Reddit AMA Recap: Fred Seibert And Natasha Allegri

A couple of days ago, Fred Seibert and the talented Natasha Allegri took time out of their busy schedule to host a Reddit AMA, these are the short bits!

A lot to wade through here! As expected there was a huge outpouring of love for Fred Seibert, the man responsible for bringing so many wonderful cartoons to our screens and Natasha, the creator of the genderbent Finn and Jake (Fionna & Cake) and Bee and Puppycat. The AMA was hosted ostensibly to raise awareness for the Bee and Puppycat Kickstarter but there was a lot of other chit chat too.

Fred Seibert is a man I admire greatly, always one with an eye for groundbreaking animation he has been instrumental in the recent shift toward bold new animation styles and the use of the web as an outlet for quality animated series. Somewhere he went from the guy who bought us the awesome Fairly Odd Parents to the guy who bought us Adventure Time and everything Cartoon Hangover. He also had a hand in starting tumblr, if you aren’t familiar with the story: there’s a reason all the Frederator series have tumblrs, David Karp was working as an intern for Frederator when he developed the blogging platform. No Seibert, no tumblr, so that’s just one awesome thing we have to thank him for. This is a man with his finger firmly on the pulse of animation’s heartbeat, he knows whats going on! A question put to him on the AMA alluded to the fact that this new generation of animators have tapped into a definite zeitgeist and his answer showed he acknowledges this:

“The truth is in every generation of cartoons, there are groups of creators that come out of the same influences. I think that more than anything else, that is what accounts for what you see as a coincidence. I have always kind of liked that all of the Looney Toons seem to take place in the same universe and they were all friends and or enemies. I think the same thing is true of Dexter’s Laboratory and the PowerPuff girls.”

So, the rest of the AMA then. First thing to catch my eye was that Natasha Allegri is a big fan of King of The Hill and has it all on DVD, she obviously has good taste and draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources. Later on in the session, when asked about her influences she revealed 90’s anime had also been a big factor in her love affair with animation, specifically Sailor Moon but she also mentioned many other series and says she still does watch anime when she has the time, even hinting that her love of the darker type of anime may come to influence her work in the future.

Natasha also tackled a question about Bee and Puppycat which is also relevant to much of Frederator’s work: is it aimed at kids or adults and the answer is: ( with the exception of shows like Supef*ckers obviously) both!!

Natasha expressed how much artistic freedom the creators are given at Frederator which Seibert also alluded to when asked how he divides his time between projects, he said:

“I am big plate spinner, but the truth is that each project is handled by a creative person, like a Natasha on Bee and PuppyCat, Butch Hartman on Fairly OddParents, or Pen on Adventure Time, and each of them have a great team of creative and production people.”

Fred also said there was no firm law about what medium the animators use at Frederator:

“At Frederator, we let the creators decide what kind of techniques they use. I have never asked Natasha why she chose tradition hand drawn animation but I can take guess. There is something beautiful about what the hands of animation do when taking gorgeous drawings, like Natasha makes, and making them move in space. At least that is what I see when I look at the cartoon. Actually,  Adventure Time and Bravest Warriors are made in an almost identical technical manner and we share many of the same animators.”

I have noticed this myself and it’s one of the things I love about the company, you can have traditional 2D animators sharing an office with experimental CG animators, as seen on shows like Fanboy and Chum Chum, there obviously is a great deal of creative freedom within the company.

On this, Nat said that as far as Bee and Puppycat went ” working with frederator, they let me have a lot more freedom than I was ready for i think. I’m super grateful.”

On to the important stuff about Bee and Puppycat and we’re informed that Puppycat is:

“maybe a mash up of… 70 percent cat and 30 percent puppy. Um… let’s break it down

Overall appearance is definitely cat like, point ears, kitty face… But maybe the tail is more dog like, he wags it like a puppy would… probably. Puppycat also smells like a dog… but maybe he uses the bathroom like a cat… like a toilet trained cat!

Also puppycat probably has a more… fluid hold. like a cat… you know how dogs are super rigid when you pick them up?… umm mm… i think i tried to make puppycat’s markings like this

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/5a1T-SARjL8/maxresdefault.jpg“

Glad that’s cleared up! I also learned from Natasha that Puppycat’s voice was a random vocaloid from YouTube:

“I love vocaloids, i think I heard about it through like… clicking related videos on youtube for an afternoon… I wanted to use one from the begining… I asked people about the legal stuff on twitter… and once I learned as much as I could about it, I asked Frederator if it’d be okay to use it… they said yes and… I picked oliver because he was the cutest english speaking one.”

Before answering questions about the Kickstarter, we found out that growing up, Fred was influenced by “Bugs Bunny, the Flintstones, and Huckleberry Hound”. He added that his influences as a child steer a lot of what he does today, echoing his earlier comments on artistice freedom:

“Honestly, I had hundreds of TV characters that I loved growing up, but the truth is that its the creators of our cartoons that make all the difference, not me. It’s their drawings and their words and their ideas that make our cartoons wonderful. I try to stay out of their way. When I am looking at an idea, usually in storyboard form, the only thing I look at is if I am in love with the character. If I am, those are the ones that I loved to get in involved with. have nothing to do with the cartoons we make other than falling in love with their characters and creators; it’s all up to the creators.  I loved too many tv shows as a kid to even begin to list my favorites. I just loved tv and still do! “

Moving on to why they chose Kickstarter and plans for the show after funding, Fred told us:

“We never really planned on doing a Kickstarter, but it was an idea that came in from our community and made perfect sense. The only thing that makes me sad, and I am hoping that will change soon, is that the laws don’t allow us to make everyone investors, yet.  So we try to come up with the best rewards we could without losing all the money we need to make the series. We’re excited to use Kickstarter to help build our series so that creators like Natasha can have the freedom to make the shows that they want to make without a lot of executive interference.” And that: “We are planning lots of behind the scenes videos for backers and for the DVD. If we hit some of the stretch goal, we plan to do a Blu-Ray. Surprisingly most people who back Kickstarters prefer DVDs, though the Blu-Ray is popular with a select, vocal few. We plan to make a Blu-Ray a stretch goal reward. The cartoons are being delivered in 1080p and the digital downloads will be, too. Hope that works for you.”  Sounds very cool indeed!

An interesting question for anyone wanting to understand behind the scenes of professional cartoon making, was: “In the cost breakdown you guys mention most of the animation is done in Korea? What parts of the animation process, if any, are done here? What exactly is sent to Korea so they know what to do? ” I’ve always wondered about this myself. Seibert told us:

“Storyboards, animatics, timing sheets, voice acting, character designs and model sheets, background keys, what we call mouth charts and character turnarounds, and all sorts of assorted of supporting paperwork. They send us back finished animation and we add music, sound effects and some editing.”

 One of the things I love about Frederator, as I have already mentioned, is their foresight in making good quality web series, and  Fred feels their shows online should be treated no differently to the televised ones:

“I already think of Cartoon Hangover and online video as a major televised program, but honestly, we’re gonna go wherever YOU and your friends want us to go – whether that’s traditional tv, feature films, or holograms.”

If I haven’t mentioned Natasha that much it’s because she didn’t get many questions per se, just a huge outpouring of love from fans all over the world, she was very touched by it and referenced it when she talked about the response to Bee and Puppycat:

“when I made puppycat I definitely was thinking about making something people I liked would enjoy… …… and whenever someone goes out of their way to tell me that they like it… it feels amazing. Anytime someone takes time out of their life to tell someone else that they appreciate them… that’s so great… and humbling and… awesome.”

One thing that made me smile is throughout the session people referenced the fact that there are a great deal more women in the animation industry now than in previous eras, Fred agreed:” I think we might be starting the golden age of female created cartoons, for sure. We’re really excited, because we’ve been trying to get this going for almost 20 years. It’s about time!” He said.

The whole session was more of a love in than the usual question and answer session that AMA has come to be, mixed in with the “thank yous” and “I love you guys’ ” was a whole load of people asking for jobs and advice on how to pitch ideas to Frederator, with that in mind, I’ll leave you with the link to submission guidelines on Fred’s tumblr, you can check them out here. He outlined the process for the scripting as this:

“The shows are roughly outlined – maybe a couple pages with drawings – and then the “scripts” are drawn and written right on the storyboards. Other shows we produce are written with a script first and then boarded. It really depends on the creator and show runner.”

One final thing that caught my eye was when Fred was asked how long we can expect the cult hit Adventure Time to run for:

“I would love to keep making Adventure Time for as long as the creative team is excited. But we don’t own Adventure Time – Cartoon Network does – and it’s completely up to them.” Let’s hope Cartoon Network don’t let us down on this one!

Some fascinating stuff there from Fred Seibert and, of course, Natasha Allegri was as funny and charming as usual. You can read the whole session over at Reddit and check out how the Kickstarter is doing at the Bee and Puppycat project page. Fred Seibert can be found over on tumblr as can Natasha Allegri, who I definitely recommend checking out for her hilarious and often stunning art. Be sure to check out Cartoon Hangover on tumblr too for news of new series and loads of awesome art and animation!