Mr. Animator, I'm Ready for my Closeup

Well, today we have received our last animated shot and it is...Zoo Pandas. It's sad that production is coming to and end and that we won't be able to look forward to the Friday deliveries of animation anymore. It was always so exciting to see the audio clips that we had heard repeatedly transformed into dialog coming from a character's mouth. The animation is so consistently good that I forget that the lines of dialog are not actually coming from that animal, even when those lines come from people that I know.
One of the things that helps this illusion is when you see the character's shadow behind the slate. It really seems as though they are waiting for the director to call action before launching into their performance. Here's an example:

Slugging Percentage

I don't have much time to blog today since we're in the midst of prepping our first two episodes that are to be audience-tested very soon. I'm hoping that they do well and the rest of you will get to see them on TV soon. I think they're really good and just hope the rest of America agrees. There is only one more day of animation and then all shots for our first season of shows will be complete. The first shot we received (the termite) was back in early July so it's been quite a process. It remains to be seen which will be the last shot we receive, but here's a still from one of the last batch which is near and dear to my heart. The voices of the two slugs are from one of the interviews that I did with my cousin and her friend. Hopefully she will warm to the idea of being an animated slug. And hopefully I will warm to the idea that my interviewing voice will be heard in the episode. Ugggh.

Taunting Across the Atlantic

Director Merlin (rather emphatically) reminds us of all the delicious Victoria Sponge Cake we're missing out on:



And so I'd like to remind him of all the gorgeous weather he's missing out on:

Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!

Happy New Year everyone! Here's picture of the slate from one of my favorite recent shots, it will be seen in our "Art" episode. Unlike some of the smaller puppets, the flies are actually much larger than life, as you can see. Check it out: