Toon-In Talk

Hello and welcome to thirteenth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. If you are listening to this podcast, you’ve probably considered becoming an animator at some point. The traditional method is to attend a university animation program, but higher education isn’t necessarily the correct route for everyone. There are dozens of online programs dedicated to teaching 3D animation, but there is only one that focuses on the

traditional, hand drawn method. Rick Pickens discusses his animation career and his new animation program: “Animation in 12 BLANK Lessons.”

Show Notes

Rick worked in animation in 1987 at the same company as Doug TenNapel when digital animation started to gain traction.

He’s worked away from the animation industry for some years, but he continues to be involved with teaching, puppetry, training courses, and his own projects.

Whitney and Rick both agree that we are now on the edge of a new animation boom and it’s fantastic and exciting!

Joe Murray was the animator who branched out and tried to form his own content platform. It was called KaboingTV.

The cartoons today are radically different from anything ever created before and people want to see new and different things.

One of the reasons Rick created his program is that he wants to see more cartoons and he wants to give people the opportunity to make them.

Rick explains that it’s better to start the process now then waiting.

He’s helping potential animation students get their feet wet by creating an online course through Udemy called “Animation in 12 BLANK Steps” and he also has a free online course.

Rick based his program’s name on Bob Heath’s book, Animation in Twelve Hard Steps.

What makes his program different from other animation programs is that it takes a student through the entire animation pipeline, ending with a finished project they can share.

“Animation in 12 BLANK Steps” is designed for fans of traditional, 2D animation. You need to bring a desire to create something with old-fashioned drawing tools or a drawing program on your tablet.

The program isn’t a deep dive into technique, but rather to carry through your idea and finish a project.

Whitney has psychic powers, not really. When she looks at people’s artwork, she can tell who has influenced them.

If you want to be animator or a comic book artist/writer, the way to do it these days is to get in it now!

Rick declares, “Let’s go make some funny cartoons!”

Hello and welcome to twelfth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. Whitney has a treat for all listeners today! Not only does she interview the fantastic voice actress Veronica Taylor, famous for her role as Ash Ketchum on Pokemon, Astroblast, Welcome to the Wayne!, and Mofy, but she speaks with Raina Taylor. Raina is Veronica’s uber cool daughter, so this episode is a first for the show: a mother-daughter interview. Veronica discusses her career and Raina shares her input on having a voice actress mom.

Show Notes

For the first time ever on the podcast, Whitney interviews a mother-daughter duo!

Veronica has always been an actress and went to college for acting.

Raina was never starstruck having her mom being a recognized voice actress. It was very normal for her, although they do funny voices around the house all the time.

Veronica’s first go into voice over dubbing for anime. Her first big role was Amelia from Slayers, then she became the voice of the kid who has to be the very best: Ash Ketchum from Pokemon.

Veronica loves acting, no matter if she’s dubbing or voice over in English. She wants to make the character come to life.

Raina thinks her mom does an awesome job every time and Veronica likes having Raina help her practice.

She got the role of Ash, because the same production company that distributed Slayers in the US also had the license for Pokemon. All she knew about the series is that one episode gave kids seizures in Japan.

Raina is very down to Earth when it comes to being the daughter of an iconic character. It’s also great to make her laugh.

Whitney thinks Ash’s Pokemon trainer skills are lacking, but Veronica begs to differ as he follows his heart.

The differences for voicing Ash in a movie and in an episode is that for the first few movies it was in an actual movie studio and the sessions were bigger, but later they were similar for recording episodes.

Veronica and Raina both voiced the Pokemon Sentret, while Veronica also did Diglett and a few others.

Raina and Veronica were both in the movie The Boy Who Wanted to be a Bear. She remembers her mother read the lines for her when they were in the studio. This happened when she was a very young, so spends a lot more time reading than behind the mic now.

Raina is a John Green fan!

Raina’s favorite Pokemon is Charmander and Evee, while Veronica likes Pikachu, Lapras, and Treecko. While they think Jigglypuff and Mr. Mime are weird.

She was the voice of Ash for eight years before Pokemon USA replaced the cast with new people.

Veronica’s favorite memories associated with Pokemon is that she was pregnant with her daughter during the first season and she so happy to play such a positive character.

It’s not hard for her to transition between characters as long as she has a solid hook in the character.

