BEHIND THE SCENES
GENERAL CONCEPT
AND DIRECTING
Originally, “ANY
DAY HOLYDAY” was
envisaged as a collage
animation, without
main characters or
any specific plot setting for each episode.
It was supposed to be a
potpourri of New Year
celebration customs
and traditions from
different countries in
form of simple collage
sketches, something
in keeping with the best traditions of Monty Python’s
Flying Circus.
However, following another session of brainstorming,
we agreed that this idea was rather boring. We had done
something technically similar already (see INFOTOY),
so, in order to make the program more interesting, we
decided to introduce characters that would unite the
entire series and create a common visual feature. First,
we thought up abstract circles wearing New Year hats
without any distinct personalities. Yet, after a number of
transformations and “morale building,” we got Santafleas
— five little helpers of Santa Claus. Here they are, our
beauties: Fatty, Long-Legs, Bully, Oddball, and Mister
Fifth.
They made friends quickly, developed their own
habits, special traits, mutual affinities, and became the
“core” of the entire series. In the end, all 26 episodes
focused on the funny and entertaining adventures of the
Santafleas, presented in the light of New Year customs
from different countries.
Each episode traditionally begins with our characters
sitting at home and suddenly deciding to go to another
country and help the locals prepare for New Year
celebration. And have some fun along the wa y as well.
The idea seems nice and good. Presence of main
characters is much more interesting, both in terms of
dramaturgy and marketing. However, we continued to
develop the original concept. Inspired by the works of
Kharkiv artist Sasha Danilenko, who is currently living
and working in the USA, we asked another artist, Vlad
Tsvetkov, to help us make the Santafleas alive. The result
was funny, detailed, and very far from collage style. And
when Denis Voloshchuk, the art director of the project,
saw the characters, he immediately suggested painting
the entire project in watercolor and forgetting about
collage.
The terms and budget were, to put it mildly, absolutely
not accommodating, but the team, as if having
conspired in advance, were ready to work 24/7 pushing
themselves to their limits. As soon as we started
working on the first episode, we realized we were in
trouble. But it was too late, no turning back! At that
time, we could not even fathom that it was just the
beginning.
40 ▪ Issue 6 JUNE 2016
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We had to learn the specifics of character animation,
handle enormous volumes of dramaturgic solutions in
scenarios, organize efficient communication between
designer and animation artist, search for hundreds of
compromises in sound,details,rendering,and other issues
that kept coming from everywhere. All this continued
from the very first day of work and until the very last one.
It also required monstrous time input — we forgot about
weekends and got used to calls after midnight or at six
am on Saturday concerning certain issues of design or
animation.
There was no time to think; we just had to see this
through to the end. I’d compare it to a train that is on
the verge of breakdown, but repair works carried out
on the go do not let it happen. If I were offered to go
back and do the project based on the original concept,
I’d refuse and leave everything as it is. It is only by
trying something new, strange, and scary that you feel
yourself growing as a professional and discover new
dimensions of yourself.
Pavel Rymkevich — executive producer, Art Director of the
project
CONCLUSIONS and TIPS:
All these problems stemmed from one simple
truth — any change in project concept leads to drastic
resource costs and technical complications. Increasing
the number of main characters results in directly
proportional increase of time required by the scriptwriter,
director, designer, animation artist, and sound designer
to complete the same timeline. Changing design
methods means growing the team of designers several
times. And then, it is far from certain that you will have
enough time, budget, and stress resistance. Yet the most
important thing is that it is a challenge for willpower
and enthusiasm.
DRAMATURGY
When the concept
of the program was
finally approved,the
characters
were
through and drawn,
new issues arose. Now
— from scriptwriting.
The first issue concerned searching for
information on New
Year traditions from
all over the world.
tions are similar in different countries, and some do
not celebrate New Year at all. This is due to religious,
historical, and geographical factors that have influenced
the culture and life of the people. For example, New
Year traditions of France and Germany, Cambodia and
Myanmar, Bolivia and Peru, although not without
differences, are still very much alike. There are so few
unique customs between these countries that they simply
won’t be enough to make a story, even for a small timeline
of 7 minutes. On the other hand, if we were to tell about
the traditions of individual tribes and peoples, we
would have to carry out major analytic work, dive into
anthropologic research, and scramble for bits of necessary
information. This was plainly impossible under the set
schedule.
