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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.
Michael W. writes...
Hi! I was wondering if it is possible to ever see layouts/sketches/blueprints? of Xanatos' building with the gargoyle's castle in it. I am really interested in not only the Gargoyles show but also the incredible settings. I really enjoyed the creativity in the design of the earlier episode's airship. I really enjoy the show and feel that is one of the most original series ever to be produced. I appreciate that you have taken the time to read my question and please answer it.
Greg responds...
Layouts must exist in the Disney Archives.
I doubt actual blueprints were ever made. I don't think we had time for that.
Frank writes...
Why doesn't Elisa change her clothes?
Greg responds...
She has 102 black t-shirts. She changes three times a day.
Or were you looking for a real world answer? We couldn't afford to redesign her every episode. And the more different looks we gave her, the more we were inviting animation errors.
(No one mentions why Owen seems to wear the same suit every day?)
aXvXia writes...
*hope you enjoyed the gathering cause i couldnt go! poop!*
I know what you're thinking, mr. weisman: "NOo! Not another August 7th post! I'm just one man, dammit!" i totally sympathize with you, but i just have to ask:
**How much money (on average) would you say it took to produce an average episode of gargoyles with the normal character cast having speaking parts??
I just wanted to know, cause i know alot of people who would, if they knew where to send it, give money to see GARGOYLES back on the air.
Thanks for your time and efforts Mr.Weisman, and if there is anything you need for me to do for you (posts,etc) just say so in your answering post.
Greg responds...
You mean just the voice recording or the entire episode?
If the latter, it cost just under half a million dollars per episode.
Demona Taina writes...
Well, I was reading through the "Questions Answered Archive." Somebody noticed the anklet drawn on one of the gargoyles in "City of Stone 4." I can't remember who posted it, but whoever did, he/she was right.
One of the gargoyles had an anklet on his right ankle when the sky was in flames. And guess who it was? [drum roll] It was Goliath! He was watching the show in the sky, and there it is, an anklet like Demona's on his ankle. Well, this isn't the only mistake.
They once drew Goliath in Angela's clothes, how about that? "Ill Met by Moonlight." When Angela, Gabriel and Goliath collapse, you can see it.
Once, they made Elisa's hair slide back in "Monsters."
They forgot to draw Goliath's tail in "Walkabout."
They drew a shirt like Demona's on Angela in "Mark of the Panther."
They've forgotten to draw Goliath's underwear countless of times. They've forgotten to color Hudson's shirt. They've colored Goliath's wings wrong.. and I think they DID draw a mustache on Macbeth in "Enter Macbeth."
Just the little details of life. [chuckles] My question is.. how can those animators mess up so much? I mean, I've drawn the characters plenty of times, and I don't make mistakes like those. Even when I color them.
I understand that they have to color thousands of drawings but.. well, it's a little unbelievable. What do you think of all this?
Thank you for your time. :)
Greg responds...
I think you have very little sympathy or understanding for the pace and speed that all these things are done at. Most of what you cited above are actually painting errors, not drawing errors. Think about having to fill in all those little lines on hundreds of cels, day after day after day. Frankly, I'd go insane. Mistakes happen. We caught as many as we could. Fixed as many as we had time to fix. But mistakes happen.
Karen writes...
One of my favourite parts of each Garg episode are the gliding scenes. I just finished watching the Hunter's Moon episodes over the last two nights and was particularly impressed with:
1. When Goliath rounds the building and sees the Hunters' airship, he backwings and lands on the building. Very nice.
2. My all time favourite: the battle at the dam, when Goliath dives down and soars back up, he does the most wonderful wingover over the top of the dam. It's so powerfully graceful. I loved it.
Unfortunately, there are cases in some eps where the aerodynamics didn't always quite ring true, but hey I'm no pilot to criticize, and what looked to me like gaffs generally were pretty minor. So, to my actual question: Do you know if the animators studied any sort of flying in order to protray this sort of thing? IE, did they look at acrobatics with airplanes, bats, etc?
Thank you for your time!
Greg responds...
I don't know. There were times when it felt wrong to us too. The animators would, for example, on occasion allow the Gargs to hover like Superman. We'd have to call a retake to get them to (at least) keep the background panning behind them.
Some of the stuff did look great though.
BloodBane writes...
Hello Greg.
Ok, I have noticed the animation in some of the episodes was relly great!For an example in Hunters Moon there was a part where the oldest brother picked up Maza, and put her to sleep with the tranquilizer and in that few seconds the animation was really good.Do you no why they didn't draw the whole series like that?
Greg responds...
It's not like they didn't try. But animation involves a huge quantity of people and not everyone is as good as everyone else. Not all the episodes, for example, could be animated at Disney's Tokyo Studio, which was collectively superior to the other studios that worked on the show.
We got the best that we could get in the time and with the budget that we had at our disposal. It's not ALL as good as Hunter's Moon 3, but I'm pretty proud of most of it.
dracolich5 writes...
Hello again, Greg! I've decided to start posting questions more frequently, and I've got an interesting assortment of production questions.
During the creation of characters, how were their eventual designs chosen? Did the artists in question work on one design only, or were several designs tried? If so, is there any way we can ever see these unused designs? My interest in unused character designs started when I purchased some Japanese Godzilla books that showed alternate designs for machines and creatures. Just curious to see if similar interesting designs are around.
On a side note, IF any alternate character designs were made, were any of these re-used for later characters? Just checking!
Greg responds...
We had development artists at Disney come up with inspirational designs for all the main characters, which were used in the pitch to sell the show.
Bob Kline: Xanatos, the Eyrie Building
Dave Schwartz: Brooklyn, Lexington, Broadway
Greg Guler: Goliath, Demona, Elisa, the Pack
Paul Felix: the Clock Tower (and Hudson, I think)
These designs were then sent to Disney TV Animation Japan, where they sort of had a little competition to see who would be the primary designer on the show. They submitted multiple interpretations of the characters (Goliath in particular), and we chose Mr. Takeuchi, who seemed to capture the feeling of the show the best. Eventually Frank Paur went to Japan to work with Takeuchi and fine tune his designs. Paul Felix did a very early Bronx, but Frank changed it so entirely, it's basically a new design.
I have some of this old stuff, though I wish I had more. For example, I have almost nothing from the early comedy development. If you attend the Gathering, you can see the pitch and some of those early designs.
The Gatekeeper (repost by Aris) writes...
I have some questions on how the voice recording was done.
I've looked through the archives, and it appears that you get all the actors together at one time but I'm not getting an entirely clear picture. You have mentioned doing some editing on the voices for rhythms and the like. Is this possible to do when the recording is done in a group session? I know the partial answer, each voice is on it's own track, but wouldn't the natural bounce (if you would) of all the actors playing off each other make for a natural sounding dialogue?
Were the recording sessions filmed as well, so that some of the facial expressions of the actors could be incorporated into the animation? I can just picture Marina Sirtis sneering at Keith David.
What is the sequence that things are done? I think the script and story board comes first, but are the voices recorded before or after the animation, or it is a kind of hand in hand process?
The reason I ask, is because I remember listening to an interview with a voice actor (back in the mid '70's) and he said that all his lines were sent to the studio on a tape that he did at his home.
Greg responds...
Anything's possible but that last scenario sounds awful strange to me.
Here's the basic order:
1. Write the scripts.
2. Design new characters. This begins even before the script is finished sometimes.
3. Record the voices.
4. Storyboards are drawn. (This sometimes also begins before all the voices are recorded, depending on deadline pressure. But ideally it waits for the board artist to get the voice tape.)
5. Direct the board. (For timing, etc.)
6. Send materials overseas for animation.
7. Animation.
8. Post-Production. Retakes, editing, sound, etc.
As for step 3 itself, we tried as often as possible to get all the actors together in one room. This was almost never completely possible. There'd always be someone who wasn't available or was out of town or something. (For example, Keith David spent most of the second season performing in SEVEN GUITARS on Broadway. We would pick him up by "phone patch" from a studio in New York. One time, I seem to recall, we had to get Jim "Fang" Belushi by phone patch from Australia, where he was shooting a movie.
So we had to edit in anyone who wasn't in the session. Plus sometimes the best takes weren't consecutive. Say, Thom "Lex" Adcox did a great reading of a question. And Jeff "Brooklyn" Bennett stuttered when answering. Jeff probably did two or three great takes of his line. But we'd still want to use Lex's great take. So we'd edit it too.
And sometimes we'd tighten things up for pace. Since, as you noted, we had to allow each line to be on a separate track, that meant we couldn't overlap dialogue in the recording booth. But in real life, people often interrupt each other or talk over each other, etc. So sometimes we'd edit to create that overlapping effect.
Still the reason we TRIED to get everyone together is because we'd generally get a better, higher energy performance from most of the actors by allowing them to play off each other.
Blaise (repost by Aris) writes...
TEMPTATION
While this isn't the ep that cemented Brooklyn in my head as "Favorite Character," I have to admit he is GREAT in it.
I still love Lexington's remark about building a horse from spare parts.
Demona's tour of the city--Yeah, the DEAD BODY surprised me too. Very powerful, very good, as were Demona's other two "examples" of humanity. Bennett and Sirtis did WONDERFUL jobs with their voice acting here.
As for the bikers not noticing Brooklyn, yeah everybody notices that. I just try to ignore it and that seems to work. If nothing else, most of the bikers in that scene WERE wearing sunglasses at night (as someone else already pointed out). Come to think of it, some of them weren't even wearing helmets....;-)
Elisa's finger--great, now that you've mentioned it, *I'LL* probably look for it and not be able to see anything else in the scene.
I was surprised to hear that Brooklyn's description of the Cloisters was taken by some folks as "proof" that gargoyles were not native to this planet. Anyone who saw the first two episodes should have understood what Brooklyn meant. Come to think of it, why WOULD people want the gargoyles to be from another planet?
One of my favorite lines in this episode--Brooklyn: "You hold the book, Demona. But *I* hold the *spell*!" I just LOVE that.
The resolution of the spell may have been a bit of a cheat, but it WAS a creative and original solution to the problem. So, you guys still get some points in that area.
Lex and Brooklyn talking about the motorcycle at the end and Lex's reaction are always enjoyable.
Pointless note: Hudson doesn't speak a single line in this episode. Odd, when I think about it. Still, you do at least SEE him a few times.
Good ep.
Greg responds...
The Hudson thing was budgetary. Often if we had a character who needed to appear for logic's sake but didn't have too much to contribute to the story, we'd avoid just giving him one or two lines to prove he's there. That way we could save money on the actor's salary for that episode. That money saved could be used later on for some of our big cast expensive episodes.
Trust however that I never scrimped. If I thought Hudson needed to speak in that episode, even if it was only ONE line, I would not have hesitated to pay for Ed Asner to be in the session.
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