After gestating the concept online, Clark developed the series with David M. Stern (The Simpsons, Monk), who also served as an EP on the project. Clark and Stern then turned to two animation studios to bring the show to life. First on the job was Augenblick Studios (Superjail!), appropriately based on Brooklyn, for development and pre-production, and then the majority of the Flash animation was produced at Cuppa Coffee Studios (Glenn Martin, DDS) in Toronto.

With the first batch of episodes under his belt, Clark took some time to answer a few questions for CHF, and below that we quiz Augenblick Studios founder Aaron Augenblick.

SIMPSON: Huge congrats on the new series. A big premiere back in March, positive reviews and now the additional episode order for October 2010.

CLARK: I feel amazingly lucky to get the opportunity to have one of my ideas brought to life; and to have so many fantastic, creative and smart people helping. But it’s funny, I’ve been so caught up in production, so busy, sometimes I feel like I don’t even get an opportunity to get excited about how big a deal it is. So, only recently, I’ve been like “Oh, this is a show I made. It’s on air. Holy cow.”

SIMPSON: Take us back to before the Atom.com deal.

CLARK: For years, I was doing a lot of freelance motion graphic stuff like broadcast design and along the way I formed certain relationships with studios and networks. And in ’05 or ’06, there was this big push for a lot of the networks to have Web portals with video content – sites like Super Deluxe, Motherload and even AOL was dropping tons of money into cool little web shows. So, I pitched some stuff to IFC, Spike, and Super Deluxe. And I didn’t really get very far with any of it. But, the one that kind of resonated was when I pitched 5ON.

SIMPSON: Why do you think that was?

CLARK: It was just more fleshed out as far as the look and feel. One of the biggest challenges I found with pitching animation is you really need visual proof in order for people to get the idea. With live action you can do say, “I’m going to do this,” and they be like, “I totally, I get it.” So, I had a lot more visuals for 5ON and I think that’s what helped. And it was, you know, a funny idea, I feel like. And there was actually interest both from IFC and Comedy Central, but Comedy Central seemed like a better fit so I ended up going that way.

SIMPSON: So you made the 6 shorts, and then how did the TV discussion start?

CLARK: So after I was done, Dan Powell, the executive at Comedy Central who I pitched to, said, “why don’t you pitch this world back to us as a TV show?” And so, I think that was like within maybe three months after the last episode of 5ON went and Dan said, “let’s try to make this thing bigger.” And so I did. I wrote it out and then I pitched as a TV series and we kind of went from there. I mean, obviously, this is my first TV show and so I think it was pretty clear early on that I wasn’t going to be writing for this show.

SIMPSON: And you knew that you’d be….

CLARK: …directing and designing the characters. So, we started approaching different people and that’s how we ended up connecting with David Stern.

SIMPSON: And when you first talked to David, did you hit it off right away?

CLARK: Well, we contacted a couple other possible writers and one of them like wanted to make it a live action show. No one really seemed to understand the sensibility, the humor that we were creating by having absurd and horrific creatures completely normalized in a human world. But the minute we sat down with David, he instantly got it. He Said “I know what you’re trying to do here, but I think it’s really funny and I think we can make this work.”

We initially set it in Washington, DC, and David said “That’s totally the wrong angle. You’ve got to do it here. New York’s where all the weirdos are.” And he’s been fantastic to work with ever since.

SIMPSON: How did you kick off the development process?

CLARK: We went out just grabbed beers and chatted. I tried to dump as much of the world into his brain as possible so he could start writing the pilot script. And after meeting with him a couple of times and a few drafts on the pilot, we had a pretty solid episode. And then it’s a very weird process. After doing the full episode script, the development execs said, “we actually want to make this into a pilot but we only do half episode pilots.” So we cut it in half, and that’s a very weird, backwards way of writing.

SIMPSON: And then you produced the pilot.

CLARK: Yes, and then they said, “The pilot’s really great and now we want to make this back into the first episode.” So, we had to add 11 more minutes into it. But at that point, so much had changed in order to make it work as an 11 minute pilot that it was almost impossible. But, I have to say, I think we did a pretty good job.

SIMPSON: And is the world we see in the series far different than what in the 11-minute pilot?

