Colorful Characters

comes to animated life in a promising new PBS series. By Ramin Zahed

ming at PBS, recalls seeing the first book in the library when it came out. “I knew it was the kind of book that my daughter was going to love, and I was right,” she says. “When the second book Purplicious came out, I knew I ‘I think it’s important to show the arts in the context of a kid’s life. Pinkalicious tackles the subject in a very non-obvious and unique way.’ — Linda Simensky, VP of Children’s Programming, PBS had to buy it. There was no point to wait for the library to get it.”

Exec producer Dorothea Gillim’s goddaughter was also a big fan. “Her mom told me that the book was very popular with her daughter. She kept asking her to read it to her over and

what they like. “When Pink meets her friend Purplicious for the first time, she is confronted with the idea that not everybody likes the same colors, and that some people act as if their opinions are always right. Pink actually stands up for what she likes. I think that aspect of the character really stays with kids.”

Both Gillim and Simensky praise the show’s lovingly crafted color palette and the compelling collage style developed by the team at Sixteen South, an award-winning Irish studio that has also worked on shows such as Big & Small, Pajanimals and Lily’s Driftwood Bay. Gillim says they were very impressed with the work that the studio had done, and realized that they would be a great fit in terms of animation style. “We were looking for a collage-style show, and they had done something like that before,” she recalls. “They really nailed the look and our mission for the show. It was a very clear choice for us.”

The team at Sixteen South uses the popular 2D animation software CelAction (which is also utilized for shows such as Lily’s Driftwood Bay and Sarah & Duck) to create the tactile animation. “Taking the books’ beautiful and challenging illustration style and adapting it to create this rich and layered animation was certainly a challenge, but they did it beautifully and really mastered it for the show,” notes Gillim. Inspiring Love for the Arts Another aspect of the show that sets it apart from hundreds of preschool shows on the market is that it aims to help develop young view- shows that teach kids how to paint. I think it’s important to show the arts in the context of a kid’s life. Pinkalicious tackles the subject in a very non-obvious and unique way. Art and imagination play a huge role in her life. Each character on the show is impacted by art in different ways, and they all fit together very well for us.”

Finding the right child actors to provide the voices for Pinkalicious, Peterrific and the rest of their neighborhood friends was also a huge part of the equation. “It was really important Pinkalicious & Peterrific premieres on PBS Kids in February. The first season of the show features 36 half-hour episodes and one hour-long special. Kids can also check out the show on the PBS Kids Video App and pbskids.org.

kick Mr. Dinkles (both voiced by David Fynn). There’s also Smidge, a tiny but strong Troll who is voiced by none other than toon world veteran Kevin Michael Richardson.

As in the movie, music continues to play a big part in the Trolls universe. Each episode of the series features original songs by acclaimed songwriter and producer Alana Da Fonseca (the Pitch Perfect films, Alvin and the Chipmunks) as well as the addtional voice talents of Amanda Leighton, Skylar Astin, Ron Funches, Gary Cole and David Koechner.

“I think there is a fun and exuberance to this show, but at the core of it, there’s heart,” says Maria Crenna, executive in charge on the series. “The values of the show are incredibly sweet, and they treat each other with kindness and respect — and also just really have fun together.”

The 2D-animated series is co-produced with DreamWorks’ partner studios in Korea, Emation and NE4U, which are 2D hand-drawn specialists. As the show is not a storyboarddriven series, the Glendalebased team is tasked with delivering an 11-minute script once a week. “We hand over the scripts to our six board artists and three directors, and they run with them,” says Beans. The turnaround time for each episode from start to finish is about 12 weeks. So Many Trolls, So

Little Time One of the biggest challenge for Beans and his team is the sheer number of characters involved in each episode. “The premise of the show is about how Poppy has gone from Princess to Queen, so she has relationships with the entire nation of Trolls,” explains the exec producer. “Many of our

tle troll baby, and he’s as much involved as anyone on the team. One of the things that is great about working with Guillermo is that he is so aware of the world, and I think we’re very in synch in terms of the team and what everyone is looking for. At the beginning, it was a lot of going through the narrative, making sure that all the episodes have really high standards. Specifically, I can tell you that there’s an episode around the middle of the season where Jim transforms into different types of Jims, and I can tell you that [del Toro] was really specific about getting the right manga eyes for Jim, with the different three, four highlights that we wanted to put in. It was a lot of fun. You’ve had a lot of great voice actors on this show and you have some great new ones this season. Why do you think that this show is able to get such top talent like Mark Hamill and Lena Headey?

I would say Guillermo does help … I think part of the reason is that the kids and parents are both watching the show and liking it. [Headey] was amazing — she was like, ‘Oh, finally, I have a villain that my son can watch.’ Mark Hamill has been a blessing. We wanted to match Kelsey Grammer as Blinky and the match between the voice and the character is so perfect that we needed to match that with his evil brother [Dictatious, voiced by Hamill]. There’s a great scene in episode five where they face each other for the first time, and the level of nuance and animation we were able to get out of those performances was amazing. Are you still able to use material Anton Yelchin recorded? And if not, how are you handling that role going forward? Blaas: We’re still going through that process for the new season. But I can tell you for all of season two, we were able to record everything with Anton. He did all the performance for Jim on the 13 episodes. In one, he had to play multiple Jims. We have Jim flit into different types of personalities. He went from being the normal Jim to being very romantic Jim, to being a very warrior-like Jim and to being a bad-Spanishaccent Jim. And all those performances he did, and he was having so much fun doing it in the recording booth. I think that’s probably one of the things that we all will remember always from working with such an amazing actor was being able to see his growth in the season and see how he had so much powerful range in terms of performance. DreamWorks’ available on Netflix.

they can accomplish what they’ve set out to do.”

Today, Bento has three U.S. locations — in North Hollywood and Burbank in California, and one in Atlanta — as well as a studio in Toronto. It has also expanded internationally by launching a kids’ division called Sutikki and opening a U.K. office as well.

In 2017, the Bento slate included Comedy Central’s Brickleberry, the Coldplay music video for “A L I E N S,” the popular YouTube puppet series Glove and Boots, and fast-and-furious David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special, which aired on NBC.

“It was about 10 weeks of turnaround time,” says Greenberg of the Pumpkins project, brought to them by Andrew Singer at Broadway Video and Dan Shear at Universal Television. From there, the company worked with creators Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell from SNL on the special. “We’ve worked hard to show that we can handle these kinds of tight deadlines and build the sort of reputation where we’re known for this, and I think it’s

Described as a gritty, young adult and socially relevant depiction of America, Mutafukaz is one of those unusual animated movies that defies easy categorization. Set in the world of Dark Meat City, which serves as an allegory of Los Angeles, the movie is a co-production of Ankama with Japan’s 4°C of Tekkoninkreet fame. The $14 million budgeted film is directed by 4°C’s Shoujirou Nishimi ( Batman: Gotham Knight) and Guillaume Renard (better known as Run), the creator-writer-illustrator of the original short and subsequent comics.

“I’ve always loved animation, and in 2003, long before the comic books, I created a short film called Operation Blackhead, which laid the groundwork for the Mutafukaz universe,” says Run. “So when the opportunity to create a full-length feature film with a cult animation studio presented itself several years later, I didn’t hesitate. Anthony Roux (CEO of Ankama) met Mrs. [Eiko] Tanaka from Studio 4°C, and he presented a few of our comic-book projects to her. Anthony has always been open to cross-media experiences, and it just so happens that Mutafukaz was what was closest to the studio’s DNA. A few weeks later, we all gathered around a table to discuss the feasibility of the project to adapt Mutafukaz. Studio 4°C was already a guarantee of quality, so I knew that the project was in good hands!"

This year’s spotlight country is Spain, which is celebrated for its acclaimed artists, innovative and well-recognized digital software companies, and its new animation incentives. There are eight projects selected for this special focus: Dragonkeeper (Dragoia Media, in development) Another Day of Life (Kanaki Films, sneak preview) Elcano & Magellan, The First Voyage Around the World (Dibulitoon Studio, in production) Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (The Glow Animation Studio, in production) Unicorn Wars (Abano Productions & UniKo, in development) Gabo - Memoirs of a Magic Life (The Glow Animation Studio, in concept) The Impossible Journey (El Viaje Imposible/3 Doubles Producciones, in concept) Trip to Teulada (12 Pinguinos, in concept)