Zombies!

Episode 3 is now up and running and features the first appearance of Gary, the next-door-neighbor with an obsessive fear of zombies.

https://vimeo.com/128221395

Three Things I Love About 3D

There are probably a lot more than three things but here are three that popped into my head while working on a scene recently:

1) Once you create a character or a setting or a prop it's always there for you whenever you need it. You don't have to "draw" it again.

2) You can have really detailed backgrounds. It can take a while to build a "set" with lots of detail in it but once it's done it can really add to a scene by having interesting things to put in the frame in the background.

3) You can move the camera in a 3D environment. Coming from a live action film background it's so much more intuitive to me to make "cinematic" camera moves. In fact it's easier to do really complicated camera shots in 3D than it is in live action because it's all computer controlled and the "camera" is invisible so you don't have to worry about keeping the crew or equipment out of the way.

It can be frustrating when it takes forever to render something and then you suddenly discover you made some kind of mistake and have to do it over again but all things considered I still appreciate working in 3D very much!

Scott Freiheit

The Swamp Creature Lives!

Episode 2 - "The Swamp Creature" is now up and running on our Vimeo channel. Hooray!

https://vimeo.com/127330316

Drake and Ralph go on the road for the first time in the series and Drake also reveals his obsession with Scarlet Johansson. Plus there are monsters, hillbillies and lots of quality hats. What more could you want?

What's On Tap?

With the "Rat Man" episode up and running you're probably wondering what else is coming your way in the world of Drake Thornton: Monster Hunter. Well, honestly there's a good chance that you haven't given it a second thought but be that as it may we're going to tell you anyway. It's for your own good. Trust us.

Drake and Ralph will be heading to Florida in the next episode to track down a dangerous swamp creature that bears no legal resemblance to The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Along the way they enjoy witty banter, little airline bottles of gin, cotton candy and who knows what else? Well, we do naturally since we made the show by why pack this post with spoilers?

In other episodes you'll meet their neighbor Gary who is totally obsessed with zombies. There will also be a colorful assortment of vampires, werewolves and everybody's favorite cartoon monsters...ghost pirates! You will also see powerful robot soldiers and an insanely twisted parody of The Wizard of Oz. Now you're interested, aren't you? Come on...admit it...you're somewhat curious. Well, maybe monsters aren't your thing. There will be sex! Sexy maids. Sex robots. Sex with the farmer's daughter. This show has sex, booze, drugs, filthy language and lots of action. It's like every show on HBO...except it's free to watch!

So there you have it. So much to look forward to. Kind of makes you feel glad you lived long enough to see a world where such a show could exist doesn't it? We thought so. That's why we made this show just for you.

3D vs 2D

            Drake Thornton: Monster Hunter is similar in tone to other adult animated shows like Archer or The Venture Brothers but it has a distinctly different look. While Archer uses some 3D modeling for backgrounds and vehicles and then "paints" the characters on top this show has kind of a unique visual style because it's entirely created and rendered in 3D.

            My earliest animation efforts were also 3D but a very different kind as I used action figures and painstakingly moved them in tiny increments in a style known as stop motion. While it was a nightmare to work so slowly and carefully I really liked the look of 3D characters and settings but the world of computer animation was still many years away.

            About five years ago I discovered something known as "machinima" where one could use a computer game to create original animations. By hacking into the code characters could be controlled and instructed to perform specific animation cycles on demand instead of having to "play" the game and hoping that they would move the way you wanted them to. Using The Sims 2 I started creating a series called The Way It Should Be that was intended as a showcase for my band The Fluorescent Penguin Exchange. The show featured musical numbers and a surprising amount of monsters which served as the inspiration for Drake Thornton: Monster Hunter.

            Unfortunately machinima has a lot of limitations, especially where lip syncing is concerned, so I decided that I needed to learn professional 3D modeling if I wanted to break free from the restrictions of having to work within the confines of a computer game. Over the next few years I started producing a variety of 3D animations and experimenting with different tools and techniques. I really liked the semi-real look of The Sims 2 characters which were distinctly "human" yet stayed far enough away from the "Uncanny Valley" effect where 3D people are so close to reality that they become creepy and disturbing to look at.

            I love the look of traditional hand-drawn 2D animation when it's well done but unfortunately it tends to take a lot of a people, a lot of time and a lot of money to do it properly. 3D offers some big advantages, especially for an ongoing series, in that once you've created a model for a character or a setting or a prop you can use it over and over again without having to redraw each frame by hand. Of course it takes an enormous amount of computer power and storage space to produce 22 minutes of HD animation in 3D at 30 frames per second but for our purposes there really wasn't any other logical choice.

            Because the look is a little different it probably takes a little getting used to but hopefully people will enjoy the more cinematic aspects of Drake Thornton: Monster Hunter.

Scott Freiheit

A Web Series...How Did We Get Here?

            Randy Thomas and I were joking one day about the potentially amusing situations that could arise at a Las Vegas wedding chapel and that turned into an idea for a live action situation comedy called "A-1 Wedding Chapel." We wrote several episodes and approached our first choice for the series star but he wouldn't even look at a script without going through the "proper channels" which means the hoops of fire you're supposed to jump through to play the game in Hollywood.

            We put that idea on the back burner and came up with another sitcom concept about a struggling sound effects company and the wacky people who worked there. That was written with an old friend of mine in mind for the star, someone who had movie, TV and Broadway credits that might make a network take interest but we hadn't been in touch for quite a few years and I found it difficult to communicate with her again so that project also got put on the shelf.

            The traditional TV "pilot" pitch is an incredibly difficult process and a crowded field where even Emmy award winners have a tough time getting an appointment. With no television track record and no professional representation our chances were less than zero. That's when we thought of the idea to produce a pilot episode as a cartoon. That we could afford to do and it would demonstrate our concept more effectively than just submitting a script and trying to explain what the show would be like. Unfortunately neither of our concepts seemed to be terribly appropriate in an animated form. They were meant to be live action situation comedies and felt odd when I tried to turn them into something else.

            That's when the idea to create a series specifically designed to be animated came to be. We wanted something that would take advantage of the fact that it was being animated, something that worked better as an animated show so "Drake Thornton: Monster Hunter" was born.

            Our brilliant idea was to produce the whole first season ourselves and then offer it to a television network as a completed package. Unfortunately we still had no foot in the door and no contacts in the business so pitching a completed series was going to be no easier than pitching a script. It started to become obvious that what we needed was exposure, even if that meant "giving away" the whole first season for nothing.

            It was honestly a difficult and painful decision to turn "Drake Thornton: Monster Hunter" into a free web series. That amount of time, effort and money that goes into creating a single 20-minute episode is staggering. Yet being well into production of the first season with no clear commercial distribution channel in sight made the web the only logical place to go. As painful as the thought of never getting paid anything for all that hard work is the thought of no one ever seeing the show was even more painful.

            The bright side of the equation is that the show is created with no outside interference. Each episode is exactly what we want it to be. That kind of artistic freedom is hard to put a price on.

            It is quite possible for a web series to become "discovered" by Hollywood and future seasons picked up for distribution. It hasn't happened a lot yet but it has happened. That's ultimately what we hope will happen with this show but it's a long way from uploading a few episodes of a funky cartoon to landing a deal with a network. One way or the other it's bound to be an interesting experience.

Scott Freiheit