From Bunny Brothers to Jackalopes

I love how ideas often take on a life of their own. Often, you lose track of them before finding them again years later, whereupon they take on another form. Mike and I had an idea called the Bunny Brothers many years ago. It was to be a show about two brothers who were always cooking up odd schemes. The idea never really went anywhere, but we did actually use them in a comic book published by an independent press called Robot Publishing in 1996. It was for a comic book called (of all things!) "Hot Mexican Love". The comic was a collaboration, containing stories by a host of animation artists, most of them my colleagues at Klasky Csupo. Below is a portion of the comic, penciled by Mike, and inked and lettered by me:

The comic was obviously for adults, and an odd 'Mexico' theme. (Incidentally where Mike is now, in Cabo San Lucas! Though I doubt his vacation trip there with his family is anything like the blatant debauchery that the Bunny Brothers got up to on their trip south of the border!)

The Bunny Bros. was an idea that sat dormant for years, and except for that one rare and forgotten comic appearance, seemed destined to be one of our ideas that we'd never revisit.

However, when we were looking for a project to pitch to Warner Brothers recently, we revisited the Bunny Bros. By the time we finished re-developing the core of the idea that was never very developed, the rabbits had become Jackalopes, and there were three of them rather than two.

The bunnies evolved into the 'Iguana Boyz'. That idea we kicked around for a few years before they evolved into to Jackalopes. You can see the evolution in picture form in Mike's post Jacks Designs.

Vacay for me!

Well having had quite a hectic week I will finally settle down for some much needed vacation time. My family and I are flying down to Cabo San Lucas for 10 days which should be nice. I just read online that it only rains 5 days out of the year there. Imagine that! Being a man of bad timing that I am, of course I had to plan it just as principal animation starts on our pilot The Jackalope Boyz but sometimes you just have to go and leave it all behind. While there I do intend to spend a bit of time doing illustrations for the next Ribeye book, The Sands of Fate so when you see those drawings you'll know that they were done in good ol' Mexico.

I intend to take a few of the original Ribeye books Ribeye the Bullbarian and the Jewel of Baloni and just leave them in some cafes . Hopefully someone will pick one up and read it!
Little Trivia:

Did you know that when the Spaniards came over to Mexico that the country was originally called Mehico and the Spaniards for whatever reason changed it all "h" to "X" and that's why even todfay all Mexicans refer to their country as Mehico. True story...

I will try to post some stuff while I'm down there but if I can't you can be sure Harry will be updating regularly. Oh yeah and watch for a nice surpise coming on our website on the 4th of July! This is Milo saying over AND out!

Peace!

Warner Bros vibe

One of the coolest things about working at a big studio like Warner Bros. is the celebrities that come through doing voice-over work and promos. Recently I have seen, Casey Kasem (Radio personality), Michael Clark Duncan (The Green Mile, Scorpion King), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), That blonde girl from The Bachelor that just recently won and Peter McNichol ( Ally McBeal, Ghostbusters II).

Who else, let's see, over the years I've met Steven Spielberg walking around the studio, Ted Turner, Joe Barbera, Bill Hanna, Bruce Timm, Alec Baldwin, Chuck Jones, and a ton of others I can't think of at the moment. It's really nice as well that the studio can pull in that caliber of actor for it's shows.

Warner's is a great place to work actually and while they definately look to cut corners where they can ( who doesn't) they seem to really have their act together unlike Disney's which I ehar is a complete mess. My crew on Xiaolin Showdown is known as the party crew and every Thursday we trun one of the reception areas into The Showdown Bar complete with mixed drink, TV, music and bar stools.

Apparently it's gotten around L.A. as well as people from other shows have started coming over to hang out with us as well. You know you work at an excellent studio when you can turn it into an after hours bar!

From the Milo-Files

It's cool coming across old artwork. Mike and I have been working on projects together since 1986, and we're always finding old stuff one of us did years ago.

This image I find particularly cool: It's from a birthday card Mike Milo made for his mother in 1993. It features all of our own characters from that period (including Ribeye and Cubesteak, seen in the center with Charlie Hippo), as well as characters from studios Mike worked at up to that point: WB's "Tiny Toons", "Tazmania", "Animaniacs" etc.- Film Roman's "The Simpsons" and "The Critic" and the Honey Nut Cherrios bee which Mike animated in several commercials.

Write Time

Well, my wife is off on a tour of her native country Estonia for the next few weeks. She's part of an Estonian theatre troupe, and they are doing a tour of Estonia and Latvia. She has a big performance at a festival in Riga, Latvia coming up.

Gee, it sure is quiet around here without her! I'm speculating that means I'll be able to buckle down and get a lot of writing done, but I've also got to be twice as vigilant in resisting the procrastination bug.

Technology never ceases to amaze me. It keeps us together, even when we're around the world from each other. We've been able to keep in touch via video-cam on the internet. It's a far cry better than the telephone as it offers picture and sound, and it's certainly cheaper. I was able to see and talk to her earlier this week while she was staying with her sister in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. I also got to see our little niece who is 4, and our newborn nephew! And of course my wife and I have been keeping in touch via plain old fashioned IM's and e-mails.

Also my wife has been doing a blog of her own. In fact, helping her set hers up is what inspired me to start one myself. She's been documenting her trip with blog entries whenever she can get online. Now if she could just find a way to upload some images!

This coming week, with no distractions pending, I'm going into virtual seclusion so I can hammer out the final writing chores on the second Ribeye book. Procrastination shall not triumph!

An Animation Legend

Today I was having lunch with Mike over at WB Animation in Sherman Oaks, and we were walking down Ventura Blvd. when out from the back of a limousine steps animation legend Joe Barbera and his assistants on their way to lunch. Joe is an animation pioneer. He and William Hanna created the famous Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM in the 40's through the late 50's when the rise of television killed the theatrical cartoon.

Rather than cave-in to the 'threat' TV posed on animation, Hanna and Barbera pioneered their own special brand of limited animation that made it affordable to create original animation for television. Their studio (which I'm proud to have worked at for several years back in the 1990's) created the first prime-time animated shows like the Flintstones and the Jetsons, as well as most of the Saturday morning fare many of us grew up watching. (Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Scooby-Doo, Johnny Quest and the list goes on...)

Sadly Bill Hanna passed away in 2001 and is greatly missed by his fans.

Joe Barbera is in his 90's and he's still out and about. It was an honor to shake hands with such an animation icon. Mike and I both had the honor of meeting him previously during our H&B days a decade ago. I own an autographed copy of his autobiography: "My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century" and several autographed cells from H&B grace the walls in my home.

My hats off to a man who was key in making the industry I've made my living in -Television Animation- a viable reality!

Blog This

I'm trying out a thing on the Google Toolbar that let's you Blog instantly just to see if it works. So here goes!

Jackalopes Animatic

Now that the recording for the Jackalopes film is done, our next step will be to make what is called an Animatic. In the 30's and 40's it was referred to as a Leica reel. By either name, it's basically the storyboard scanned into the computer and edited together with all of the dialog to form a sort of slide show; complete with sound. This step is where we really start to see the film come together and it helps us find out if it's on time or too long. It also helps us read which jokes work and which ones don't. During the recording we had the actors ad-lib in places and in some cases recorded multiple lines for jokes so we could see which ones were the funniest.
An animatic is an extremely useful tool when used correctly.

It's also a great tool for people who can't really "read" a storboard well and need to see it move in front of them. A lot of executives like to use animatics so they can really see the flow of a film without having to work to hard.

Harry would know best about that after a six years stint as an Assistant director over at Klasky Csupo who made such hits as Rugrats, As told by Ginger,The Wild Thornberries and a host of other faves for Nickelodeon before Paramount pulled the rug out from under them.

