. On the creative/technical end, John works with Layout Artist Craig Simpson and Visual Effects Supervisor Julian Herrera to integrate the footage and camera movements of the live action shoot with that of our CG environments. Julian is initially on-set at Sesame in Queens to problem solve on the front end and record set data with the placement of tracking markers. All of this was best realized in a shot from CIRCUS: THE MUSICAL in which Elmo walks a plank, bounces from a trampoline, and leaps through the air as the camera whips around to capture his crotch-first landing on the head of a cactus. It's a living...
(CIRCUS: THE MUSICAL)
Our CG department is responsible for modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering all assets for the show. My first literal "Wow" moment was when I saw my style frame for the "Temple of Spoons" come to life in the model by CG Lead Tim Crowson.
("The Temple of Spoons" from GUACAMOLE: THE MUSICAL, Concept Art by Michael Lapinski)
("The Temple of Spoons" from GUACAMOLE: THE MUSICAL, CG by Tim Crowson)
Tim alternates leading episodes with CG Artist Brad Applebaum. Brad modeled most of Pizza the Musical, especially the rad spaceships but I think it's cool to note that he's responsible for problem-solving the iconic opening to the show along with Motion Graphic Director, Rhea Borzak. I cannot wait to share more work from future episodes by Tim, Brad, and the rest of the CG Team, includingYannick Amegan and Lyn Lopez.
(Opening number from ELMOTHE MUSICAL, CG by Brad Applebaum)
Our Compositing department is responsible for bringing everything together, from the unsung art of keying out the green screen footage and rotoscoping (particularly Melissa Cowart) to color correction to the final lighting changes and visual effects.
Rhea Borzak leads the team and is an accomplished artist in her own right, designing the backgrounds for the infamous Katy Perry/ Elmo video and short Sesame films like this magical firefly spot for the letter "N." On ETM, Rhea created and animated the playful squiggles, bursts, and pops that illustrate Elmo's thought process.
(ELMOTHE MUSICAL, motion graphics by Rhea Borzak)
The next few images should give you an idea of the extra artistry that the Comp team brings to each episode. In order to emulate the aesthetic and devices of a Broadway musical, I'll often design special lighting for the musical numbers. Compositor Joel Robertson was the first to master this challenge head on for GUACAMOLE: THE MUSICAL.
(Special Lighting from GUACAMOLE: THE MUSICAL, Visual Effects by Joel Robertson)
PIZZA: THE MUSICAL was our space epic. Judd Eschliman, Justin Burks, Josh Stafford, and Joel Robertson were responsible for animating the deep space effects below:
Abdel Pizarro had already shown his goods as a CG character animator on our direct-to-DVD video game parody movie Elmo's Alphabet Challengebut I didn't know he was also a natural Compositor and effects guy. He cooked up the lasers and force fields for PIZZA and composited Elmo's "Golden Shoes" dream world for ATHLETE.
(PIZZA: THE MUSICAL, Special Effects by Abdel Pizarro)
(Dream Sequence from ATHLETE: THE MUSICAL, Visual Effects by Abdel Pizarro)
Remember what I said way back at the top about the "whole being greater than the sum of the parts?" Well, this shot below is a little bit of gravy that added subtle character to the entire meal. As scripted, Elmo's flying up and down in his AIRPLANE:THE MUSICAL plane. But Josh Stafford decided to play with my chubby marshmallowy clouds by having the wing nick one with a rubbery recoil and a strafing trail of mist. It's the sort of whimsy that Kevin Clash brings to his performance of Elmo and I love it when our artists infuse moments with as much charm.
(AIRPLANE: THE MUSICAL, Visual Effects by Josh Stafford)
Perhaps the greatest challenge we face on Elmo the Musical is to model, texture, light, and animate completely computer-generated characters so that they believably interact with and live in the same space as Elmo and the other Muppets. Velvet the Curtain appears in every episode but there are guest stars that present their own challenges. Designed and Animation Directed by Rickey Boyd, the goal is to create characters that look Muppet-crafted and convey some of what makes puppeteering so endearing and yet employs the dynamism the script calls forwith CG Animation, and rigged to do so by Technical Directors Harry Han and Jeremy Estrada.
Sometimes, an Animator has to bring a slab of rock to life, as Jamie Coakley had to do with the singing and dancing Rhombus of Recipes...
(The Rhombus of Recipes from GUACAMOLE: THE MUSICAL, Animated by Jamie Coakley)
... and sometimes, an Animator has to perform an elegant dance number with the stumpy flippers and trunk body of a whale, as Andrew Lee Atteberry had to do with Moby Pink.
(Moby Pink from SEA CAPTAIN: THE MUSICAL, Animated by Andrew Lee Atteberry)
If you've made it this far, I think you can appreciate how much work, talent, and thought go into each moment of a deceptively simple looking show. And, that's not to mention the even more invisible contributions like that of Human Resources and Accounting Guru Lisa Halsey, Editor Victor Albright, and our IT team of George Friend and James Ramsden.
Lastly, the entire crew at Sesame has taken 40+ years of experience writing, scoring, singing, designing, educating, and performing for children (and adults) and created a perfection distillation of all those skills and poured them into vibrant mini-musicals of Elmo's imagining.
It's all a part of Elmo's imagination, we just work for him.
With the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in the news due to the Michael Bay movie in development I thought I'd share some work from my days as Color Supervisor on the 4Kids Ninja Turtle cartoon. I just posted PART II HERE.
The palette for the show was established by Beatriz Ramos, owner of DANCING DIABLO studio and visionary artist in her own right. She was a thoughtful instructor and runs her business with a conscience and artistic integrity. My predecessor was Liz Artinian, one of the best animation painters in NYC. I came on at the start of Season 3 through the FAST FORWARD re-launch and I worked alongside crazy-skilled painters like Reginald Butler and Emilio Lopez.
Over the course of a few seasons, the director, Roy Burdine, and I kept pushing the cinematic potential for color, including the addition of special color treatments for characters and props for situations like Night, Underwater, and Firelight. Looked good, but a load to keep track of for production.
Below are some examples of color model coverage for certain scenes. These are the style sheets we'd send as reference to Don Woo Studios in Korea. We tried to communicate as much as possible in a few images. I also included video to show a comparison with the final on-air product.
DERELICT TRICERATON SHIP from "New Blood"
You can see this environment starting at the 40 second mark.
BISHOP'S AREA 51 LAB from "Aliens Among Us"
You can see this environment starting at the 57 second mark.
AIRBORNE CITY at Night from "Mission of Gravity"
You can see this environment starting at the 35 second mark.
This second batch of 2011 art focuses on designs I did for animated projects, shows, and pitches. There's work for Sesame Street and Nickelodeon and some process designs for concepts that may someday see the light of day. Here's Part 1 and onward to 2012...!
Now that I'm at the tail-end of FEEDING GROUND, I was cleaning out some files and came across my folder of art from one of my first jobs: Lead Digital Designer on Nickelodeon's BLUE'S CLUES.
I'm very proud to have been a part of that show and a process that included an almost entirely self-contained animation production line in Midtown Manhattan. That crew essentially pushed the use of Adobe Photoshop and After Effects to the degree that future versions of both programs accommodated the needs of our process.
Essentially, an in-house team of artists would sculpt and craft objects that they would photograph and import into Photoshop. Those art elements were then adjusted and assembled by the Digital Design team to create the backgrounds and characters of the show who were then animated by the Animation Department one row over. For me, nothing beats working with friends and creative peers on a project and seeing the results evolve exponentially across each department.
Cheers to BLUE'S CLUES and everyone that touched it.
(The Blue's Clues staff makes a guest appearance in this shot. Can you spot me?
The shot itself was composed by Kelly O'Brien - lower right)
(A collection of some of my favorite elements that I worked on for the show)
Below are a few Illustrations I did for BLUE'S CLUES and BLUE'S ROOM for various Nickelodeon publications.