CLARK: Oh yeah, because we ended up building out background stories for everything, like even for weird, background characters. And we designed them all and this really help the writers who print them out and put up all over the writing room and come up with crazy creation myths. So, there’s definitely a lot more – and like figuring out how all these bizarre, horrific creatures would actually function within our world. Like what kind of stores, products and restaurants would they actually go to and what kind of services would need to be available in order to make this all work. So, that’s the fun for me.

SIMPSON: And you’re incorporating actual New York into it.

CLARK: Yeah, and the outside exterior of Mark and Randall’s apartment you see in the episode, is actually the exterior of that address in real life. So, I don’t know who actually lives there in that apartment but in our version of New York, they do. This is a New York show. Obviously, Cuppa Coffee also helped us in Toronto, but a big chunk of this show was created by people who live here in New York. So, that’s a lot of fun for us.

SIMPSON: Have you guys come up with a set of rules that help define the show’s structure?

CLARK: There’s definitely rules. But there’s been a big effort to make this show a much more traditional sitcom. So, it’s not as scatological and weird as, say, the Adult Swim stuff. But as far as like limitations, I don’t like the idea of having Gods and Super Heroes involved in this world, because I feel like those kinds of characters are hard to normalize and I think that they really throw off the whole balance of the world. But, in one instance, we have a counseling session and they’re watching this extremely violent slideshow and terrible things are happening and the audience is freaking out and it cuts to all these different reaction shots. And one of them is Buddha going, “Jesus Christ,” you know. So, I was like, “That’s a funny joke. Let’s throw it in there.”

SIMPSON: There’s been a handful of shows that have made the leap from the web to TV. Do you think this is a valuable development path?

CLARK: Well, I think it’s a pretty awesome and unique way of approaching new talent, especially coming from someone who has no experience creating a TV show. What other way is there to get your work seen but do it on a small scale? To try and jump in and do a full TV show is impossible. The web allows anyone with a good idea the chance to create content and to put it out there. So, the fact that networks started identifying that and using that as a way of approaching new talent – I think it’s very smart and I’m sure to some degree it saved them money down the road with having to create full pilots.

SIMPSON: What would you say the animator community is like in NYC?

CLARK: I mean it’s a pretty small community. There aren’t a lot of animation companies out here. That’s good in some regards, because it’s nice to have that level of intimacy with the people involved in the scene. But it also means that there’s a limited amount of production that can get done here. But, especially within the last two years, I’ve had a lot of friends who work in the business at the big studios and then there’s like 150 people laid off. It seems like a lot tougher of a business here in New York than it is like in say L.A. and Toronto.

SIMPSON: Do you have thoughts for the up and coming animator show pitcher who’s, you know, got a couple ideas rattling around? They may want to pitch, you know, to one of the adult animation networks?

CLARK: Yeah, definitely. A while back, Fred Seibert created Oh Yeah! Cartoons, which kind of did the same thing that some of these web networks are doing. He approached young talent, gave them enough of a budget to do a short film, and hoped for the best. But I pitched him a bunch of stuff years ago for Oh Yeah! Cartoons and it was there that I kind of learned one of the biggest lessons about pitching shows – your passion and your excitement for the show needs to be extremely visible. I came to him with ideas for kids shows because I knew that’s what he was looking for and I think he was aware of it right away that my heart wasn’t fully into it. And he said to me, “Could you imagine spending the next four years working on this show?” And I was like, “Whoa, no way.”

SIMPSON: And how did that change your approach to pitching?

CLARK: Well, I went back to the drawing board, and I was like, “I love comics. I love horror. I love comedy.” And 5ON was born out of that. It drew on a lot of the elements that I was really excited and passionate about. And I loved coming up with all these crazy, weird characters and creations. And I think that passion and that excitement was visible because it was something that I was really stoked on trying to bring to life. And so, I guess that’s my advice. You have to really, really love the idea that you’re trying to get made. You have to feel that “I’m going to do this no matter what.”

SIMPSON: Did you use any references to help translate your thoughts about the production design to Augenblick?

CLARK: Both Aaron and I share a huge love for EC Comics and that’s definitely where we get alot of our reference. I mean those old horror and sci-fi comics were really dark and grainy and really inky and had a lot of shadows, and we just loved that world. We even pull from that world for the palette and the colors we use. Obviously, we can’t be as sketchy and loose as a lot of those old comics were since it’s an animated show. We love Will Eisner, Will Elder, Johnny Craig, all those guys.

On that note, we turn to Augenblick Studios founder Aaron Augenblick (also read CHF interviews from 2005 and 2008).

SIMPSON: How did Ugly Americans find its way to Augenblick Studios?

AUGENBLICK: Dan Powell was my producer when we made Golden Age for Comedy Central and we were always hoping to work together again. When he was developing Ugly Americans, he arranged for me to meet with David Stern and Devin Clark and we all hit it off. We made a pilot together which quickly led to a 7 episode series.

SIMPSON: How is Flash being used on the production – more as a design and traditional animation tool? A puppet tool? A mixture?

AUGENBLICK: We use Flash for everything. From design to finished animation, everything is hand-drawn directly in Flash.

SIMPSON: How did the show evolve, design wise, from the initial online shorts?

AUGENBLICK: When they told me that they wanted to make Ugly Americans a horror/comedy, my mind immediately went to EC Comics. Devin was also a big fan so we dove in head first. I was really excited to try using the visual language of the greats (Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Al Feldstein, etc.) as a launching point for the storytelling in Ugly Americans.

SIMPSON: How do make sure a character is streamlined enough to be “animatable” on a half-hour show? (not too inky, etc.)

AUGENBLICK: In recent years I have tried to avoid the thick vector line like the plague. We use a single thick brush and real in-betweens to achieve the traditional “comic-book” look. I tend to like things that look really busy so I don’t streamline things too much. I love that Randall has crusty skin and scars all over his body because it’s really fun to draw.

SIMPSON: How much comedy is added in the animation process that’s not there in the script?

AUGENBLICK: Filling every inch of the screen with nonsense is one of our favorite things to do at the studio. Will Elder called it “chicken fat.” The visual gags are both scripted and created by our artists.

SIMPSON: How did the Superjail! production effort prepare your studio for this?

AUGENBLICK: After surviving Superjail!, I feel like our studio can withstand anything.

SIMPSON: Devin mentioned that a number of background layouts are based on actual New York locations. Do any in particular stick out in your mind?

AUGENBLICK: Mark Lilly’s apartment is an exact replica of our artist Kris Wollinger’s apartment in Chinatown. If you play the online Ugly Americans game you can find out his exact address. Strangers can visit him anytime!

SIMPSON: What else is cooking at Augenblick Studios these days?

AUGENBLICK: We have a very exciting new project called Cartoon Show. I created and wrote the idea with my head animator Chris Burns. We are currently in negotiations with a major network for a series. I’m really looking forward to making a psycho pilot.

The Demon Chick

Sneak Peek

Also, the Brothers McLeod are part of the creative team behind the winner of the Youth category. Their Flash-animated shorts in the Films section of the Tate Kids website helped push this project into the winner’s circle. We posted this back in November of 2008, but here’s the trailer one more time:

The show takes place in what can only be described as an alternate universe, far removed from civilization in a monstrous lockdown called Superjail, which is run by a dandy known simply as Warden. Almost everything beyond that is downright weird – there’s a dutiful, levitating robo-worker named Jailbot who handles the dirty work, a booze-lusting operations chief, a pair of teleporting inmate twins (twinmates?) and then of course the talking vegetables. But it’s the playfulness in the animation that takes it into another realm – Warden can tie himself into a knot, ride to work on a rainbow or blast an inmate to the moon with the touch of a button. Inmates can be delivered to the prison in a giant bird’s egg, sent to their cell on a rip-roaring rollercoaster, or blown dry with a 20-foot tall hair drier. It’s the elasticity of Tex Avery, the madness of Ren and Stimpy and the trippiness of Yellow Submarine all baked into one bloody, animated pie.

