Reddit AMA Recap: Sam Sweetmilk Kickstarter

Since featuring Space exploration comedy Sam Sweetmilk on the site last week events have moved pretty fast for the Kickstarter hopeful so to greet fans and answer questions, the team held an AMA on Reddit.

Sam designs space

After we first wrote about this potential web-series hit the project has been featured on a number of sites and excitingly has been snapped up by channel Frederator to be one of their featured shows. All these plans remain hypothetical, however, if the project doesn’t meet its Kickstarter target, making a Reddit Ask Me Anything the perfect platform to convert  fans who have yet to decide upon donating.

First up was the question of how the project managed to secure voice over legend Kevin McNally for the pilot, Jason Lee Weight, the show’s writer and director, answered this one:

JLW: “A friend of mine was friends with (Kevin’s) daughter, and she passed the script on. He read it, and emailed me pretty quick, and I opened it all excited to find he’d replied that he didn’t know “who it was for”, in terms of audience. I was pretty crushed, because I took it as a rejection, and I replied with this long, wordy defence of animation as a medium, and how misrepresented it is and its possibilities, and how its audience is only limited by public opinion. He replied that, given my “erudite reply”, it would be, let me remember right, “churlish to do anything but assay the role of Ghostworth in (my) imminent production.” It took 2 years after that, so I dunno about imminent, but that’s how we snagged Gibbs. With a whiny letter written in defeat.”

One thing was clear from the fan’s responses was the love for the current voice line-up, being described as “perfect” by one Redditor.

Moving on to how team Sweetmilk got together and the problems associated with producing a pilot such as this on a tight budget, Jason Weight and Toby Clayton (artist and concept designer) revealed all;

JLW: “I saved up enough to pay 4 animators to do rough animation for a month. I recruited people from Denmark and the US via online forums, and gatecrashed animation grad screenings (which is how I met Michal and Haakon) Luckily we were staying with a very generous friend of mine, who had accommodation and studio space (his website is here), and Haakon was able to stay and complete the inbetweens, cleanup, colour, and Michal arrived in January.”

sam design final

TC: “I knew Jason through my Brother. My bro said that Jason was writing a cartoon script and he was looking for someone to make character sketches. I had some dodgy character art on a forum somewhere – which Jason must of seen and decided to give me a shot at design. We sent ideas back and forth and eventually Sam’s face started to show up. That was 2009 and im still very much involved in the project and excited to see its development!”

After professing their love for Adventure Time the guys outlined the plans for the series’ cast and explained the design of Vela, the alien Princess of the story:

JLW: “The main cast will have 4 core characters. You’ve met 3 of them. The rest of the cast will be very well-populated, it’s just that it’s cheaper to have so few characters (we only animated 2, if you don’t count the ‘space eel’) at this early stage. Next episode has 3 new cities (though we visit them fairly quickly), a huge ship (where most of the episode takes place) and a cast of aliens so weird in concept that I’m not sure what they’ll look like. There’s an amorphous blob covered in faces who used to be a personal assistant/sex aid to an “heir to the galaxy.” In terms of episodes, that’s down to budget. I’d totally squeeze in ten, but it depends on budget.”

Sam designs

Talking about the series’ backstory and Sam’s motvation Jason added:

“It’s like Adventure Time in a bit of a twisted way, as Sam has, as Ghostworth puts it, a ‘need to adventure’. The series revolves around it. It’s about exploring a magical new place, sure, and he’s the only human in the series like Finn is, but his whole deal about moving and getting into trouble is about keeping that void of blank memory where he’s come from at his heels. He’s running from something.”

sam concept

 Toby Clayton then let slip some of  Vela’s, character designs: Here’s a scrap* for some of the major developments of Vela. The character required an obvious “Alien-esqe” feature – So I kept pushing the whole “space pixie” vibe and kept the ears as a quirk (Which Jason still wanted to move away from) but I kind of like how she turned out. (they`re more of an heart-shaped-pixie-ears now…) Cowboy Bebopwas a big design influence and we liked the mix of Radical Edward & Faye Valentine as a jump point to begin iteration. Vela’s final skin tone will mirror Edward too. Her skin was green at some stage…

vela_character_development_by_tobynicholasc-d6po99r
* Vela designs

TNC: Her background history is important to who she is as a character – but not so much as who she wants to become. We hope to tell that story as the series unfolds. Her whole life, all she has ever known is that space station and those books and stories of adventures or whatever else is in the library. Everything about who I think Vela is contradicts what Jason has written for her – which makes me even more intrigued in what the to expect. She’s a great character I’m really fond of her. Tricia was an excellent casting for her. Vela is probably my favourite character – we went through a lot of visual design with Vela. She has some quirks being an alien and all..

The team expressed a desire for the show to be eventually picked up by a UK network for syndication but pointed out: “budgets don’t cover animation here.” Something I’m always trying to point out to people! Finally, I asked, if the project gets successfully funded, will we be seeing any typical Frederator style spin-off comics or merchandise a la We Love Fine:

Team Sweetmilk: “Oh man, I’d love a spin-off comic. Like, take a character people really respond to and expand upon ’em. Pull an Animatrix and add details that will later effect the main plot of the show. That’d be great.

As for merch, eh… that doesn’t excite me.”

We, the fans, thank you for the chat guys: judging by the reception you got this is something people are really looking forward to, lets’ hope they can put their money where their hearts are! You can still help Team Sweetmilk by heading to the Kickstarter page and pledging now, you can also catch up with the team via the official tumblr or follow Toby Clayton on his. Alternatively, get updates on the Kickstarter campaign by liking the Sweetmilk FaceBook page! Here’s the remastered four minute preview Frederator have put together to remind you why you should pledge!