Raina loves that her mom plays a cute little bunny character.

Raina doesn’t want to be a voice actress, but she wants to do something related to the arts or an accountant.

Veronica is evading her taxes! No, they both declare peace and to eat healthy!

Hello and welcome to eleventh episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. Whitney had the pleasure of interviewing a legendary actor of screen and stage, the incomparable Ed Asner. Asher is famous for not only playing Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but he has lent his voice to many animated shows and movies. You might recognize him as Hudson on Gargoyles, Granny Good from the DC Animated Universe, and as Carl Fredricksen from Up. He even tells Whitney he hates her spunk to her delight!

Show Notes

Ed Asner has a prolific career ranging over fifty years, including Broadway, TV, movies, and more.

He was the voice of Carl Fredicksen on Up, he was also on Freakazoid!, Captain Planet, Gargoyles, Spider-Man, and Batman: The Animated Series.

The villain on Batman scared Whitney as a child.

He started out as a radio actor and when he switched over to visual performances, Ed had to retrain himself on using his voice.

They talk about the weather, the various places where Ed has lived, and how he dislikes New York.

On Gargoyles, Ed was intimidated by his fellow voice actors because of their talent. The show had a great staff and he especially notes Greg Weisman as a writer.

Ed sings the Jeopardy theme as Whitney searches for a number.

He loved playing Granny Good from the DC Animated Universe.

When he plays a villain, Ed draws influences from the characters in the Dick Tracy comics.

Carl Fredricksen wasn’t specifically made for Ed, he had to audition like everyone else.

Ed says that avuncular is the best way to describe old grumps.

The entire recording session for Up lasted about six to eight sessions totaling about four-six hours each.

Ed took a big spill in the Pixar recording room, but he went back to work without a problem.

Actors are regular people who love to play certain parts and indulge in certain character traits, but they especially love to keep people surprised.

Ed thinks of Up as a double love story, the first is with Ellie and the other is when Russell.

He wishes that dogs and cats could communicate with humans like Dug in the movie.

They talk about Up’s emotional impact on people and on Ed himself.

Ed says that he is most like Carl Fredricksen out of all the characters he has voiced.

We end the interview with a drug PSA.

Hello and welcome to tenth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. At the mention of the name Rankin-Bass, it probably stirs up nostalgic Christmas memories of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, A Year Without a Santa Claus, and other holiday specials using stop-motion puppetry. While Rankin-Bass might be best known for its Christmas specials, it was actually a major animation and film studio that produced many popular animated series and movies. The problem is that Rankin-Bass’ story is waiting to be told. Documentary maker John Brickley and Rankin-Bass historian Rich Goldschmidt have combined their forces to make The Enchanted World of Rankin-Bass documentary, chronicling the studio’s story from beginning to end.

Hello and welcome to ninth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. American Dad is a popular animated sitcom from the deranged, talented mind of Seth Macfarlane-Family Guy creator. The show recently switched networks from FOX to TBS and American Dad is now free to explore more creative and lewd plots that push the envelope so far they are blinding the censors. At the New York Comic-Con, Whitney scored a roundtable interview with the American Dad cast: Dee Bradley Baker, Rachel Macfarlane, Wendy Schaal, and Scott Grimes and the producers: Brian Boyle and Matt Weitzman.

Show Notes

The first interview is with voice actors Dee Bradley Baker and Rachael Macfarlane.

Rachael Macfarlane and her brother Seth Macfarlane worked together for years and she is very complimentary about his work. Seth encouraged her to try voice acting.

The cast recorded the episodes a year before their release.

Rachael loves the freedom of being a voice actor, meaning it can go on forever and she is free to play anybody, anything, and from anywhere. Dee likes it, because it’s quick, air conditioned, and he doesn’t have to remember his lines.

Rachael and Dee both love the normalcy of being voice actors.

Dee wants to create an episode where Klaus and Roger start a fish stick factory.

The show is on TBS now, so the American Dad crew have more freedom to be creative.

Dee speaks German fluently.

Rachael’s favorite animated show is Pippa Pig and Dee loves Avatar.

The producers are well aware of the voice acting cast’s capabilites and limits. They are thrown voices during the table read to see what the voice actors can do.

The second interview is with producers Matt Weitzman and Brian Boyle.

The second interview features the producers

They never thought American Dad would be on the air for so long.

In the beginning the show was compared to Family Guy, but American Dad soon made itself distinct, such as time slot, dedication to story, and characterization.

They claim to be doctors of comedy.

With the move to TBS, they are allowed to cuss and show different forms of nudity.

Whitney explains how familial relations work.

Both are really happy where the series is going and hope it will continue. The “Chris” is Chris Robertson, an animator on the show and prior interviewee.

If Roger wasn’t an alien, he would be a duck because he is so adaptive.

The third interview is with voice actors Scott Grimes and Wendy Schaal.

Wendy loves the energy and attention American Dad is getting from TBS. Scott loves the advertising their giving the show.

American Dad has made 205 episodes and it is a lot of storylines for the actors to keep track of.

Kevin Bacon loves the show.

They don’t do group recording sessions anymore, because Seth is very busy.

Wendy and Scott discuss their favorite episodes.

Scott released a record years ago and the writers included those songs in the show as a joke.

Hello and welcome to eighth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. For animation fans, the release of a new animated film is always exciting. 2015 is going to have a lot of animated films showing on the silver screen, but yo have to wonder what will succeed and what will bomb at the box office. Whitney interviews geek financial analyst Tim Beyers to discuss what 2015 animated movies will be a success and what will fail.

Show Notes

Tim Beyers writes about geek financial news for The Motley Fool.

Last year, he and Whitney discussed which animated films would be successful in 2014 and they repeat the same theme for 2015.

Tim thinks that Minions will be this year’s success followed close by Inside Out.

Pixar films are still successful, but with the reboot of Disney Animation, the studio has taken the original Pixar magic and inserted it into their own movies.

Disney Animation movies have been more successful than Pixar lately, but this could be Pixar’s year with the release of two animated films.

Whitney thinks Pixar will do better than Disney.

Sequels have a better chance of earning more money than the originals, because the fan base is already established and audiences want to see more.

Inside Out has the classic Pixar formula, especially story, but Minions are extremely marketable.

Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud do the voice of the minions, not Dee Bradley Baker.

Tim and Whitney both love it with professional voice actors get to strut their stuff in feature films.

Tim thinks Hotel Transylvania 2 will be the least successful and the Peanuts movie has enough juice to pull ahead.

Whitney is optimistic about both. She thinks Monster Trucks will be the least successful and it might be copying the Cars.

It’s exciting what is happening with Disney with the number of properties they are releasing. The House of Mouse is becoming the mother of all studios.

When Disney does a great job they do a GREAT job, but Whitney doesn’t want the studio to get complacent. In response, Time says Disney is far away from doing that because they’re still competing with Warner Brothers.

Big Hero 6 was good, but it was predictable. Story still remains king.

Please note Pixar doesn’t make all 3D movies.

The Peanuts movie has historical fans, but the franchise is being reintroduced to a whole new generation who aren’t familiar with Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the game. It’s a gamble, however, so were The Muppets.

Original ideas are becoming scarce, but they are around and they come from studios with money to burn.

Online fundraising platforms, however, do allow creative individuals to raise money for their projects. The Internet allows more creators to put their work out there, but there is a lot more competition.

The hardest part of making a creative property is making the actual property.

Tim declares that the next three years in animated entertainment is a new golden age of cartoons, animation, and more.

Just for fun, this interview rounds out with Tim’s interview from last year.

Hello and welcome to seventh episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. Mortal Kombat X is the latest game in the legendary fighting series and Whitney scored a interview with the voice of the villainous Quan Chi. Ronald M. Banks is the extreme opposite of the villain roles (meaning he’s a swell guy) he tends to get cast for in his extensive musical and theater career. In this interview, he discusses his journey into voice over and how he plans to grow his career.

Show Notes

Ron’s famous voice over role as Quan Chi in the Mortal Kombat series: Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat, and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

He also played Jafar in the Aladdin Musical Spectacular at Disney California Adventure. On stage, he is most famous for playing the king in the King and I as well as Sweeny Todd in Sweeny Todd.

Ron loves playing the bad guy and finds it very cathartic.

Ron describes Quan Chi as a sorcerer, who is evil but is not an epic villain.

He used to be a gamer and his game of choice was World of Warcraft, but he found that he needed to devout more time to real life.

When he voiced the role of Quan Chi, Ron is still learning what the character’s role in the game is. As Jafar, Ron understands the menacing sorcerer’s mind quite well.

Whitney got the reference right (though it’s sweat, not silver blood).

The game has over the top violence and he thinks players will find it more humorous than gory.

Ron thinks that when CGI gets too real it won’t appeal to people.

He’s also been in some movies: No Connection and Sentimental Over You. For Ron, when he acts on TV or in movies, he has to back off with his voice. He’s used to projecting his voice.

Some of the challenges Ron faces is the newness of being a voice actor and keeping a show fresh when he’s on stage.

It’s important for actors on stage to be in the moment to keep their role fresh for the audience.

Ron is a vocal coach and he shares some advice on keeping your voice strong and healthy.

Whitney wants to know some funny theater stories and Ron reveals a whopper.

Both share their thoughts on Andrew Lloyd Webber.

SPOILER ALERT! Ron explains Quan Chi’s fate.

They discuss the wonders of technology and the trouble of finding silence in a house. (Whitney recorded this episode in her closet.)

Voice acting is a very competitive market.

During the day, Ron works as a Disney guest relations host, he teaches voice, and works with kids.

Hello and welcome to sixth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. If you grew up in the 1990s, you most likely watched Nickelodeon and were a fan of their Nick Toons. The 1990s have become known as the Golden Age of Nickelodeon Studios and nostalgia always comes into play when that decade is mentioned. Mathew Klickstein felt the same way, so he wrote Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age chronicling the adventures of cast, crew, and other cool people from the “only kid’s network.”

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Toon-In-Talk Episode 06: Interview with Mathew Klickstein

Toon-In-Talk Episode 06: Interview with Mathew Klickstein

Podcasts Toon-In-Talk April 24, 2015 Whitney Grace

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Hello and welcome to sixth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. If you grew up in the 1990s, you most likely watched Nickelodeon and were a fan of their Nick Toons. The 1990s have become known as the Golden Age of Nickelodeon Studios and nostalgia always comes into play when that decade is mentioned. Mathew Klickstein felt the same way, so he wrote Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age chronicling the adventures of cast, crew, and other cool people from the “only kid’s network.”

Episode 6

Show Notes

• Whitney tells Matt she had been searching Nickelodeon’s history herself. He tells her that a lot of people told him they wanted to write a book on Nick, but they never got around to it. He affirms there are a lot more stories to tell about “the only kid’s network.”

• He recommends reading the academic book Nickelodeon Nation by Heather Hendershot.

• Matt discusses details about how it was published and why he decided to write an oral history of Nickelodeon.

• Whitney asks questions about why Matt formatted the book the way he did, especially when it comes to information about his interviewees.

• Matt interviewed over 250 people for the book. He also had to leave out a lot of material.

• To track people down, it was actually the easiest getting Melissa Joan Hart, Kenan Thompson, and others. It was extremely difficulty getting people who worked on only one show, like Richard Price.

• Six degrees really comes into play for rounding up the interviewees.

• Slimed was more like producing a documentary than writing a book. Matt loves oral history, but he wants his next book to be in prose.

• In the early days, Nickelodeon licensed cartoons to air on the station. Nickelodeon made Looney Tunes popular again. When the licensing came up again, Warner Brothers wanted more money from Nickelodeon.

• We can thank the FCC for putting an end to 30 minute long toy commercials. Networks were also finally allowed to produce their own cartoons.

• The original three cartoons were: Doug, Ren and Stimpy, and Rugrats.

• Nickelodeon found six shows they made pilots for. They found potential shows by literary going to animator’s garage.

• Whitney mentions the yearly Nickelodeon writing and animation contest. Both discuss how Nick has changed its content and yet remained the same.

• Whitney brings up Ren and Stimpy and Matt discusses its heated history.

• The creator John Kricfalusi had an ill reputation, though he is a creative genius.

• Whitney and Matt talk about making something new and original. Neither wants to repeat the creative past.

• Money is a necessary evil. Whitney mentions some of her hopes before she got her book contract. Matt recommends people use a publisher and gives his advice about self-publishing and YouTube.

• Matt’s favorite NickToon is Ren and Stimpy and Whitney’s is Aah! Real Monsters.

• Matt declares the episode over!

Hello and welcome to fifth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. In December 2014, I had the honor of interviewing the animator Monty Oum of Rooster Teeth. Monty Oum was one of the creative leads for the American anime RWBY. He was an entirely self-taught animator, specializing in online cartoons and videogames. This interview was originally meant to air in the same month, but the sound quality was very poor. In January 2015, Monty Oum had a severe allergic reaction to a medical procedure and he passed away in February. Please join Whitney as she honors Monty’s memory.

Show Notes

Monty is a self-taught animator and never formerly attended a school.

When he was a kid, he used to watch cartoons, mostly anime, and he loved to count frames and learn animation tricks.

He describes RWBY as an emulation of an emulation. It emulates anime and anime emulates early Disney cartoons. Ironically, Monty’s career more or less started when he made fan videos based off Final Fantasy and Dead or Alive.

All stories are copies of copies. There are originally ideas, but they are usually inspired by something else. The creator takes the inspiration and makes something new.

Whitney is curious about the Rooster Teeth animation process and Monty explains how coding is involved, how they use skeletons, and how there’s a lot of copying involved.

They both geeked out over Pixar’s The Incredibles and discuss Universal Man.

RWBY is about a group of four girls who are fighters and how they attend a school to become stronger warriors. They discuss more about the world of RWBY.

Whitney confuses stop motion for motion capture, but she’s still impressed that Rooster Teeth is using it.

Whitney gushes over RWBY’s fighting scenes, which was Monty’s main speciality.

Most of RWBY’s characters are female, in order to animate their feminine qualities they sometimes have women put on the motion capture suit or they male animators have been known to wear heels.

Monty equated fashion and high heels with powers.

He also points out that having actually items to hold when you’re in a motion capture suit makes it a whole lot easier to animate later.

In season three of RWBY, expect the characters to grow physically and mentally.

Contrary to popular belief, Monty never watched Dragon Ball Z, but he was still a large fan of tournament arcs in anime.

Rooster Teeth has many other new projects in mind and they’re dedicated to making great cartoons.

Hello and welcome to fourth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews. When you think about animation, you most likely think about a US studio. In fact, a lot of animation is made in other countries and there are a lot of fantastic studios overseas. Whitney had the luck to interview with Richard Thomas of One Animation, a Singapore studio, and discuss new animation projects, like in Asia, and what they love about animation.

Show Notes

One Animation is based in Singapore and is six years old. Richard is their creative director.

One Animation is more known for Rob the Robot, Oddbods, and the Insectibles.

Richard is originally from Manchester, England, but he’s worked all over the world and his animation background is predominantly game based.

Animating videogames is more piecemeal, but with television requires more prep work. On the end product you receive more feedback with games, but with television you have to wait. The end result is always the same for both: trying to create a great visual.

As a creative director, he’s more involved with the creation process, which he also considers to be more holistic.

On his current job, he draws a lot less than he did working on videogames. On television he loves working to constrain budgets on shows. Stress and deadlines remain the same, however.

Richard believes that CG is a modern trend and it’s popular because it is more accessible to people. CG animation is strongly routed in traditional animation principles. One isn’t better than the other and there is room for both.

Richard joined One Animation when he received a call from an associate and was shown the source material for a preschool show he felt had potential. It was a huge success and his career with the studio and expand into other projects.

One Animation got its name from when they higher ups needed to register with the government and they basically came up with it spur of the moment.

Working in Singapore is like working in England, except the weather is better and people are hungry for work. The biggest problem is that it’s hard to find local talent for animation.

Whitney is curious about the animation industry in Asia. She asks about Oriental DreamWorks and about animation factories.

One Animation’s mission statement is to continue their current progress, keep building their skill set, and eventually make a feature film.

Rob the Robot is preschool show about the explorations of a spacefaring group and the lessons they learn. Oddballs is an in-house show with completely silent characters and each one will resonate with you.

The Insectibles is about a boy and a grandfather who are shrunk down to the size of insects and they befriend bionic insects as they try to return to normal size.

Whitney and Richard both like intelligently written cartoons. They might consider making web toons in the future and they are working on a show that might appeal to an older audience, but Richard dislikes assigning age groups.

Richard and Whitney discuss old cartoons, the current industry, and where animation is going.

Whitney explains her master plan to one day interview John Lasseter.