The second scriptwriting issue concerned the
form. Initially, the program was to be educational first,
entertaining second. It was conceived as a New Year video
encyclopedia. Interesting facts about New Year traditions
from different countries were to be accompanied by
a vivid collage video sequence without any clear plot.
However, as characters were introduced and style was
changed, visual component came to the fore.
As a result, “ANY DAY HOLYDAY” grew from a simple
interstitial program into a hybrid of an educational
program and a cartoon. According to the laws of
dramaturgy, each historical fact had to be supported by
a corresponding scene based on a gag, while creating
a counterpoint between the video sequence and the
voiceover. Of course, our five main characters came to
rescue, each having their own specialty. Yet, bare character traits are not enough for a good story. Besides, we
wanted to communicate the atmosphere of every country
visited by the Santafleas. Not an easy task, this one.
The most difficult part was coming up with gags for
the scenes. First, they had to match certain text blocks.
Second, I set myself a goal – avoid repeating myself at
all costs. The problems blossomed somewhere around
the 8th episode; I was simply out of ideas! However,
several hours of persistent brainstorm with myself
and art director gave me a second wind, and the search
yielded the necessary result. Since every episode had
at least 10 gags on the average, the entire series of 26
episodes provided us with a huge collection of unique
gags easily adaptable for almost any story. This was
some crucial experience!
Artyom Gordynia — project scriptwriter
One would think
our planet is so huge; there are so many countries,
peoples, tribes, and ethnicities. And all of them have
their own culture, customs, and traditions. Just spin
the globe, point your finger at random – and there you
have a new subject for an episode. In reality, it turned
out to be much more complex.
The truth is that many New Year celebration tradiSeason Screen TV Review
CONCLUSIONS and TIPS:
Having faced and overcome the above-mentioned
issues, we have learnt several important nuances to be
considered prior to developing scripts for a series.
First of all, when you are thinking through the entire
series, try to establish the subject of each episode in
advance. Also, collect at least minimum information
required to write the script. Otherwise, you risk losing a
lot of time on research, and then you will have to choose
between writing a good script and meeting deadlines.
Secondly, remember that the number of characters
have no influence whatsoever on the quality of the story.
Sometimes, as few as one character is enough to enliven
the scene. The more characters you use, the more difficult
it is to work with them: each character must act, stay
sstrnews.com
in character, and propel the plot. Character’s inactivity
immediately gives the sense of something lacking and
can spoil even the most interesting scene. Better not to
put the character on screen at all, if you don’t know what
to do with it.
Thirdly, the pilot episode (or the second one, but not
later) is the key episode. It sets the style and atmosphere
to be used throughout the series. Work it out with
maximum details and attention. It is better to spend five
times more time on the pilot episode than deviate from
the style as the work progresses and turn the entire series
from an integral product into a hodgepodge of different,
although similar episodes.
DESIGN
AND ANIMATION
When we said
we were in trouble,
we meant first of all
design and animation.
This is where all the
major issues began.
The idea of going for
watercolor
seemed
excellent at the approval phase, but the
implementation
turned into all-out
nightmare. Of course,
drawing
ten-fifteen
scenes with background, objects, items, secondary
characters, and breaking them into layers is a very laborintensive process that requires a lot of time and resources.
Yet we had deadlines, and tight ones. As a result, our
designer was physically incapable of managing the
amount of work.
In order to save the project, we found several more
designers in the shortest time possible. They had to
get into the swing quickly and begin to work. This
notwithstanding, our newly created design department
was still overwhelmed. The only way to remedy the
situation was to sacrifice the details in order to meet the
deadlines. Over time, thanks to the efforts of our designers,
we accumulated a sound collection of backgrounds,
interiors, objects, and secondary characters that helped
us out more than once. However, the beginning of work
was pure hell in terms of design.
Yet, another nasty surprise was waiting for us. We had
the video sequence drawn, but now we needed to animate
it. Seeing that we switched from collage to character
animation, implementation required much more time
and efforts. Although our animation department was our
largest one, it still couldn’t keep up with the task.
Character animation differs greatly from other
types of applied animation, since it requires specific
knowledge in the field of directing, scene arrangement,
and physiology. Each element of the on-screen set-up
must interact with the characters, highlight the story,
and place emphasis on the important points.
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