A Station Eight Fan Web Site
Ask Greg Archives
Animation
Archive Index
: « First : « 100 : « 10 : Displaying #135 - #144 of 188 records. : 10 » : Last » :
Posts Per Page: 1 : 10 : 25 : 50 : 100 : All :
Entity writes...
Hi Greg,
In your latest beat sheet for the series opener, I see that the idea of the Trio being young and inexperienced was still prominant. I understand where you came from in eventually changing that, but when I first watched AWAKENING I was distraught by the Trio. Every gargoyle we saw was a full-fledged warrior. Where _were_ the inexperienced kids? The elderly? It seemed slightly out-of-sync that the Trio were such able-bodied fighters. Was the Viking attack a real threat or wasn't it?
That is just my original impression of the events of the initial Viking attack. Later on, when the gang counterattacks the camp, I can understand their participation.
I guess the battle just came off too light-heartedly when we glimped the Trio, starkly contrasting with characters like Goliath's and Demona's scenes. A real sense of danger is added by Hakon drawing Goliath's blood, boulders crashing into stone, refugees huddling about, the Captain barking orders, etc. But then we have the Trio gallavanting through the battle like it's, as Brooklyn puts it, just "fun."
I think their innocense could have been portrayed in a way that didn't detract from the realism that was so effectively installed earlier on.
This isn't intended to come off as pure criticism. AWAKENINGS was brilliant, especially Part 1. But I thought I'd mention my first impressions.
Another little thing I noticed from the beat sheet is that the flashback originally began showing the refugees entering the castle, with the Marauders/Vikings on their tail, and then both parties camp for the day till dusk. This struck me in two ways: First, it gave me a better grip of realism. Enemy attackers camping right outside the castle, both sides waiting for the battle to begin... that could've added a cool flavor to things, and immerse us more into the medieval setting. Secondly, showing the refugees herded into the castle beforehand would've better clarified the events surrounding the battle. In the final product, we jump straight into the fight and, as a result, a reason is not even necessarily needed. The Captain's off-hand comment about refugees comes off as superfluous. I remember shrugging. 'That's nice' I thought. We were in the battle. Who needed backstory? Of course, the refugees were an important component, for the sake of Tom and his mother, and to better portray the environment of 10th century Scotland. If we'd seen the prologue to the battle, that's included in the beat sheet, I think it would've been much more effective.
I guess what this comes down to in the end is my earlier message I sent to you, in which I asked about trimming episodes with Last Time and Next Time segments. You defended, saying they were useful for tightening the episodes, but I put forth, as shown here, that some valuable stuff can be lost. Of course, it's doubtful you would've wanted or could've gotten a 6th Part to AWAKENINGS, but don't you think you could use ANY extra time you have to better flesh things out?
Greg responds...
The trio are new to this warrior thing at the time of the Viking attack. Brooklyn takes it more seriously, and unfortunately we don't see much with Lex (not enough time in the episode). Broadway enjoys the battle and doesn't take it as seriously as he should. We did this on purpose in order to contrast his response in the second battle at the Viking encampment.
I don't think the realism was damaged (though, of course, you're entitled to your opinion). I just think we were showing a variety of responses to the stimuli at hand.
And we did show the elderly -- in the person of Hudson. We couldn't show everyone, so he stood in for all of his generation that still survived. The only group we didn't show at all were kids (Bronx's age). It was felt that it would just be too brutal to establish and show these kids -- only to have them smashed later.
As for the prologue, well, I liked it too. But talk about superfluous...
I mean, what would you have been willing to cut from the episode in exchange for adding that prologue. It's not like I can say, "Hey, we want this prologue. Let's animate an additional three minutes here." Ultimately we have an absolute time limit to every episode. A footage limit (based on budget concerns) that we are allowed to send overseas to be animated. Something had to go. And I think the Captain's line covers the necessary info. It might not be elegant. But it's servicable.
But don't start on the Previously and Next Time segments. They don't count. What I'm talking about is how much we were allowed to ANIMATE at our budget. That was limited to about twenty-two minutes and thirty seconds. Putting entire new sequences in would require us to speed up the pacing of everything else. Using thirty seconds for a PREVIOUSLY segment allows us to tighten pacing and cut out bad frames of animation once something is animated. Because, the truth is, nothing ever came back to us PERFECT. NOTHING.
So AGAIN, had I cut all those previously and next time segments you would not have gotten any extra scenes. You just would have had the scenes you saw with some bad animation and pacing left in. And if there's still bad animation and pacing in there -- well, trust me, we used those thirty seconds to cut out the worst of it.
We clear now?
Baal writes...
Had to ask this and I didn't see it in the archives, so here goes:
1.What companies did the the animations for the two episodes, Temptation and Future Tense? I was wondering because they did an awful good job considering some of the animation I've seen on some other nameless television shows.
2.(This may have been asked already but I don't think so.)If you had a chance to get the series going again, would you use CGI or the old animation style if you could. I guess it kinda depends on what is actually more expensive. I was always a little partial to the regular animation myself.
Greg responds...
1. This is from memory, but I'm fairly certain both of those were done by Walt Disney TV Animation Japan. It says on the episode credits, though.
2. Largely it would depend on what I could sell the higher-ups on. I'd do either if either were the only option. If given my choice (which rarely happens in this business), said choice would be based on issues of content.
Jim R. writes...
Did you ever work with computer animation when developing the Gargoyles series? I know you did some stuff for Toy Story, right? Toy Story was made by Pixar which is operated under Steve Jobs, who is also CEO of Apple. Being how I am a die-hard Macintosh person, (but do own some PCs too), do you use Macs if you've done any computer animation for anything? Mac is the best for that sort of thing.
Greg responds...
Uh, I never worked on Toy Story. I worked on Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, but that was animated traditionally with cels.
I use Macs myself. I have iMacs here and at home and some other kind of Apple something or other at my Disney office.
I have worked on some computer animated shows. Not Gargoyles, that was strictly cell. But Max Steel and Starship Troopers. But I don't personally animate anything. And I have no idea what kind of machines the animators of those series were using.
LSZ writes...
In general and on average, how long does it take to complete a whole season of say, 13 episodes of a half-hour animated show?
Greg responds...
A year.
We wrote the first season of Gargoyles (13 episodes) in ten months. Every other step in production had more or less that same ten months on a cascading schedule.
We wrote the second season of Gargoyles (52 episodes) in ten months. Every other step in production had more or less that same ten months on a cascading schedule. Obviously we had a MUCH bigger staff the second year. But we still had a harder time keeping up.
Wesley McGee (for whom Toon Disney doesn't air nightly) writes...
When you were talking about the studio that animated "Enter Macbeth", it wasn't Startoons was it? It did have that 'unique style' of theirs. Anyway I did not like Startoon's ANIMANIACS eps. (I liked the style of TMS when they did Animaniacs, who incidently are based in Japan.)
Anyway, which company -ies did the animation for Gargoyles.
Greg responds...
Most of our best animated episodes were animated by Walt Disney Television Japan. It's been so many years, that I don't remember the names of all the other companies. I have a vague recollection that Han Ho in Korea did the City of Stone four parter. But I'm not even 100% sure of that.
I don't remember who did Enter Macbeth specifically. I think it was a studio in Korea. But again, it's just been too long.
Demona Taina writes...
Heya, Greg!
I was wondering what happened to all the unseen footage of the show Gargoyles. Do you have it? If not, who does? Somebody has to have them! :P
To animate all those scenes just to have them cut and thrown in the trash? No, that can't be..
Thanks! :)
Greg responds...
What unseen footage?
Almost everything is used. We time shows to within a minute of their air lengths, before we send them to be animated. And that minute that we wind up cutting is like a frame here or three frames there.
It's not live action where entire scenes wind up on the cutting room floor.
Peter C. Roblejo, MD writes...
Hello greg. Just thought I'd respond for the third(and last) time. I'd like to thank you for your "advice." It was, of course, a lead, so I won't complain, especially given the legal position you claim to be in. It's just a terrible....truly terrible...shame that I wasn't able to impress you due to my 'prrofreading" errors. It could simply be that in my haste to respond to you, I clicked that little old button just a bit too fast. Or, it could be that I am even less impressed with your merits and capacity than you are with mine. I pore over proofreads when I deem it worth the effort. In this case, I obviously did not. In retrospect, I suppose my sub-optimal efforts were justified. Thanks again and good luck to you!
P.S. No need to write back. I can't check back. I've got other plans.
Greg responds...
Dr. Roblejo,
You seem to be upset with me. Which I don't really get. You said you won't be checking back, but just in case...
And at any rate, this info might be useful to someone else.
You write about the legal position that I "claim" to be in, as if perhaps I'm kidding about that. I'm not. I'm a creative writer, whose livelihood is based on me constantly coming up with new ideas, stories, etc. I've already been through two lawsuits with Disney, so believe me, I'm not exagerating the legal risk I take should I break policy and start reading other people's original work now. So I don't take that risk. I realize that the downside of this is that I can't mentor strangers creatively. But I teach and I try to bring new writers into the business, so hopefully I'm giving SOMETHING back.
You're clearly not happy that I picked on your proofreading skills, but I was trying to make a point that's valuable to everyone here. Like most of you, the internet makes me lazy about proofing. There are probably some proofreading errors in this message as well as all my other responses to you. I'm not going to try and justify that; I was simply pointing out that given what you were trying to accomplish, it's DEATH to have proofing errors. If you're asking for career help and advice from someone (no matter what you think of that persons "merits and capacity") then you need to "deem it worth the effort", or else why should they?
The fact that you aren't impressed with my merits and capacity (capacity?) is fine. I can't win 'em all. Though I'm not sure why you asked me for help in the first place. I mean why would you want help from someone you don't respect? Should I infer that you were just being opportunistic?
At any rate, as I tried to indicate, I'm not sure how much help I could have been anyway. I won't read your work "over the transom". And I don't live in New York and have no connections there. I therefore gave you the best advice I could under the circumstances. Proofread carefully. Try to find an agent. And pitch to networks that air stuff that is similar too, but not the same as, what you've got.
Given the forum, I'm not sure what else you expected to get out of our exchange.
However, if I was rude in any way, I do apologize. That was certainly not my intent. Good luck with your work.
Greg Weisman
Fontaine writes...
I'm writing a paper on computer animation and special fx and I was wondering if you could describe the process by which you create the animation...like what programs do you use, how much time it takes, etc.
Greg responds...
I know nothing technically about how computer animation is made -- regarding things like programs. Sorry. You might try asking Roy Sato in the comment room. (Sorry, Roy.)
Peter C. Roblejo, MD writes...
Dear Greg-
To respond to your response: you're not being snide, just honest. I live in the New York City Metro area..within 40 minutes in fact. As for prrofreading, as a writer, editing and proofreading is essential in every way. I assure you my material has been edited several times and is imminently to be published by 3 separate online web companies. Of course, the chances are small, yet I would defer to your wisdom and experience in this field for a way to crack it! I believe this has serious possibilities because the material is different from what's out there, and yet very much within the genre. Can you help? Thanks for your first response. (I'm being presumptuous but here's my e-mail just in case: kevlarpcr@aol.com)
Greg responds...
I can't help. Or rather, as I state in the rules for this site, I won't. Because if I help you, I'd have to offer the same help to everyone -- and I'd just be overwhelmed.
In addition, I can't read your stuff, because it's original, and that would put me at legal risk. And I can't recommend what I haven't read. So you see the bind.
[And of course, the reason I made the proofreading comment was because there were proofreading errors in your last post, which didn't exactly impress me. You also misspelled "prrofreading" in this post, but I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that was a joke.]
I am willing however to make general recommendations. Unfortunately, though I know there is some animation production in NYC, I don't live there and I don't know much about it. I guess my first recommendation is to get an agent to represent your work. Then depending on what the material is -- and, no, I don't want to know -- you should pitch that material to the network that airs stuff that's (a) similar to but (b) not duplicated by your stuff.
Good luck.
Peter C. Roblejo, MD writes...
Dear Mr. Weisman,
I am home sick today and for the first time was exposed to the Max Steel show. To see an entertainment medium of this kind on regular TV was amazing. It also occurred to me that this may afford me the opportunity I've been looking for to further my own ideas: I am an author, published through the internet. My chronicles deal with characters similar to those on Max Steel, and although this is not a request for employment, advice on how to penetrate the industry would be most appreciated. I feel my ideas could inject some fresh variety to this action genre. In fact, I think it was made for it. Please help.
Greg responds...
Well, Peter, not to be snide, but my first bit of advice is to proofread. (And just cuz I don't, doesn't mean you shouldn't.)
After that, there's no quick or surefire way to get into the biz. Where do you live? (I mean what city. I'm not interested in your address.) If you're not living in L.A. (or maybe New York) than you're clearly not serious about being part of the animation business. People with established careers, like Cary Bates for example, can afford to move to the city or town of their choice and communicate via e-mail, etc. But newbies need to be where the action is. I'm sure there are exceptions. But not many.
: « First : « 100 : « 10 : Displaying #135 - #144 of 188 records. : 10 » : Last » :