For those of you paying attention to the first two episodes, you may have learned that each installment brings a new title sequence along with a fresh escape and incarceration for a recitative jailbird named Jackknife, but what else do we know? If you go watch the series pilot, Bunny Love, at adultswim.com, you can view a whole mess of commentary videos as well. In one, the creators discuss how each episode will feature some all-out madness – a no holds barred fight scene. It’s a legacy from Christy and Stephen’s short Barfight, which is boils down to the biggest, longest, most insane bar fight in this or any other galaxy. We also know there’s 10 11-minute episodes in the first season (all of which have been delivered), and that every frame of animation was produced in Brooklyn at Augenblick Studios. It ranks right up there with Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and El Tigre as the most intense TV production ever attempted with Flash. Plus, Superjail! surely features the highest volume of “traditional” TV animation created on US soil in over a decade. That’s not what anyone would have predicted 10 years ago when Flash debuted as a fancy new tool that could make shapes dance on screen. It’s all the more impressive when you realize that Augenblick did it on an Adult Swim budget, which are known for being thrifty. You gotta hand it to the Augenblick team, who pulled off a real coup here.

Aaron, Christy and Stephen

Aaron was joined on the animation front by Chris Burns and Kristofer Wollinger, character layouts we handled by Christy Karacas and M. Wartella, while background layouts were delivered by Jeremy Jusay and Will Krause.

That’s about as much as we know, so let’s turn to the show creators to learn more. We’re first joined by Christy Karacas and Stephen Warbrick. Following that, we again meet with Aaron Augenblick, a producer and animation director on the series. Aaron joined us for a 2-part interview back in 2005.

AARON SIMPSON: Christy and Stephen – this psychedelic world is extremely unique and sadistically hysterical. How did the concept come about?

Barfight

STEPHEN WARBRICK: We tried to come up with a show that was somewhat unique but also interesting… conceptually and visually.

CHRISTY KARACAS: Our buddy Dave Hughes showed Barfight to Adult Swim and they were psyched so they asked if we wanted to pitch something. Stephen and I then kicked around some ideas. I had an old pitch about a jail show but it was more like a reality show parody, and we were like, “eh, that’s boring.” What if it was the craziest most insane, dangerous jail ever created run by a psychopath who was more ‘supervillan’ than ‘superhero?’ And it all kind of came out of that. A Charlie’s Chocolate Factory that was a jail instead. Kind of like a kids show except but not for kids. I think the world itself happened because we all like fun, weird stuff. Creating a world that had no rules that existed in its own special place also allowed us to have fun and make all these little worlds that existed inside the big world.

SIMPSON: Did you visit any jails for research purposes?

STEPHEN: No… not intentionally anyway.

CHRISTY: Hell no! Jail scares the crap out of me.

SIMPSON: In the first episode of Superjail! we return to the bar, where you staged Barfight. Do you have a favorite watering hole, and does it inspire your animation?

CHRISTY: Rosemary’s Greenpoint Tavern (GPT) in Williamsburg Brooklyn. 32. oz bud for $3.50 – can’t beat it. But I think it probably hurts my animation when I show up to work hung-over.

STEPHEN: When we were making Barfight we went there almost every night. Work our day jobs…work on Barfight till about 1am…. head to GPT.

SIMPSON: The two of you met at MTV. What project were you working on at the time?

Christy Karacas

CHRISTY: I was a BG designer on Daria and Steve was on Celebrity Deathmatch. We met there and did Barfight – which is how we got introduced to Adult Swim because they saw Barfight (which is hilarious because it got rejected from every festival we entered it into). Its funny because not only did me and Steve work at MTV, but Aaron Augenblick, George Fort (BG designer on Superjail!), and Tom Marsan (character layout on Superjail!) all worked at MTV too. NY animation is a small world – I’ve known all these people for almost 10 years.

SIMPSON: The Warden has been described as “a sadistic Willy Wonka.” Is the original Wilder film a favorite of yours?

STEPHEN: Yes. The film still seems magical even as an adult. Gene Wilder was amazing in the movie. The remake…not so much.

CHRISTY: Yea, its a great film and I also love Wilder in Stir Crazy. If we get another season, I actually think we need to make the warden even MORE sadistic… maybe going into a ‘Heath Ledger Joker’ territory. Also, after we started Superjail! I saw The 5000 fingers of Dr. T, which is also totally insane. Its got a Warden character who has imprisoned all these kids so they can play a giant piano. It was written and designed by Dr. Seuss, another huge influence of Superjail!. It’s definitely something you should check out if you like Superjail/psychedelic/fun/weird type stuff.

SIMPSON: With a half-submerged Statue of Liberty in the opening credits, are we to assume Superjail! takes place far in the future?

STEPHEN: Maybe.

CHRISTY: Never assume anything in the world of Superjail!. And no its not far in the future.