Jackalope Boyz Recorded

The recording session for the Jackalope Boyz went fantastic. We arrived at Salami Studios in North Hollywood at 9am Tuessday morning, (June 22nd), joined by the WB Cartoon Monsoon development staff, as well as the record crew, and of course the incredible voice talent.

First to record were veteran voice actors Carlos Alazraqui and Joe Alaskey.

Just check out the long and varied credits of either of these two (by clicking their links above) to see the amazingly high caliber of talent we were fortunate enough to work with! Virtually everyone has to have heard some of the characters these guys have voiced over the years, and chances are great there are a few of your favorites on the list.

Mike Milo watches the record from the control room at Salami Studios.

It was a treat to hear these guys provide the voices for our main characters and supporting cast. We went through the storyboard and witnessed the actors in the booth give life to our animated vision. Both Joe and Carlos had us cracking up as they acted out their assigned character's lines. They both acted several characters. Carlos did an amazing Manuel (The Jackalope Boy wearing the hat- see the model sheets in the previous posts) and Joe turned in a slide-splitting performance as their overbearing boss, along with other roles.

That's me, Harry McLaughlin. No, I'm not asleep, just keeping a tab on the record script as the session progresses.

Around 11am another veteran voice talent arrived: Candi Milo. (No relation to Mike, just co-inky-dink!) Her career and list of credits is as long and varied as the others'.

Candi did several of the female voices, as well as the male child voices of 'baby prodigy' Arriba (the middle Jackalope), and Jaime (the tall Jackalope).

Mike smiles, not for the camera, but because Joe Alaskey was cracking him up.

It was a blast seeing all these talented folks do their thing, and a total trip realizing that they were bringing to life the characters that Mike and I created! It's really amazing to watch someone act out the lines that you have written, and bring life to characters you've dreamed up. All around, a truly awesome experience as it always is!

Web Developments

When I'm not writing, or working on a cartoon with Mike, these days you're likely to find me plugging away on website development work. I really love doing web design and learning new things. For example, figuring out how to make this blog work, and integrate nicely into my site was a lot of fun.

I'm the the 'webmaster' of a site called HI-POD.com as well as this one. (Heh, I like the title 'web-master'; it sounds akin to 'Kung-Fu master' or something.) The HI-POD company is run by a good friend of mine named Enrique. We worked together for five years at the animation studio Klasky Csupo.

A HI-POD is a high-end camera monopod that can elevate a video or still camera to a 15 foot elevation, and allow a single camera person to shoot and monitor the signal at eye-level. The unit is fully controllable, and portable; there's nothing else than can do the same task without an unwieldy multi-person crane or jib setup. And you can't begin to get those into the same small spaces the HI-POD can fit into.

I think the HI-POD's origin story is remarkable. Enrique originally started a sporting event taping company. His idea was a fleet of mobile-studio vans that could cover smaller local games that media wouldn't normally document. He needed to quickly get multiple cameras covering the field, and feeding back to the mobile van- the same set up as the big guys use, but with every element scaled down to it's most compact possible form. In the course of developing a compact and portable field camera platform for game coverage, Enrique invented the HI-POD.

The idea was so good and the HI-POD was such a success, that he eventually dropped the original sports taping company and made manufacturing the HI-POD his core business.

It just serves to remind me that many times great ideas are born wholly unexpected out of the rubble of cast-aside dreams. It's a fascinating part of the creative process. You just never know when you start a creative endeavor, exactly what will emerge in the end.

That's what I like about writing books and creating animated films. I know that I'm in for a wild and crazy journey from start to finish. I love knowing that along the way, new and unique ideas and concepts will be born out of the fury of creative shuffle. It's just one of the many things I love about the creative process.