SIMPSON: What is Jailbot’s job at Superjail?

STEPHEN: He is like the Warden’s gopher. The Warden designed him so he has a few bugs.

CHRISTY: To bust through walls, abuse prisoners and make a mess. Jailbot’s like a red-headed stepchild. The Warden built him but doesn’t show him any love. Its something that is touched on but we’d love to explore more in the future.

SIMPSON: The twins appear to have magical powers. Will we ever learn how they gained these powers?

CHRISTY: You will definitely learn more about them, but I can’t comment further on that one.

SIMPSON: Having produced traditional animation in the past, what’s your take on the Flash or digital 2D approach to production?

CHRISTY: My personal favorite stuff is hand-drawn, gritty stuff like you’d see on Sesame Street or School House Rocks (my favorite!). But we don’t see this much these days, and that’s why we went with Aaron’s studio, because Augenblick makes some of the most amazing looking stuff with Flash I’ve ever seen. I think Aaron’s studio had the knowledge/taste/experience to make Superjail! look as traditionally hand-drawn as we could. When I tell people it’s done in Flash, they often don’t believe me! So my take is pretty positive.

Stephen Warbrick

STEPHEN: Like Christy said, even though Superjail! was produced in Flash, there is nothing “untraditional” about it. Each episode is completely hand drawn.

SIMPSON: Stephen – your production experience has included work in both 2D and CGI production (Beavis and Butthead, Celebrity Deathmatch, Daria, Ice Age 2, Horton Hears a Who). Does a particular medium help or hurt comedy, or is it simply another tool?

STEPHEN: No. I don’t think the medium hurts the comedy. I think the oversaturation and the retelling of the same story does.

SIMPSON: Christy, aside from the theme song, will you band Cheeseburger’s music be featured in future episodes?

CHRISTY: We might turn up again. You can also hear it for a second when Jackknife carjacks the car in the pilot.

SIMPSON: What illustrators, shows and animators inspired the look of Superjail!?

CHRISTY: Dr. Seuss, Gary Panter, Crumb, Sally Cruikshank, Mad Magazine, Vince Collins, Looney Tunes, the Fleischer brothers, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, School House Rocks, Sesame Street, Itchy and Scratchy, kids art, Muppets, outsider art, underground comics add Pee Wee’s Playhouse!

SIMPSON: What animated TV do you both watch regularly?

STEPHEN: No too much. Some Simpsons and some South Park.

Quiet Please

CHRISTY: I don’t really watch any animated shows regularly. My favorite things right now are Tim and Eric and I just saw Mike Grimshaw’s Quiet Please [not safe for work] which made my stomach hurt. I think the stuff I watch would be old Looney Tunes, weird stuff on YouTube and Popeye. I like anything that’s fun, gross, retarded, weird or awesome.

SIMPSON: Awesome. We now welcome Aaron Augenblick, founder of Augenblick Studios. Aaron, How did you and your studio first come to be involved with Superjail!?

Aaron Augenblick

AARON AUGENBLICK: We were working on Golden Age when Christy and Steve called me out of the blue. I met Christy years ago at a festival, and we were touring around with our thesis films after graduation; he was screening Space War and I was showing Midnight Carnival. Then in the late 90s, Christy, Steve and I all worked together at MTV Animation. Years later when they approached us, they had just been greenlit to make a pilot for Superjail! and were looking for a studio to produce it. I had always been a huge fan of Christy’s animation, so it was a very exciting project to take on. My regular Augenblick crew all jumped on the production. I had just worked on The Ten with David Wain and suggested him for the voice of the Warden, which ended up being great. So a lot of things fell into place in a short amount of time.

SIMPSON: When did Augenblick Studios start production on the series?

AUGENBLICK: Everyone was pretty excited about the pilot, so we were greenlit for a series order pretty fast. We started in October 2007. But that included writing, audio recording, and a lot of things that came before full animation production. I am proud to say that every stage of the animation process occurred right here in our studio in Brooklyn; nothing was sent overseas.

SIMPSON: Do you work off a tight script, or does some of the storyline and dialog come out of the storyboarding process?

AUGENBLICK: I set up the production in a different way than most current animated productions (I think). We started with brainstorming meetings in which a small group of us got together and hatched the loose plots for every episode. After that (before scripting) Christy would create thumbnails for the entire episode. At that point we had a scriptwriter write the script using the thumbnails as the direction for the story. This was very important because it allowed the visuals to dictate the direction of the show, rather than the dialogue. After that, in every stage of production we encouraged the artists to add their own visual gags wherever they could. All of these areas of creative input added to the mind-numbing avalanche of information you can find in every episode.

SIMPSON: Has your team completed the initial order?

AUGENBLICK: Yes! We have finished 10 episodes, which have left many of our artists in comas.

SIMPSON: Long hours on this one?

AUGENBLICK: We have a relatively small team and every artist is given a great deal of creative freedom. Unfortunately, with that creativity comes an overwhelming workload. Most people told me they were working harder, longer hours than they ever had in their life, but it was worth it because it was so much fun.

SIMPSON: There doesn’t appear to be much re-use in this series. Was Flash still a useful tool for your team?

AUGENBLICK: We approached Superjail! knowing that we wouldn’t be doing a lot of reuse, because we wanted the show to be very organic, and not worry about staying on model with anything. We wanted to avoid the same locations and character animation if we could help it. All that being said, we couldn’t have created this show without Flash. Flash is not merely an animation tool for libraries and motion tweening. It also allows for a platform where the artist can draw directly into the program (no scanning) and where ink and paint are very easy. We approached the animation in a completely traditional way, except that we were doing everything in Flash.

SIMPSON: Who’s a bigger drunk – Drunky or Jared?

AUGENBLICK: I don’t believe in labeling people.

SIMPSON: Can you tell us anything about the shorts you produced for Yo Gabba Gabba‘s 2nd season?

AUGENBLICK: The people at Yo Gabba contacted me because they were fans of our work, especially Wonder Showzen. They asked us to do some cartoons for their show and it was really fun. They were super cool and let us do whatever we wanted. They have a great show; the closest thing to a modern day Sesame Street. We did three cartoons: Wear Your Glasses, Cloudie, and Cover Your Mouth.

SIMPSON: What original projects are coming down the pike at Augenblick?

AUGENBLICK: We are now producing our own signature coffee, cell phones, and clothing line for the coming year. A lot of exciting things are happening at Augenblick Studios!

Now that web entertainment is back in full force, Drunky returns. Augenblick has resurrected Drunky for a new 11-minute pilot titled Fish House Punch. You’ll meet one of the most “colorful” grandmothers ever to walk into a bar, and to describe the overall tone of the piece I’ll borrow a phrase from the carnival boss – you’ll be “revolted in amazement.” Click below to watch an excerpt at the Augenblick website, which has been relaunched to include high-quality versions of the entire studio library.

[link]

In October of 2007, CHF featured M. Wartella’s psychedelic music video for The Go’s track You Go Bangin’ On. He joins us today for a very insightful interview into his process, his past music videos and his recent work on Adult Swim’s upcoming series Superjail.

AARON SIMPSON: How did the You Go Bangin’ On music video land on your plate?

Go watch M. Wartella’s music video
You Go Bangin’ On

M. WARTELLA: Well, we’ve been friends with and following The Go since their Sub Pop days. We try to catch their shows when they come through town (New York City), you know, hang out, drink their beer, and over the years we’ve just kind of become friends. Since they were looking to do something different for their latest record, they asked me to do the album art. Of course, as soon as I heard the new tracks, I was happy to oblige because I think this is their best release to date, and the critics seem to agree so far. But basically, the band decided they wanted to have an animated music video too, so that is how it came about.

AARON: Did you “pitch” your animation concept to the band before starting?
M. WARTELLA: At first, we wanted the whole video to be animated, kind of like a Yellow Submarine or Josie & The Pussycats thing where the band is drawn as cartoon characters. But as I started thinking more about it, I realized that most people, especially the band’s fans, would probably want to see real pictures of the group, not my drawings. So we started playing around with more of a Terry Gilliam/Monty Python paper cut-out approach. Of course, I realized that this was going to involve a photo shoot, and once I knew we were gonna have to do a shoot, I decided that we should just film the band “live” against a black backdrop, and then superimpose a “psych-out” style animation on top of them, like an old Jefferson Airplane or The Strawberry Alarm Clock type thing (below).

AARON: Explain the process behind creating the video.
M. WARTELLA: Well, we shot all the live footage last July 4th out in Williamsburg, when the band was swinging through New York on tour. Lighting is key to getting good video footage, so we really took our time and set it up right and we used the biggest, hottest lights we could get. Since this was a real low-budget thing, I went down to Chinatown and had a huge black felt backdrop made. We hung that in a friend’s silk-screen studio, and then it was just a matter of getting the band there. Always tell the band to get there earlier then you’re gonna need them, because they’re always late. And with make-up people and the video crew all on the clock, every second counts. Of course the whole band did finally arrive, which was a major accomplishment since Marc, the drummer, ripped his hand open the night before when we were all trying to jump a chain link fence after drinking at the bar. He had to go to the hospital and get stitches and everything. Probably didn’t get much sleep, but he still made it and did a great job. If you look close you can see his hand is bandaged in a few shots.

AARON: And the actual animated elements of the video?
M. WARTELLA: Well, it was actually really easy to set up. First I did a tight edit of the footage, and then I imported the Quicktime into Flash, and just started working right on top of the video, drawing, sketching and experimenting right there in Flash. All the shots were already set up and the cuts were in place, so that provided my structure, and then it was just a matter of finding cool optical effects to accent the band. I spent about one month off and on doing the drawings, watching old psych-out footage and picking up the tricks, that sort of thing. At the end, I exported the Flash files as .swfs and composited them onto the video using After Effects and Photoshop. There isn’t really any blending or blur on the artwork… my goal was to make it as electric and vibrant as possible. Pure electricity. Just something that would completely bug your eyes out. The crazy thing is, the first few times I watched the video it had that effect, but after working on it so long, it just seems normal to me now!

AARON: Song lyrics can often be suggestive or downright abstract. Do you feel the need to tell a literal story with your animation?

M. Wartella on the stage of the
You Go Bangin’ On shoot

M. WARTELLA: I think that would have to be a case by case basis, and it would depend on what you were trying to accomplish with your video. With The Go, some of the lines I decided to illustrate in a very literal way, but it is almost impossible to do that for every line. So that is where the artist’s own sensibilities come into play, and hopefully your style jives up with that of the band.

AARON: When compared to a traditional narrative short, is the storytelling process different for a music video?
M. WARTELLA: I think the secret to a good music video is the constant build. You always have to be out-doing yourself, and that is the approach I took with You Go Bangin’ On. Each verse or chorus has to up the visual ante from the one before. Just build, build, build, build until you get to the end and it is just about to explode and then the viewers are like, “Wow… I gotta see that again!”

AARON: You have so many creative outlets – comics, animation, illustration. Do you have a favorite?
M. WARTELLA: I would definitely place animation at the top of that list. I’ve always been lucky enough to be able to make money off of my art, ever since I was a kid, so I really do enjoy all the various outlets and opportunities that’ve come my way. Of course, I still get a thrill seeing my work in print, like I’ve been contributing to Arthur magazine lately, and doing packaging is creatively a lot of fun given the right project, but animation and video is definitely where I have my sights set. It’s a medium that can be amazingly captivating — especially when music is involved — and now with the web finally at that level where the average joe can download a clip in real time, I think we are at an unprecedented point in it’s history.

AARON: You’ve been working as a professional artist since the early 90s. When did you make the digital transition?

M. Wartella’s Ackxhpaez

M. WARTELLA: Well, I’ve actually been working as a published artist since the 80s! When I was a kid, about ten years old, I sold my first weekly comic strip to a small local newspaper in Pennsylvania. I did that for about a year and a half — never missed a deadline either! So that was my first taste of cartooning and getting a little of that recognition of having your friends see your work in print. By the time I was in college in the early to mid 90s, I started doing stuff for campus publications, and eventually started a daily comic strip called Ackxhpaez. That in turn got picked up by the editor of the alt-weekly paper in town, who had come across some of my work and hired me to do weekly strips for them. By the time I moved to New York and really started working “professionally”, I already had a good portfolio together and it all grew from there.

My first computer was a Commodore 64 in the 80s, but my art was limited to making little sprite-type animations or the equivalent of ASCII text drawings. Around 1994, I started working on a Mac, and did a few crude animations using their old HyperCard program. Then Macromedia came out with Director and Shockwave which was great. I had no official animation training, but I just kind of intuitively started picking it up. The final key was being introduced on a job to the Wacom on-screen drawing tablets, I call ‘em “digitizer pads”. This was basically like moving up to a Word Processor if you’d only ever used an old typewriter. It just made digitizing your art so much easier and I still use the Wacom screen tablet to this day… nearly ten years now. Coincidently, it was on that job that I met Aaron Augenblick, who would later go on to start a full-fledged animation studio using the same technology.

Front Row (from L to R): Jeremy Jusay, Kevin Lofton, Aaron
Augenblick, Jared Deal, Lou Solis
Back Row (from L to R): M. Wartella, Kimson Albert, Ed Hawkins III,
Peter Browngardt, Lynda Nettleship, Kris Wollinger, Joy Kolitsky, Ian
Zucchino

AARON: The buzz on Adult Swim’s Superjail is bubbling. Tell us about your experience on this new series.
M. WARTELLA: Well, Superjail is a great project and a lot of fun. Aaron Augenblick, the show’s director, and Christy Karacas, the show’s creator, are both really creative individuals, so the entire process was very laid-back and entertaining. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts I wasn’t able to be as involved with the actual drawing of the show as I was with the pilot, so I’m just as excited to see the episodes as you are. The final writing for the series was done by John Lee of Wonder Showzen fame, who I am coincidentally working with on the Adult Swim show Xavier: Renegade Angel doing animatic storyboards.

But with Superjail, every episode would start out as a rough nugget of an idea from Christy. Aaron came up with a really cool way to work, where we’d get all the artists together and actually write the show as a group. That worked out great, everybody throwing out ideas in a roundtable environment, and that really gave me the opportunity to flourish because working with Aaron I’d always be coming up with ideas of little gags to hide in the background, or just little improvements I’d think of on the spot.

M. Wartella’s design for the Adult Swim
series Superjail

But it was a great experience to actually shape a show like Superjail because the writing is where it all starts. And with everyone all together, you just get swept up in the imagination of it all, acting out the different characters and just making jokes up off the top of your head. And I’m really into plot structures, like with movies and all, so for me, developing a script is kind of like putting a puzzle together, when to reveal what pieces of information so as to keep up the suspense or whatever. I can’t say enough good things about working with those guys and the experience, really.

AARON: Do you find feedback important during the creation process?

Cover art for the book
Chew On This

M. WARTELLA: Feedback is extremely important for me, which is one of the most frustrating things about being a cartoonist, because there isn’t that instantaneous reaction like if you were a musician or actor on stage. Oftentimes, you’ll draw something and you’re lucky to get a few emails about it down the line. But that’s why contact is so important, and I always try to write to artists whose work I come across and like. Just a few words to an artist in an email can really create an incredible catharsis.

AARON: What is on your plate ahead? More music videos?
M. WARTELLA: Well, we are in pre-production on another music video for The Go – for a new song of their’s called Puzzle People. You can imagine what the visuals on that one’ll be like. I love working with bands whose music I’m into. I’ve been trying to talk Christy into doing one for his band Cheeseburger — you know, like with a giant claymation cheeseburger chasing the band down the street or something.

But I do think it is important to have that connection to the music… I don’t think I could make a very good video for Ashlee Simpson or Josh Groban. But there are a lot of great bands and artists in New York right now, it’d be great to build on that.

Album cover art for
The GO’s album Howl On The Haunted
Beat You Ride

I’d personally love to do a video for Awesome Color or collaborate with someone like Ryan Adams who is a cool visual artist in his own right.

AARON: Do you have a favorite animated music video?
M. WARTELLA: I have fond memories of the “Sledgehammer” video, though I’m not particularly a fan of Peter Gabriel. Or maybe “TV Dinners” by Z.Z. Top. I dunno about MC Skat Cat. What is he a scatological cat? That’s dirty. I really like those bad 80s animated music movies, like Rock & Rule and Heavy Metal. And of course Fantastic Planet (below). Though that isn’t technically a music video, music plays a big role in creating the feel of that film.

AARON: Anything else?
M. WARTELLA: I guess that’s it. Over and out. Thank you!

Nick Cross’ Flash-animated The Waif of Persephone screened in the Narrative Short Animation category, and a Cross was featured in an article at canoe.ca in the weeks leading up to the event.