Addicted to Freelance

It's true, I'm addicted to freelance. No I really am because no normal man would subject himself to the things I do just to get a little extra cash. I was up until 2 am this morning doing freelance sheet timing and the bags are big under my eyes today. I called a friend of mine on the new Cartoon Network show Krypto the Dog Wonder and he gave me 200 feet of footage to time out. Sheet Timing is a process whereby they have big sheets of paper that account for every frame of film and the timer's job is to mark out each and every action ALL the characters do in the entire film, including background pans and camera moves. Doing exposure sheets is a tedious job and it has made me a tired man.
It's actually been a tough week as all my Aunt was visiting from Joisey last week and at the same time I had to reboard over 15 pages of lost storyboard for our short The Jackalope Boyz. Don't ask how it happened because I can't really answer you. It's somewhere in Cartoon Heaven I guess.

To make matters even more difficult, as a Director on Xiaolin Showdown we are also expected to storyboard half an act of our show which amounts to about 5-6 pages of script. That PLUS directing can be very tiresome and difficult... At least for me. I'm an "okay" storyboard artist but I wouldn't count myself in the top ten or anything and sometimes it's difficult to make my deadlines. So far I've done it but each episode it gets harder. To top all these goings on, like an idiot I went ahead and found some freelance to do when I didn't really have the time to do it. On top of that we had a lil' hiccup on Friday when we got 7 pages of notes from the Development team for Jackalopes just before we were to record. Stressed me out to be sure! Add to all that some EXTRA work, and as you can see I am addicted to freelance.

My mom used to say that I liked to have "5 plates in the air at all times"... I guess she was right. Tonight I will once again burn the lamp at both ends to finish the sheets for Krypto and get back to work to finish my section of storyboards for Xiaolin Showdown. Now if I can just figure out how to squeeze in the drawings for the new Ribeye book...

Jacks designs

During the process of designing the characters we went through many different instances of design. Initially The Jackalope Boyz started as The Iguana Boyz but the dev. execs wanted us to change that due to a conflict with another Monsoon short.
Below is the original design and the subsequent designs that led up to the final one.
This is the original designs

We liked the designs but they had to change so...first we tried monkeys...

Then we refined on that idea...

Then we tried parrots...



Then we hit on the idea of making then into jackalopes!
Building on that we started from scratch and this is what first came out...

Then we got some notes from the execs and we refined it a bit...

and ultimately we tweeked and tweeked until we ended with the final result which is what you will see when the film premieres!

Jackalopes recording

Another intersting thing to mention is our short The Jackalope Boyz which records at Salami Studios in North Hollywood tomorrow. We've got a nice lineup of characters for the case.

Cartoon Monsoon is a very interesting site that's owned by Warner Bros. and has dedicated itself to create new and invigorating cartoons for the web. Some of the stuff that's been done from last season is specatacular for a flash cartoon and pretty amazing when you think about that you are downloading a real live cartoon over a tiny wire in the back of your computer. We've come a long way in my book!

The voices for our short so far are as follows...
Candy Milo - Dexter on 'Dexter's Laboratory, the Flea on 'Mucha' and Astroboy on 'Astroboy'
Carlos Alazraqui - Rikochet on 'Mucha,' and the voice of the Chihuahua on those old Taco Bell ads
Joe Alaskey - Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, etc.....
In a different type of casting we will pick the voices from each right there at the record depending on who can do what. Should be interesting though!

"The Sands of Fate" Anatomy of a cover

Here it is! The cover of the second Ribeye the Bullbarian Adventure:

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The cover began life as a rough layout that I drew. My original idea looked like this. At first we weren't quite settled on the villain. Here the deadly 'sands of fate' are looming over our heroes, but the exact nature of the threat was just a little too ambiguous:

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Mike Milo did a more polished layout that more closely resembles the finished cover art:

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Finally, Mike penciled and inked the finished line art. I worked out the background image, and placed the final elements together. Then I colored the characters for the final cover.

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New Ribeye Characters

There are a whole slew of new characters that will be introduced in the new Ribeye book. Here are some of the new designs dreamed up by Mike Milo for characters appearing in the book:

Bonefoot:


Gator Shaman:


Rapstallion:


Doe Rae: