Exploring Animation and Comics with Ivan Dixon

Watch Our Last Video Here: https://youtu.be/rq5i1N_lES0?si=R0ojQ2YROD5KohDP We sit down with renowned animation director Ivan Dixon. The discussion covers a wide range of topics, from Ivan's work on the popular comic Muscles McQuack to his experience directing music videos for artists like Childish Gambino. Ivan also shares behind-the-scenes insights into his work on major animation projects, including The Simpsons, Rick and Morty, and Fallout video games. Tune in to hear about the creative processes, industry challenges, and Ivan’s perspective on the evolution of 2D and 3D animation.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, all right, so what's going on my freaking gigks?
This is The Square round Table Podcast. I want to
thank all of our viewers and listeners for coming out
and following us on our journey and listening to us
every week. We really appreciate you, guys, and just like always,
we got another amazing podcast coming to you tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
So, guys, we are very.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Excited to end the year to end season three of
The Square round Table Podcast with a guests who who's
work we've definitely talked about for a long time, so
it's really good. Like we were talking a little bit
before we started the recording, it's definitely great to put
a face to all these amazing projects. So, without me
further ado, guys, we have animation director mister Ivan Dixon.

(00:43):
So thank you so much, sir for coming on the
podcast with us. We really appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you for having me. This is my first time
on a podcast. Disappoint Oh no, that's not gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh no, not at all, not at all, And we're
honored that we're your first podcast. So hopefully this experience
will be like fun enough to where you'll want to
do more podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
In the future, So we definitely appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
But we first, oh yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
We first, Oh yeah, man, we're glad, look like I said,
glad to have you. So I'll first start out, just
like we do with all of our guests. Before we
get into all of the good stuff, we just want
to do a quick check. Let's see how everything's going
with you. How has everything been going recently with you?
How have you been doing lab?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, it's that time of year. Things start to wrap
up a little bit around this time. But yeah, my
day to day is running an animation studio, so we've
always got a handful of projects going at different stages. Design, storyboard, animation, post.
So that's the day to day and the comics that

(01:57):
you mentioned, that's just what I do on the side
when I get time. But yeah, it's great that you
guys are reading it and relating to it. You know,
I bet my stories about Australian Buddy building Duck in
l A. It's cool.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
It's like I was telling you before, we were able
to look at the comic, like I said, through following
you on Instagram. So for all of our viewers and listeners,
if you want to read the comic Muscles the Quack.
It's definitely on Ivan's Instagram, but we'll have that in
the description below.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, it was just.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah, the instagram is in the banner, souff. You want
to follow all this stuff, it's right there for you.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
I keep forgetting Demetrius. Demetrius comes in clutch with the banners.
My bad, Demetris, I forget that.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, man, it was like instant I read it.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I started reading it and at the point not to
ruin anything, but at the point to where Pete got
into became a peg brother at.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
The sex club at that because oh, here's the funny thing.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
I read the comic actually backwards, which I think helped
get the tension together because there was the peg brother
a conversation that was happening.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
I'm just like, what is I'm like, I think I
know that, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
So I was flipping through it and flipping through it,
and then I finally got on that scene and at
that point I was dead and I had to send
it to my brother and Demetrius and we were.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, so there's actually it was a backstory to how
canon Pete became peg Brothers. But you can only find
it in the print version I released earlier this year.
It's like a five page little mini comic that kind
of threads the missing gap between episode five and six,
and it's it's yeah, it's filthy, yeah. Love. I grew

(04:04):
up watching shows like The Simpsons and South Park and stuff,
so like dirty, funny, adult stuff was always appealing. And
then I remember when I discovered an old copy of
Robert Crumb comics, like a sixties underground cartoonist from the States,

(04:25):
and it was just so next level. It's filthy, like
stuff you couldn't do on TV. You still couldn't do
on TV, and I just, I guess, I really I
like exploring that kind of grimy, weird stuff and seeing
who will go along with it, but all through the
eyes of this really innocent, sweet, lovable character muscles.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
No, it's yeah, it's really hilarious.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
And I can definitely see some of those references like
calling out to some of those other titans of like
adult cartoon comedy or adult comics.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
It definitely is just enough, like it's.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Not like it in any way like too too vulgar
or anything like that, Like it's if fits right in
that pocket and the comedic writing is.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
It's just amazing.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Like I said, before I saw the animation that you
put on YouTube, that was gonna be one of my
earlier questions. I was gonna be like, man, are you
trying to make this into a cartoon at all? Do
you have any animation for it? Because I felt like
I was watching it right there on the screen, like
it was just jumping off of the page. So we
definitely can't wait. I know you guys are probably are

(05:34):
you still working on it right now?

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, I just was working on it before we helped
on this call. I'm working on or the next story
in the series, and I've got like a little mini
comic I want to do with the characters, like a
backstory for how Muscles got the nickname Muscles when he
was a teenager. But yeah, I can tell you a
bit of the backstory of how this character came about

(05:58):
if you want. Yeah, I think it'll fill in the
gaps and explain why there's partially animated stuff and different
stories all over the place. So the character was really
inspired by I saw one of those Louis Thereau documentaries,

(06:19):
Louis Thereau, who's like a British documentarian who just goes
to the States hangs out with some odd ball people.
He'll go there and hang out with like porn stars
or bodybuilders or white supremacists and just talk to them.
And he's like amazing because he can he can disarmed people,
because he's so British and polight that people don't realize

(06:41):
how rude's really being. Like he said to this white
supremacist once he goes, do you think you might have
mental illness? And because he sounds so lovely like, they
engage with him. They don't fight back anyway. He had
this story about bodybuilders and there was this Australian body
builder in LA and he had a lisp like a

(07:03):
bit like a cartoon duck, and it was just so
funny to me, and I thought, I want to know
more about this guy, and so I invented Muscles mcquack
as a response to that. And he's a mix of
different people I know who've gotten into bodybuilding and then
my own personal experiences going to the US and being

(07:23):
an outsider there. But yeah, I drew this comic. It
was just like a four page kind of very simple
story about Muscles discovering his girlfriend Rimming an Ostrich so
extremely relatable. And then I put that in and a
producer I worked with and she saw it and she goes,
I think my boss at the studio would really like this.

(07:46):
We should develop it as a series. I was like, Okay,
let's do it. And then we developed it as a show.
We made that short animated thing that you saw on
YouTube called Bushwalk. It's just a very short five minute cuts,
and then we took that out and we pitched it
to all the major studios in Hollywood and Hulu were

(08:09):
interested and they paid us to make a pilot episode
and a script for episode two. So we had this
big team of people. We had voice actors, writers, We
made a pilot animattic. It's never been released, but the
show got shelved after there was a Disney Fox merger
that made Disney the majority shareholder and Hulu and they

(08:33):
already had a show based on Howard the Duck they
were doing. They're like, why we got two duck shows?
We don't need two duck shows. So the show disappeared.
But I always thought, oh, this is a shame. We've
done all this work. I'm really happy with these characters,
but nobody has seen it outside of that short animation
and a handful of little comics. So I really wanted

(08:53):
to start using those characters and exploring the world more.
And that's where you come in. And the comics you've
seen in the series, there's now seven of them or
eight of them that kind of represent a new body
of work that I'm just trying to make the comics
for the sake of making comics. I'm not trying to
pitch it as a show anymore. If somebody wants to

(09:15):
make a show, awesome, but that's not a goal for
me because it's just such a long shot. Yeah, no,
that's the whole story.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
No, I definitely get that.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
But yeah, like you said, making comics for the sake
of making them, Like, I.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Still think that's awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
I would, of course, I don't swim at any point.
Wink wink wanted to pick that up, wink wink. I
wouldn't be upset at it. But we just think it's fantastic.
And you did mention something about there being a physical
like a short comic out for that you can get
where exactly can you find that?

Speaker 3 (09:54):
A Yeah, there's only a couple more copies left, maybe
three or four copies left the run I did. You
can buy that at Dixon dot com. There's a store there.
I don't think I had a copy on me, maybe
somewhere else in the house. But it's Yeah, it's a
volume of the first six comics plus mini comics, plus

(10:17):
there's a cover art that's never been seen for each story,
there's there's like a little introduction to the characters that
kind of explains a little bit of where they're at
and how they got there. And I want to continue
doing those as volumes, So every six or so episodes,
I'll put out a book bundling up the story so
if you can have them all in one place. And

(10:39):
I did actually remaster some of the art, fixed some
of the problems, the typos. In one drawing, I accidentally
drew them driving on the wrong side.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Of the road.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Oh, I corrected that because on Instagram you can't update images.
So if I'd made a mistake on Instagram and it's
already had forever, yeah, it's there forever. Yeah, But like
I want to keep doing more of that, And yeah,
I do think like comics are an art form in
and of themselves, and it's not just stepping stone to

(11:11):
making a show or a movie. I love the freedom
that comics give me. I don't have to take notes,
I don't have to work with explain my ideas or
characters or jokes. It's if a joke is weird or
it doesn't work, that's fine. It's all worth it to
have that freedom. I don't know if you guys relate, No,
I think so totally.

Speaker 5 (11:34):
I also think just being able to post your comics
on Instagram, it's like you said, the freedom. And also,
I honestly think it's probably be like an easier means.
Maybe it is like easier means to be able to
get like more eyes on your just the ideas. It's
more eyes on your ideas, and that is if the
algorithm just wants to give you a chance that day.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
I have found that because most of my work I
do is commercial work. You've seen some of the music
videos or the I've worked on, like video game stuff
over the years, and that stuff's great. I love it.
It's really exciting and fun to get paid to make cartoons.
But I found the muscles work I post that has
the strongest engagement of anything that I post, and I

(12:21):
think it's because it's so clearly personal and it's me,
it's not an ad for something else. So I do
think I don't know how the algorithm works. I've never
understood it, but I do notice that people engage more
strongly with content that they feel is real and personal.

Speaker 5 (12:41):
Oh totally, yeah, and basically pretty much how the algorithm works. Basically,
it doesn't. It doesn't work, and.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
It's a huge hater sometimes for sure. But yeah, but yeah, especially.

Speaker 5 (12:57):
Like we're muscles, m quack like all the thing, because
me personally, it's just a subject matter in the story
is a super relatable and I know plenty of people
that act like those characters and find those find themselves
in similar situations. I don't think I know anybody that
that that gave a Yeah, I don't know anybody that

(13:22):
ring the job and ostro. I don't think I know anybody.

Speaker 6 (13:31):
I don't think.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
But yeah, that's why I call it semi autobiographical. You know,
it's real up to a point. Clearly, I'm not a
bodybuilding duck, but it's cool though. I think the fact
that they're animals helps people relate a little more to them,
because you can put yourself in them, they're not. Yeah,

(13:55):
it's left open to your imagination to imagine what kind
of people they are, and you can see yourself in them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
No, definitely agreed.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Agreed, But yeah, we definitely love it, and I know
of course I'll tell all my viewers and listeners they
can go ahead and get the last few copies of
the book that you have left, but I haven't. I'm
gonna go ahead and tell you before because this podcast
is recorded, so I'm gonna make sure to get my
copy before we drop the episode.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, you might get the last few. Yeah, I haven't
checked the stock in a couple of days, but it's
getting close. And if you do buy it, I'll throw
in a few sticks that I have. Yeah, I want
to do more. I want to print more. I've also

(14:45):
got T shirts and caps. Yeah you can see all
on the store there. I want to do.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Oh yeah, okay, awesome.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
So yeah, yeah, we'll make sure that our vide's and
listeners know about that, of course after we get hours.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
But yeah, we got you.

Speaker 6 (15:04):
Oh yeah, I got to get our own copy before
it went.

Speaker 5 (15:07):
Out, exactly, for sure, for sure. But another thing I
thought was interesting about Muslim quack and then when I
saw the when I saw the short on YouTube, I
already thought it was like a like an adult Swim show.
I was just like, oh wow. I was just like,
oh wow, I need to like tune back in the
Adult Swim and check out musclm quack because because it
is that good, like it's really cool. Yeah, it reminded me,

(15:31):
yeah for sure, And it reminded me like a lot
of it. It just reminded me like a lot of
the just the humor and just the overall art style.
It's just perfect for that, just for that platform.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
And we pitched it to Adult Swim back in the day,
and Adult Swim was the hardest pitch of them all.
I'll tell you. We went around town and most places
the people you're pitching to engage with you and smile
and laugh and give you a shot. But I'll swim.
It was like complete blank cold. They must be pitched

(16:04):
all the time, but it just it wasn't an environment
where you felt comfortable, like you're on edge of the
whole time. I think I don't swim as well. They
like it to be like almost more weird. I think,
like our show. I always wanted Muscles to have a
bit of a heart and have I really like there's
a few like drama DTV shows, Girls or Love or

(16:28):
shows like that. The comedy drama that I really like,
and I like having that balance, and I think maybe
I'll swim wanted something more trippy and just weird and
out there. I don't know who knows, you don't know,
I don't tell you.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
You just yeah, you just never really know what they'll
go for but not. I guess that makes sense given.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
There's generic feedback you often get when pitching a show.
It's like the characters aren't likable or relatable. Now, I
don't think every character has to be likable show. I
think it's I think there's a difference between having a
shitty character and the show endorsing that shittiness. You're not

(17:10):
supposed to like certain characters. You're not supposed to be
rooting for some of the bad characters and TV shows.
But Muscles never had that problem, thankfully. He was such
a sweetie. Everyone loves him.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah, he's.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Definitely Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot
of hate for Sally on the comments, the comments.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
I wasn't gonna say it like she.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
I'm like on the fence, like she she puts my
boy through a.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Lot, though I know he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
I know he doesn't have a job necessarily, or he
didn't until he started acting or whatever, but it's goodness.
Like he's obviously uncomfortable and doesn't want to have open
relations and all that kind of stuff. She's just out
there with it. Yeah, I think the way I don't
hate any of the characters. I think to write and

(18:07):
conceive characters, you'd have to understand them all. For me, Yes,
Muscles is a sweet guy, but he's also he would
be infuriating to be with, Like, imagine being with somebody
that naive, that gullible. And I think spending her money

(18:28):
given in the second episode, it gives her money away
to a girl who just met when he's a loone shark.
He doesn't understand the basic principles of how I think
the world works. So I think I cut her a
lot of slack for that. And she was very upfront
this was going to be an open relationship. It was
this is the story of the pilot episode that nobody saw.
But he just didn't understand what an open relationship was.

(18:50):
He thought it meant you're open with your feelings.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
It's only after he says a dick pic on him
find from another guy that that he realizes what this means,
and so he spirals. At that point, I caught her
a bit of slack.

Speaker 4 (19:12):
Yeah, I think I'll go ahead, I'm gonna say and
now I think about it. When you say yeah, it'd
be hard to deal with, like muscles, like a partner.

Speaker 6 (19:25):
You'd always have to be with him at all points
in time of the day, just.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
To make sure he doesn't go like this way. You'd
be like, no, no, we got to go over this.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, exactly, because, like I said, because he'll become like
a he'll become like a heavy for a loan stark
or literally a stripper out of nowhere. Because he thought
that the people he was you know, the people he
was training, were just friends with him, and they didn't
see him that way. That that whole.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Scene that the.

Speaker 5 (19:58):
Wanted, like he's because he's two prefer his world.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
Really yeah, but not so. He was conceived as a
response to a lot of TV shows these days. A
lot of adult animated comedies have these main characters that
are really really cynical and smart. So you've got Rick
from Rick and Morty bow Jack. There's more examples that

(20:24):
are escaping okay, the Hormone Monster or whatever, these kind
of fast talking, smart, cynical people. And I just want
I just wanted to bark that trend and say, no,
I want a sweet dumb It's like he wouldn't hurt
a fly kind of style, and I think putting him
in the body of a big, muscly character is like

(20:45):
a nice contrast to that.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, no, it definitely was because even with the even
with that thing that you mentioned, Okay, you have the
character trope of a smart, kind of witty character like
the Hormown monsters, which by the way, me and actual
are huge Hormone Monster fans.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
They're hilarious.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
But but then it's like you do have the trope
of the dumb kind of halfway character like a Peter Griffin.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
But he's but he's mean, you know what I'm saying,
he's not.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
It's not like that thing where he's a nicer guy
to go along with that, So you're missing that and
even the guy I think that type of Stan Or
they often sometimes they show that they're nicer characters before
the most part.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
They're often doing something that's not the nicest we were saying.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
I'm gonna add into I think if we're talking to
Rick and Morty, I think, like Jerry is that example.

Speaker 6 (21:37):
Of dumb, but like he's not all the way a
good guy.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
He's just done some messed up stuff some time, or
he's so stupid he does stupid things that end up
deleting the mess up situations or whatever down the line.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yes, yeah, that's an interesting Jerry's kind of he's a bit.
He can be passive, aggressed to negligent, negligent a bit,
but yeah, I just wanted to see. I think usually
the nice guys aren't very funny. I think I like,

(22:13):
if you torture muscles, it's just funny. To me, it's not.
I think some people think they think, oh, they feel
really bad for him all the time, but I'm like, no,
it's supposed to be funny. It's just I think with comics,
and those are interesting people like can take things very differently,
like very dramatically or very comedically, depending on the reality

(22:35):
the personality of the Because you don't have music telling
you how to feel anyway.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
No, that's true, so you have to you, like I said,
you're literally without any he pushed from a soundtrack or
to where it's like a funnier sound of music or
a sad sound of music. You pretty much just have
to go off of the words in your own mind.
But for me, like I said, there was there's certain
parts where I'm like, man, like, I feel for this guy,
but at the for the most part, he's just a

(23:02):
little off. Like when he was he swore up and
down his audition was to be a cowboy, so much
so he thought A four cowboy out, what was its
audition for the role of George Bush or something like that, like, yeah,
come on, but I could talk muscles day.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah, that one. That one was. I just watched Midnight
Cowboy and I thought that if you look up John
Voight in Midnight Cowboy, he looks exactly like Muscles. He's
got this big round head, his little blonde hair and
big pink lips, and it just it was so funny

(23:44):
when I realized he looked like Muscles and he is
this gullible dumb dude, And I thought, that's perfect. I've
got to use that. And then how do I work
that into a muscle story.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
No. Once again, like my man being so like so
naive and just.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Not number one. I don't know how you even mixed
that up the big game with but yeah, my dude
is crazy. But I definitely can't wait to see some
more comics. And like I said, for sure, me and
the guys, we got to get our copy of the
of the print version, so we definitely copy that.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
I could tell you a little spoiler for the next story.
Oh yeah, exclusive, Yeah, this is an exclusive. This is
an exclusive. Muscles gets cast into in a Marvel style
cinematic superhero universe. He's he's playing a character called Adonis,

(24:42):
which is this kind of demi god that everybody loves.
And I actually got one of the concept artists from
the real Marvel movies, Anthony Francis Francisco, who I met
at the conference years ago. He designed the costume for
Muscles to be wearing the Superhero universe. But it's like

(25:06):
an official it's not official, but it's a Marvel concept design.
He designed by group. This guy designed the costumes for
Black Panther, so he designed my Muscles comic costume.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
That's lit' that's dope. No, yeah, that's one of the
that's one of the clips. So we're clipping that that's
one of the clips Putting Now podcast for sure, So
we definitely got the muscles Quack exclusive, but not that's
really cool. I can't wait. I definitely can't wait to
see the costume and that comic. Yeah, and I'm just

(25:43):
so glad that you're still moving forward with it because
I was hoping that there was something that wasn't just
the thing you were going to stop, because man, when
I would literally read that while I'm at work, like
I'm at work dying, Like it's definitely yeah, like I
should be like busy doing my No, I'm like reading
Muslims quite comic.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, I'm glad you're continuing the story.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
It's it's a fun rush for me too, because I
try to release them daily when I've got a new comic,
and I get to read all the comments that come
in and all the hot takes that people have, and
it's nice because it draws a lot more readers in
when I have that regular post. But it just means
there's gaps where I get busy with work or life

(26:28):
and I don't have time to work on it. But yeah,
I do have the next couple already written. I just
write them in my notes. I just have them. This
is how I write them.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
That's how you got to do it.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yeah, so the next one is called The American Hollywood Story.
I write with an outline and then turn that into beats,
and then I turn out into the script and then
it's just a process of chipping away that roughing it out. Yeah,
we're going to get some lushbacks in the next episode
to Pete, because I know it is your favorite science Pete,

(27:04):
like seven years ago trying stand up. Oh yeah, flashbacks
to Ken's childhood as Ken as an eight year old
boy living in a hotel. And then we get to
see Sally back when she was at university with a bad,
emo haircut, bad boyfriend. So let's look forward to.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Oh yeah, I'm definitely excited. Nah, I'm definitely excited. That's
going to be that's going to be dope. That's definitely
going to be dope. I haven't We've talked a lot
about your your comics that you've graciously given us some
exclusives for us, so that is awesome.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
But one of the.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Things I want to do now is go into your background,
like as an artist, a visual artist, an animator, because
we do see a.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Lot of your work.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
You've done some stuff where you've animated or your team
has animated things like Bugs, Bunny, Dumball, Animniacs, You've done
pixel work for The Simpsons, Rick and Morty, things like that.
So you've gotten a chance to pay homage to all
of these titans and animation. And I just wanted to
know for you growing up, what did a lot of

(28:17):
those What did that inspiration look like for you?

Speaker 2 (28:20):
What was some of the things that made.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
You want to not just enjoy it as a as
a viewer, but take part in animation cartoons?

Speaker 3 (28:29):
Yeah, I grew up watching cottons like every kid. That
rush of a new episode of The Simpsons comes out
and everybody at school is quoting it and talking about it.
That was so cool. I also really love Nickelodeon cartoons
like Rugrats and the Brocos Model Life, which was one
of the few representations of Australians and coons.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Right.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah, I didn't even really, I didn't even realize he
was meant to be Australian as a kid because the
accent was so bad. Do you remember he'd be like
cleaning day is a very dangerous day. Yeah, But I
loved how crazy that cardsoon was yeah, and then when
I started I got into animation a bit sideways. Like

(29:16):
I loved computer games as well, video games that used
to play Commanda, Kane and Doom all these other doss games,
and I wanted to start to make my own games
for just using third party software to it was click
and play, the games Factory, Multimedia Fusion. These are all

(29:37):
like software to make your own games. And the only
way I could make art on a computer was pix
a lot. Because I didn't have a scanner. I didn't
know how to draw digitally. At that point. Not many
people really were drawing straight into the computer. It was
more like scanning, and so I learned pix a lot.
That's how I got into animation. And it was only

(30:00):
a few years later that I tried to draw like
vector art or in Photoshop. But it was really picked
a lot through video games. That was how I learned
to animate. And then, yeah, I guess I think the
things that inspired me most as a kid. I remember
the first time I saw a Studio Ghibli movie and

(30:23):
oh probably yeah, I was in primary school. My dad
had taped Porco Rosso off TV like a late nights
like this is ninety three or ninety four taped Porco
Rosso off the TV. I got a funny story about that. Actually,
in Australia, we've got a channel called SBS and they
play like kind of weird art house stuff from around

(30:47):
the world, often like international films with racy kind of
sex scenes and stuff. I actually played South Park. It
was the first channel to play south Park in Australia.

Speaker 5 (30:57):
And wow.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Anyway, my dad taped the the cartoon Poko Rosso. It's
Japanese animated studio ghibli film and we were studying Japanese
at school in primary school. That was like the second
language we were being taught, and so I took a
tape in I said this, can we watch this cartoon
my dad tape It's Japanese and they go, sure, let's

(31:19):
put it on. She puts it into the DHS player,
presses play immediately hardcore sex scene just like six, like
seven or eight years old, and she is in shock,
and then she pauses it and the kids are laughing.
It's the funniest thing in the world. Everybody thinks I

(31:41):
did it on purpose, but I didn't even know how
to do that too little, and I think it's moments
like that I remember, and I always want to include
my work. Kind of shocking the shock of that, but yes, Stoli,
I think the attention to detail and the way every

(32:02):
shot is like a master class in how to animate.
You can just pause it and be like, oh, that's
how you do that. That's look how they're implying a
certain mood, or the wind through the way the leaves
are lying. Sorry, that's just calling me. I'm just going
to put my phone as silent. Yah, yeah, yeah, it's

(32:23):
just And then also the stories themselves felt a lot
more personal and nuanced and strange and not as slick
and Disney stuff. Every kid watches Disney as a kid
and love and loves it usually, but I think as
you get older, or at least I did, as I

(32:45):
felt like I aged out of it a little quicker
and it just felt a little bit more like a
craft than artwork, like it's crafted to be this perfect
thing because they've got all the money in the world,
all the best people, but at the same time it
feels like it's solvedess Yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely have

(33:07):
my favorite pixel movie Disney film. But comparatively, when I
watched the Studio Gimi one. I'm like, I don't know
what the fuck is gonna happen. Sorry, I don't know
if I can swear.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
You're good.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
I don't know what's gonna happen here. And it's awesome
because it's exciting, you.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Know, Yeah, definitely itself formulaic, and once you've seen like
one of the Prince movies, you pretty much seen every
one of them. Like the big old beat by beat,
it's always the thirdain level of Princess at the end
of the stores. The other moment that that, which is
cool for kids, but it's very boring and still.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
I think I will say I'll go ahead. I was
just gonna say the just a quick tidbit and the
funny thing, ivn't.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
I didn't even realize this man until the other day.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
I was a post made on Instagram and like you
were saying, the meter is the Prince films like formulaic
and how you have your you have this happened, and
there's a song, and then you have this happened, Prince
comes whatever the inciting incident was, it gets soft bla.
But the funny thing was with the Sleeping Beauty. She
sleeps the whole movie.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
I just didn't like she didn't.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Really the star attraction of that is Maleficent, Like Maleficent
is the truth.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
And you don't even really pay attention. I don't even know,
do you guys know what her actual name is?

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Sleeping I don't sleeping beauty. She's the blund she's got. Yeah,
I think God's on the tip of my tongue.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, I'm gonna look it up because I don't even really,
you don't even know. You gotta look it up.

Speaker 6 (34:58):
Look it up. You don't know the top of your head.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
I can tell you who the background was. The lead
background I want is a cool look though, A sleeping Beauty. Yeah, yeah,
it starts with a. It's a vow. The name starts
with him.

Speaker 6 (35:21):
It's Aura Aurora.

Speaker 5 (35:23):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 6 (35:28):
Out of nowhere, Like I didn't even have my phone
on me.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah you did it.

Speaker 6 (35:32):
I did it somehow. My brain came out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, that's it, Princess Aurora.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
And I was just like, because somebody brought that up
the other day, because obviously she sleeps. The whole movie
Snow White is if I'm not mistaken, she's like dead
like most of the movie if I'm not mistaken. Yeah,
my girls talk the whole movie.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah, it's like, we need a Prince movie where the
whole time he just sleeps.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
That would be.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
But because I put a spell on him, it's just
really lazy.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
I definitely need to see it for sure.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
You have this this like Fiona from Shrek, like this
Fiona esque kick butt, Like Princess just comes and like
slays a dragon and she's she thinks that he's under
a spell or whatever, and they're like, hey, man, like
Prince Howard has been out for seven days. Wow, he's
under some kind of spell. It's like, Nah, he's just lazy.

(36:32):
He doesn't doing anything. It's just it's just like super No.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
I don't know if you guys have seen this. I
bet you have it on my website. I've got to
tab up the top. It's called bad Movies, Yes, where
I do mock ups of like my own ideas for
Pixar movies, a DreamWorks movie, so that I set myself
a little challenge of coming up with the idea and

(37:05):
I have to write down the plot of the film
and design a poster for it all in one day.
So that's they're really fun.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
That makes.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
The trick is to just pick an object, anthropomorphize it,
and then just write every pun, every bad joke you
can think of.

Speaker 6 (37:30):
And yeah, my God is the great.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
I think Tools is probably the best poster the Little
Nails like Little Minions, Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
And then Tools Out of the Kitchen.

Speaker 6 (37:56):
Includes soundtrack off Hammer.

Speaker 5 (38:03):
You Got the Hair on the Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
So soap Opera was the very first one. It's all
part of this cinematic universe. Came up with It's a house,
the house cinematic universe, and so every room of the
house has the toolshed, the bathroom in the kitchen.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Wow, pixels. Hats actually wrote a full movie breakdown for that.
One could actually be a pixel movie.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
I think I was about to say, Hats is the
most believable. Hats could definitely, it could definitely work. Now
like the Tools, I just don't even know, like you said,
especially with the MC hammer soundtrack like that, I don't
know what that. I don't think that's gonna that might
have one person that shows up to watch like, oh, wow, story.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Finally about a hammer. I've been waiting my whole life. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
But and I like board games to board games, I
think board games could works.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Four games. It's record, Ralph is the video games.

Speaker 4 (39:18):
If they can make a movie bout emoji, they can
make one about board games.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (39:22):
Yeah too, but you saw what you saw.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Emoji's was like garbage like it did know.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, yeah, we don't talk about Actually forgot that was
a movie. I forgot that was a movie until you
said something just now. I forgot.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
I thought it was I thought it was pretty bad,
but it was only as bad as a little bit.
That's a nice. Some of the animation was not It
wasn't like ship. It wasn't bad quality animation.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
It was good.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
Yeah, they made it look smooth, but it was not
a great concept of story.

Speaker 6 (40:00):
The story didn't hold up to the animation quality.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Yeah, if you want the worst CG animated film, and
I've only seen the trailer. It's the last film that
Sean Connery ever did, and it's it's he plays an
old eighty year old skateboarding man and he has a
go to the sidekick.

Speaker 6 (40:19):
Oh no, it's.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Absolutely I think it's sir Billy like Sir Billy. I
think it's called And there's this great interview with Sean
Connery where he's talking about the film and he's being
asked about how he got involved, and he's very proud
of his Scottish culture and it's as good as anything
picture does. And you look at him.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Like it's not at all.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
Yeah, oh my god, this is trash is called it's
called am I oh bad?

Speaker 6 (41:11):
Two point nine out of ten on I m D.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
No, it is bad. See I haven't.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
I thought you were about to say food Fight, because
that isn't that's.

Speaker 6 (41:20):
Like, yeah, my another one. Oh my word.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
If you ever have a chance to look at that trailer,
look at the trailer, man, it is bad.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
Yeah, it's crazy, crazy bitch.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
So for all of our listeners, look up Food Fight
as well, because that's one of the worst animate later
films I've ever seen.

Speaker 5 (41:42):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
And they had they got all those freaking rights, all
those different Oh no, I think yeah, they got all
the rights of the different companies for the food, like
the the food. And I was like, I don't think
you really want to be a part of this, guy,
I think you want to.

Speaker 5 (41:58):
I was watching like a doctor entery, it's like a
video essay on it, and they were talking about I
was supposed to be like the most ambitious.

Speaker 6 (42:06):
They had so much money put into it. Though, do
you have much money to put.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
Into that movie? I forget, but it was a lot
of money.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Like a bung it just disappear.

Speaker 6 (42:18):
I think it had.

Speaker 4 (42:18):
It like disappeared at one point and somebody stole the
money and they like they just kept going with the
property after the money was throwing anything like that.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
So it had According to Google, it had a sixty
five million dollar budget.

Speaker 7 (42:30):
Yeah, which I think it's like the on the half
of what it pixel movies tend to cost like two
hundred million plus, but still sixty sixty five million.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
It's not nothing.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
No, I was about to say, there's not nothing for
something that didn't even make it off the ground floor.
Like I just love how everybody collectively backed the wrong
horse for this movie. Like everybody was like, yo, y'all,
this is gonna get us out the hood.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Man, this is not at all, like not the case.

Speaker 4 (43:05):
So it was auction for two point five million. Somebody
was going to try to buy it for two point
five million.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
But still that's man, that's a fraction of what it
took to make the movie.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
Though, dude, I mean it is somebody really wanted to
spend that much money on. Yeah, this is a horse man.
It's gonna help us out right now. Not that they
had Charlie Sheen is like a technical dog or something
like that.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
And it looks like Indiana Jones.

Speaker 5 (43:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, it makes Sausage Party look really good.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
And that is many was a wild ride. Yeah, that
last scene in Sausage Party, like, I still have nightmares.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
That's crazy.

Speaker 6 (43:55):
Shouldn't have the funniest thing about that movie.

Speaker 4 (43:59):
I thought that in and I thought people come with
their kid and that first scene when they cropped that
Bob and I thought all the kids walk out to
the theater. I was like, yeah, kind of man, everybone's
taking of the kids have a movie. I was like,
I don't know what you thought this look, man.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
I didn't love it, but I like I got the idea.
It was a parody of kind of children. It was
like an adult parody of kind of DreamWorks picks on movies.
But and I'm happy that adult animation exists. I want
more adult animation.

Speaker 5 (44:31):
Yeah, oh yeah, totally. I don't know if you guys
are familiar with a Killer Bean, Like that's the one
movie that like I want to not like it, but
it's actually so made it's weird.

Speaker 6 (44:42):
I don't know, I think, yeah, I think you showed
me that.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Josh yeah, yeah, Killer Bean, Yeah you showed me that.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Is it a video? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (44:54):
Like basically the guy, like the guy behind the dousk
this one dude, and he's also behind the video game
and he like just made like the pitch for the
video game and he put out the movie like Forever Ago.

Speaker 6 (45:06):
Oh my word.

Speaker 5 (45:08):
Yeah, it's so trippy. They're like they're like being assassins.
They're like coffee beans or something.

Speaker 6 (45:13):
Killer Game Forever is the animation.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yeah, I'm checking it out now.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah, it's definitely.

Speaker 5 (45:23):
It's so weird. And I like, I just love like
this weird stuff like that. Yeah, same saying yeah, And
that's why especially it's like the weird stuff that Adult
Swim does, and it's just different, Like the stuff like
that is just different and not just like what the
what the Adult Swim shorts and not not just the shorts,

(45:44):
but just the show was on Adult Swim and I remember,
I don't know if you guys are familiar with Off
the Air, Like I remember this show called Off the
Air and off there had this weird thing I don't
even know what off the Air is.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
I don't know what it is.

Speaker 5 (45:59):
It's like the Weird Show where they did all kinds
of crazy stuff.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
So off the Air the best way to explain Off
the Air. It was a every show had a theme,
so let's just say the theme was like a grocery store.
So the show would be split up into different time
slots of various artists doing their own animation, and they
were doing their own take on what a grocery store

(46:24):
meant or something like that, So it'll be it was
basically like a display of a ton of artists trying
to from different spectrums, Like it might be somebody that
does pixel artists, somebody that does stop motion, or somebody
that's a two D animator, and they would all try
to figure out how they can represent whatever the theme
was for that night.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
So that's basically the best way to explain off the Air.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, it was just a display for a bunch of
different types of artists and it was lit.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
It was really cool.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
So yeah, I mean, if you wanted to check out
it should be yeah on YouTube. Yeah, definitely check it out.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
Yeah, I'm just looking it up. It sounds cool. I
got to do a few things for Adult Swim back
in the day, just these small idents they would run.
It was but it was more open than that. It
was just like, do whatever you want, here's a little
bit of money. Yeah that was cool. I wish we
could have to do more of that stuff. But it
feels I'm in yeah, but just yeah, I'm no longer

(47:20):
weird enough. I guess.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
No. We think you can definitely still bring out the weird.
I don't think that.

Speaker 5 (47:30):
Goes were for sure for sure, And well.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
I'm working on a music video right now.

Speaker 5 (47:36):
That's oh, yeah you go so no, no, go ahead,
you go ahead, Oh.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
I'm working on. Music videos are often quite strange because
it's like you've just got the song usually and you
have to interpret it, and it's often more like an artwork,
like you're the musician, is the artist, and you're making
it a neat you're also making an artwork with the
music video, so you can be a bit stranger with that.

(48:04):
I did a clip for King Gizzard a couple of
years ago. King gives it in a Lizard Wizards Melbourne
Psychedelic and we got to just make this weird sci
fi fantasy epic in cartoon form, and that was just
like I listened to the song a bunch, That's what
came to mind. So it was fun.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
I see you speaking of music, I've seen you got
in the work with one of my favorites, like Gotier
you did. Did you do a music video for you
as well?

Speaker 3 (48:35):
Oh wow, I actually did. I did three for him.
That was how I made my break in animation. He's
from Melbourne, originally Wally going to He was just before
somebody that I used to know dropped. He'd already had
a couple of like songs be successful in Australia before that.
But he contacted myself and my former directing partner and

(49:00):
he had a song called State of the Art. Yeah
of course, right, that's yeah. I co directed that one,
and then another song, well Don't Worry, will be watching You.
It's like a black and white kind of creepy, cold film.
And then later he came back and said, oh, I
want to make clips for previous a previous album. I did,

(49:21):
so we did one for a song called seven Hours
with a Backseat Driver. And that was almost like over
ten years ago now, and I met up with him
again in New York recently and he's putting together some
new music and I might be. Yeah, I'm working on
a new clip for him right now.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Oh wow, that's another exclusive. I didn't think he was
dropped by another track like that is wild.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
He's fascinating and he's a real artist and he I
think that success of that song and that album it
afforded him a lot of freedom, which is he's got
enough money to not make music. But I think also
it's probably made it quite stressful for him to He's
going to always be compared to that song. And yeah,

(50:11):
it's probably quite crippling to creatively or confidence wise to
release new music, because he's really creative and he's not
just a hit maker. He does like weird stuff with
his music. But he sent me almost two albums worth
of songs, maybe over five years ago now, maybe seven

(50:31):
years ago. So he's got music he just hasn't released.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Just yeah, wow, that's that's a catalog. Yeah, that's a
pretty cool it's pretty cool, little nugative information.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
But I get upset when people because people could think
of him like a one hit wonder, but he has
he's got more, he's gone more stuff. But I think, yeah,
it's very interesting he's like, he's a big nerd as well.
He collects like an instruments and he's got like a
just like a room full of metronomes, and yeah, he's

(51:05):
a nerd for electronic music specifically. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Wow, No, that's that's really cool because yeah, Goto is
one of my favorite musicians of all times. The fact that, yeah,
so this is mind blowing for sure, because just speaking
on the music videos that you've worked on as well,
it stuck out to me from the somebody that I
used to know video. Of course, he incorporated a lot
of stop motion there too. But my favorite video of
his that incorporates stop motion and that kind of pixelation

(51:34):
thing is I love Easy Way Out. That's one of
my favorites. Yeah, which one was that is?

Speaker 3 (51:39):
I know the song I'm just trying to remember the clip.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Yeah, he incorporates a lot of it looks like it.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
Looks like yeah, so that's done by another Melbourne studio,
Melbourne director called Darcy Prenter guest his company is Oh yeah,
wow that clip. Yeah, that was really cool. I got
to I know that some of the team that works
on that worked on that and it's yeah that that
looks like a lot of work.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, I've seen the video so many times, and plus
it is a really great song. So and like you
were saying, Ivan, when people try to say that just
because and it happens, was somebody that I used to
know was a huge, intergalactic like pop hit.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
It really was.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
And for people that don't dive into crates and see
what else there is for that particular artist, it would
seem that way. But no, Man, for all of our
viewers and listeners, please go to is an amazing Artist's
got so many great songs.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
But I can't wait to hear the new ones though.
That's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
Yeah, I just hope he keeps going with it because
he's got Yeah, I don't want to speak to him,
but he's got such All the music that I've heard
that he's let me hear, it's been really cool, and
I think I've grown to appreciate it more and more.
The and that that work I did for him back
in the day really set me up. That's the work

(52:59):
that got exposed because when he had that hit, suddenly
all the songs were getting views. And that's when like
places in the States like Warner Brothers cut to network Disney,
Nickelodeon started reaching out and asking me to work on
projects like some of the ones you mentioned earlier with
the Loney Tunes characters or whatever. That all came about

(53:20):
because of those clips I did. We're going to and
so I always I'm always going to have a strong
level of appreciation for that opportunity.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
It was awesome.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
And just just to point was the was this in
the this was the Rubber House days or.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Was this before? Yep? No, this was rob the House. Yes.
That was myself and Greg Sharp, another animation director, and
it was pretty much just him and I for many
years working together. And then when we had slightly bigger jobs.
I don't know if you've seen the work we did
for Fallout the video game. For that four yeah, I

(54:02):
started getting.

Speaker 6 (54:04):
Yeah, for my game. I love that game.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Yeah, all the two D animations we directed and some
of them we wrote, and we had bigger crews for that. Yeah,
that was another big one that helped us build a
team of people and grow. But yeah, rather House was
my first collaboration. Was basically it was a company and everything,

(54:28):
but it's like being in a band. It was just
him and I and we did everything, and then eventually
we get interested in other things or we're not living
in the same city anymore, and it gets harder and
harder to work together. When that kind of ended, it
was just like a natural kind of progression to start again,

(54:48):
start a new collaboration.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Yeah, that's That's definitely one thing that stuck out to me.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
One thing that's stuck out to me.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
You have a really interesting career, man, because even go
even with the research I did, I had no idea
that that go to just doing those music videos was
like a huge launch path for you. That's why one
of the things that Yeah, one of the things that
I thought was interesting and correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
When you were doing the pixel.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Art, did you had no intention on actually doing the
Simpsons couch gag when you created that animation?

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (55:24):
So that was Yeah, that was another collaboration between myself
and another animator, Paul Robertson, who's like probably the most
famous pixel artist in the world. And like I mentioned,
I started out animating pixel lot That's how I learned
to animate, and then I moved to traditional two day stuff,
and then I was able to go back and apply

(55:45):
some of the skills I learned from hand drawing animation
back to the pixel lot that I was doing, and
Paul and I were living together at the time in
a sharehouse, and we talked about working on something fun together.
We're both big fans of The Simpsons, and we said,
let's just we'd seen all these couch gags that other
guest animators had done and that the show was using them.

(56:08):
Wouldn't it be cool if there was a pixelar intro
or actually just a couchgag. Originally we're just saying, let's
do a couch gag, and then we said, let's just
redo the whole intro. That would be cool. So him
and I just chipped away at the thing, made it together,
tried to put in as many little references to the
classic episodes that we loved and grew up with, and

(56:29):
then we put it online and we did have our
fingers crossed. We thought, there's a chance, there's a chance
that this will bit eyes, there's a chance that someone
from the show could see it, but we didn't think
it would be so quick, although it would even happen,
we hoped, But we got an email from one of
the producers on the show. It went to my spam folder.
Oh wow, he produced his names Loreena Adamson, who was like,

(56:54):
she's been on the show since like season one.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
Wow. And almost didn't believe it because it was just
like a one line email, what's your phone number? And
I gave it to her and I spoke to her
and she said, oh, the showrunners saw the intro. They
want to use it. We want to use it on
the very next episode.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
And I'm like, okay, let's do it. That's and that
was amazing career highlight I got. We had a trip
planned to the States later that year because I was
doing some work with Cartoon Network, and so I organized
to go visit the show and meet the people who

(57:36):
work on it. And I got to sit in on
a table read of an episode of The Simpsons. I
met some of the directors, the voice actors, and that
was just a dream come true. I remember we're sitting
in the table read where they got the scripts and
they're reading through and the voice of Lisa Simpson came
up to me and she said, you better not you

(57:57):
better laugh, you better not fuck this up. I was like,
this is not allowed to swear. Yeah, it was cool.
She was just jogging her kills. But her voice is
exactly like Lisa, so it's strange.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 5 (58:21):
And I could have sworn I've seen that. I've seen
your pigs animation air because I'm a huge Simpsons fan
and I used to watch the show all the time.
I could have sworn I've actually seen it air.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
I used it. Yeah, they used it on it was
like season twenty seven or something.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Yeah, maybe twenty six.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
I can't remember these. Season episode seventeen, season twenty.

Speaker 5 (58:43):
Six, Yeah, something like that. Yeah, this is definitely crazy.
How this the email from them was just in your
spam folder.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
And yeah, it was like and I couldn't I knew
I recognized the name because I've seen it in the credits,
and I got to chat to her when she took
us out for lunch. Loreena did and she was like this,
I don't know what her age was, but she'd been
on the show so long, and I swear they only
kept her around because she knew everybody's dirt because she

(59:14):
was just like telling stories and I was lapping it up.
They told me about the feud between Matt Grain and
the creator of the Simpsons, and it's an other person
who developed the show, Sam Simon, and how they were
both kind of jealous of each other, and I was like,
this is awesome. This is just a hot gossip for
a Simpsons MRD. Yeah, and then she gave me a

(59:42):
lift back to where we're staying, but we had to
stop by and do errands on the way home, and
it was very strange. She stopped off at a Mexican
spiritualist shop because she said she was part of Mexican
and so we waited. We get out of the car,
we're going just basically having like a spiritual consultation, and

(01:00:04):
we're like, what are we doing here? Yeah? That was
a cool friends for all.

Speaker 5 (01:00:13):
Yeah, for sure, that's really cool. But if it was me,
if it was something like that was a mass band folder, like,
I wouldn't have seen it until three years.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
It would have been at least three years later.

Speaker 6 (01:00:26):
I've been cleaning it up and out of been like
oh what is this?

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Every now and then when you put out working and
things blow up like the Simpsons did and the clip
for Childish campaign, and when you do something like we
make a lot of work, not everything goes that way.
Not ever, not everything is that successful. But when it is.
Your phone just blows up. You get Instagram messages, you

(01:00:50):
get emails, and you find yourself like sucked into it
and checking in a lot more often. So I think
I was like checking my phone a lot, and I
was like, then there's a chance this could go to
my spam. So I was checking the span and it's like,
it's just a kind of it's a bad habit. But

(01:01:11):
I've learned to appreciate those moments because it's still rare.
There's no formula to success. And and like you said, Chad,
you didn't know I was responsible for all these different work,
and I think that's I've got to work on some awesome,
amazing stuff. But I'm still pretty anonymous. It's not like

(01:01:32):
people associated me with it personally. I don't. Yeah, it's
really the work that is. I have no celebrity attached
to the work. It's just if it's good or that, yeah,
which is a good thing, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Exactly. I was just about to say that, yes, oh
for sure.

Speaker 5 (01:01:56):
And it's just crazy because I remember when Fallout seventy
six came out. Just love those all those Fallout seventy
six shorts. Yes, yes, And that's crazy that you were
behind those.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
I got to I did the voice for two characters
and fall Out as well. Oh wow, do you know
the Nuka Cola kind of expansion fact for Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
I did the voice for the bottle and Cappy the mascot.

Speaker 6 (01:02:30):
What you did?

Speaker 5 (01:02:33):
Cool?

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Hey?

Speaker 6 (01:02:35):
I played the method for I know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
Yeah, we because we were doing a cartoon to promote
it and we had to fire voice actors and one
of the characters. I was like, let's make him by
Mickey Mouse and the other character like, and I just did.
I just did an impression for the scratch animation and
the voice for Bottled Morphs. They said, can you make

(01:03:00):
it more like Patrick Stuff on SpongeBob? But I was like, Okay,
I can try that. That's what it ended up, my
impression of Mickey Mass and Patrick Stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:03:11):
Yeah that game again?

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
Now?

Speaker 6 (01:03:15):
Oh yeah again?

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
What do you guys have like favorite games of all time? Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:03:26):
God, I would say the funny thing with me, I
would say my favorite game of all time and the
one I definitely have the most playtime on, Like the
game I played probably have I have the most hours
on is Simpson's Hit and Run on like that. That's
literally just g T a. But with Simpson's good.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
Good, they should do a new one g better and better,
like g J five and four is so much better
than the earlier ones. Yeah, more fans like Simpsons Hudn't Run.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
That would be great, totally.

Speaker 5 (01:04:04):
I remember the rumors of a new one being in
like game informers.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
Yes, exactly, exactly, Man, that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Was definitely my game, I think for me because me
of course, me and Joshua we grew up together, so
they play a lot of the same games. But Simpsons
Hitn't Run was definitely one of the I guess if
we're talking about it early on game and I don't
know if you've ever played it, Ivan, but I swear
I still haven't seen a game to replicate the just

(01:04:36):
the aesthetic of the Nintendo sixty four bomber Man. It's
just like unmatched. It's unmatched to me earlier. Yeah, the
Nintendo sixty four version of bomber Man. I just the music,
like the art direction. It was just perfect for me.
I love bomber Man. I always go back.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
To that game.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Cool, Yeah, awesome. Yeah. I remember playing one of the
game Boys, maybe the game Boy Advance version or something
like that, and loving the mechanics. But I don't think
i've played the sixty four in terms of time sunk
into things. I reckon it's got like Red Dead Redemption two.
I played twice, which is weird for me. I wanted

(01:05:21):
to play it. I played it first during the pandemic
and then I played it again with my girlfriend because
I was like, she's never really played games like that before,
and it's like a sinner. It's like a movie. But
you do think a lot of hours into to those
kinds of games. But one of my favorite arcade style
is that the Spelunky series.

Speaker 5 (01:05:42):
Do you know Spelunky, Yeah, I know Sperlunky, but I
don't think I've ever played it. I know about it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
I've never had I never did it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):
It's been with me for a long time. I played
it first on the free version for PC. It came
out like ninety two thousand and seven or something, and
then he remastered it and released it for consoles. I
know that was good, but I think as the procedurally
generated levels, you just never get. It's all about learning

(01:06:11):
the mechanics of the game. There's no you can't save,
you don't collect things that stay with you. All you
do is understand the game better and your reflexes get sharper.
But it's once they look really simple. It looks like
it's a throwaway game, but there's a surprising amount of
complex complexity to the physics and the AI and stuff,

(01:06:33):
and it's it's satisfying when you discover something new for yourself. Like,
for instance, there's these dams or characters like a woman
or a dog that needs to be saved, and you
can pick them up and then take them to the
end and you'll get a kiss and a heart. But
if you see an altar along the way, you realize, oh,
if I put it down on this alter, it sacrifices her,

(01:06:55):
and then what does that do? And then you just
keep It's like Minecraft, you just keep experiments.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Trying things.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I'm I'm gonna definitely have to
look that up because I never even heard of it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
Yeah, it's an indie get it's not like a big
studio game or anything. One guy who's been making games
since back when I was doing pix a lot online.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Okay, I'm not to definitely check that. How do you
spell it?

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
S E l u n k y. It's a real word. Spelunk.
It's it's like somebody climbs through caves, exports caves.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Yeah, okay, I see it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Yeah, okay, cool, Oh okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
It's got a pretty cool multiplayer as well, if you like.
There's a battle mode that's pretty addictive that I've played
a lot of as well. It's like a Smash Brothers
style fighting arena deathmatch.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
M Okay, okay, I have to definitely checked that out.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
And the one thing and I'll be honest, like Ivan,
I don't don't get mad me and Joshua. We have
Red Dead Redemption. I'm a purposes saying this. I'm a
purposes comment by saying this. We have beaten both of
the Last of Us games and okay, okay, so we're

(01:08:22):
not that bad. But I have not beaten or even
really tapped in the Red Dead Redemption too.

Speaker 6 (01:08:29):
Yeah, and I have it, and it's bad because we
tell them you got to get in.

Speaker 5 (01:08:33):
I definitely got Cobbs on it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
You're name to my other favorite games. The loss of
this game the best I thought I didn't know games
could be When I first played the first one, I
was like, I didn't know what games could be like this.
I didn't think I could get emotionally invested in the
story or the characters and cinematography just because I seem
like un jotted and I'm charted. Is like fun and anything,

(01:09:02):
but it's like a it's like a trophy action story,
whereas The Last of Us that you feel like a
depth to the characters and there's just like a beauty
to it that I think is unmatched. And the second
one I liked it. I still I thought it was awesome.
And yeah, those are both cool games. Red Dead Man, Yeah,

(01:09:23):
Red Dead Dead it's kind of like sad as well.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
But yeah, is it a spoiler? Is it? Are we
a spoiler territory?

Speaker 5 (01:09:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:09:33):
You can't really, you gotta we gotta play it, dude.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
Let's if you tell them they're not going to play
I'm hell them, they're not going to play it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
I promise, y'all.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Let's just okay, I won't spoil anything. But it's this
isn't really a spoil. It's just maybe a way to
think about it is it's like the dying days of
the wild West, and so there's a melancholy to the
idea of the wilderness no longer existing, that the world
is close and certain kind of people, and yeah, everything's modernizing,

(01:10:05):
so it's at the turn of the century. Yeah it's yeah,
anything else I say a bit too specific, and yeah,
it's totally I actually only just played GTA five recently
and it's great. I really enjoyed it. But it's a
bit like Uncharted to the Last of Us I think

(01:10:29):
for me Redemption too. Just it has a lot of
the similar gameplay mechanics. You're running around shooting and exploring
maps and jumping on horses instead of cars, but there's
also this kind of depth to the characters that really
I don't know. I think, did you cry, Demetrius.

Speaker 4 (01:10:47):
Yeah, I wouldn't say anything.

Speaker 6 (01:10:54):
That was a bad day at the Clark family was
a pretty bad.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
Day for me. The very last, the very last song,
the song very Yeah, I think I like cry ez.

Speaker 4 (01:11:08):
Yeah, I can't. I'm not trying to think about it
right now. I'm trying to kinda.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
So it's like, if you want a game to make
you feel emotional, but it's the Good Ones for that.

Speaker 6 (01:11:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
We definitely got to play that over the holidays.

Speaker 5 (01:11:31):
Jo Yeah, sure, you.

Speaker 6 (01:11:33):
Got along with the homerk. You gotta get done.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
On I'm on break. I'm on break now, so I'm good.

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
What am I going to tell you? Guys, Josh, there's
this remen Ostrich and Chad. You've become pig Brothers got you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
It's one of those games I feel, I feel.

Speaker 5 (01:11:59):
Oh yeah, we all we've all played one of them
kind of games. Yeah, you play Saints Row, if you
play Saints.

Speaker 6 (01:12:12):
Yeah, yeah, the Violator, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:12:17):
We won't talk about the violator, not the.

Speaker 6 (01:12:22):
Game man. No.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
Yeah, like this.

Speaker 5 (01:12:26):
Is definitely a different world when you're slapping cops with Gigantic. Yes,
but it's like a deal.

Speaker 6 (01:12:34):
Though, it's like perfect like it so with disrespect man.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Yeah, the fact.

Speaker 5 (01:12:41):
It's one of the experiences of all time for sure,
one of.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
The one of the experience, one of the experiences, one of.

Speaker 4 (01:12:47):
The experience that separated from g t A. It became
that with the Violator, it became its own thing. Is
never going to do that, They're never gonna do anything
like that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
Yeah, I think so. But yeah, so did my man
speaking of brothers, did my man can have to have
it on his head?

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Did he have to spear my man?

Speaker 5 (01:13:16):
That panel is yeah, yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
It's such a funny. It's a funny visual. Yeah, that
all came Okay, I can tell you a little backstory
to that idea. I had this idea for a film
that I half jokingly pitched to a few producers that
I met. But I had this idea for a sequel
to forty year Old Virgin OO. And it's called sixty

(01:13:46):
year Old anal Virgin and it's the same it's the
same characters from forty year Old Virgin twenty years later
and they find out the main guy finds out that
he's the only one in his friends friend group has
never tried before, and so that's the home movie. And
I had a say where he ends up in a

(01:14:07):
sex club with a dildo strap to his head, and
I just thought that was such a probably visual.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
No, it is, It really is, because it's like you
can just for that scene, you can look at the
comic and feel the momentum and the movement like my
man was.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Like he was ready to go, Like it was, oh
my gosh, No, that was hilarious.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
There's more of that in the bonus stuff. You'll see
how that that that came about. Jeez.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
Yeah, I definitely can't wait to see the rest of that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Well, yeah, but yeah, I one of the one of
the things I wanted you to just dive into because
we talked about a lot as far as your comics
and working with different people of course, like I was saying,
one of the things that we do, and it was
a great way to get our ideas for who we're
going to have on the podcast. We have our group
chat and we always share tons of things. Anybody that

(01:14:59):
knows me and Demetrious, we're huge Donald Glover, Childish Gambino fans.
We became friends listening to Donald Glover. When we got
a chance to look at the music video that you directed.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
We had no idea you directed it at the.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Time, but that's yeah, that's definitely recently one of my
favorite videos man. So we just wanted to for you
to dive into what that whole process was, like, how
did that begin? How did you decide on the art
direction for feels like Summer, like the whole thing, Like,
how did that even happen?

Speaker 6 (01:15:32):
Man?

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
Yeah, that's that's a popular one I mentioned earlier, like this,
every now and then something sticks and blows up. And
I met Donald a couple of years before that clip
came out. He was in Australia touring and his management
organized a meeting to talk about a project. He had
seen some of the adult swim stuff that my former

(01:15:56):
Rubber House director and I Greg Denay, and he wanted
to talk to us about making a big, kind of epic,
fantasious style twenty to thirty minute cartoon based on one
of his songs. And at the time, we did a
budget and a schedule and we sent that over and
he didn't have the money at that point to invest

(01:16:16):
in it, but he kept us in mind for future stuff.
And then after this As America came out. It was
a huge song, huge video, everybody loved it. And then
he reached out about doing an animated clip for a
different song that he had And I was on holidays
in Italy at the time, and I just I knew

(01:16:38):
that everything had to stop. This is like the most
important thing to do right now. I knew that it
would be career changing. So yeah, So Donald had the idea.
He'd seen an artwork by a cartoonist called Justin Richberg,
and it was like this diorama of all this kind
of famous, iconic kind of black personalities, politicians, musicians, whatever,

(01:17:03):
all hanging around the neighborhood playing dice and it's like
this kind of big diorama, and so Donald said, I
want to do something like that, but to my song,
and Donald wrote the whole list of people he wanted
included in the track, and we engaged. We hired that

(01:17:23):
cartoonist Justin to do a character designed for each of
the people, but his background really wasn't an animation, so
it was like, we don't have much time to do it.
So we only had six weeks to make the clip. Wow,
we actually made another minute and a half that that
was from it. It was a segment from a different
song that it was going to open with, and then

(01:17:44):
it was going to almost like somebody's changing the channel
and switch over to the new sell, which was a
cool concept, but it just didn't happen. And then so
we got Justin to do one drawing for each of
the people in the clip, and the idea was he
would like figure out what outfit they're wearing, their basic design,
but just we would interpret that in animation. Meanwhile, I

(01:18:07):
storyboarded the whole thing in my notebook just because I'm
in Italy on holidays, so I sketched it mailed everything.
I had this idea of him walking straight ahead from
a lot of the clip, and then we're drifting the
camera back and forth. And then I had a storyboard
artist in Melbourne, Felix Colgrave, who's an amazing animator, is

(01:18:29):
a really popular animator. I got him to take my
drawings and create them digitally and figure out the moving
camera stuff. Then yeah, we just worked like crazy to
try to get that right. And we also wanted this
kind of almost post of populyptic kind of style lighting,
so it's very orange and pink and hazy. I think

(01:18:53):
that came from some direction from Donald. He had this
one photo a polluted looking kind of city that he
was referencing, and so it's very collaborative. But it was
crazy turnaround. Like usually six weeks might sound like plenty
of time, but the reality is you lose like a
week to every email, or you package up a storyboard

(01:19:16):
pass and then you wait for three days for notes.
So that's three days out of maybe that's like a
good percentage of your schedule just doing nothing. So it's
that's why it's crazy. Usually you'll have at least two
weeks to do a storyboard and then a few days
to do revisions on that, and then animation is after

(01:19:38):
like a month or two because it just takes so
long to hand and anything. Anyway, it was an amazing
experience and when it came out it was super exciting
just to see the reaction there. I wasn't even Yeah,
I didn't know what to expect. I didn't. I knew
that it would be received because it was Donald and
it can do anything. But yeah, we just had to

(01:19:59):
trust that his vision in for the clip would resonate
because obviously I'm not part of the black American community.
I'm just a guy in Australia. I have to trust.
I knew a lot of people in the clip, but
I didn't know everybody is intimately yea.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
So roughly, how big was your team, because you said
it was a quick turnaround. How many just how many
people did you have working on the project altogether?

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
I think we had to throw on as many people
as we could. I could tell you exactly, but it
would probably be be around a dozen maybe, oh wow.
But I personally animated a buying to the shots to Greg. Yeah.
So we had people all over the world working on

(01:20:49):
a couple of France and Spain and mostly Australia, mostly
people in Australia. But yeah, it was it was a
mad to try to get this thing done, and there
there was nearly no notes from Donald and his team.
I think we had two notes. One was to make
he thought kid cutting expression needed to change, and then

(01:21:12):
there was Rihanna had a face needed to be redrawn
or something. But it was a weird one because we're like,
all these people are gonna want to be in the clip.
We don't know. We just trust Donald's team got permissioned.
I don't think that it's parody. It's probably fine. When
you're drawing Oprah, you thinks, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:21:37):
You think you think about all the logistics of trying
to be able to pull something like that off. Yeah,
I can only imagine.

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
Yeah, I think it was Kanie was in there too.
I don't know what he's going to what he's going
to do.

Speaker 6 (01:21:53):
You have no idea what that man, We're going to
do it any time.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
I situation.

Speaker 3 (01:22:03):
Yeah, I yeah, he's a wild card.

Speaker 5 (01:22:15):
Yeah, but yeah, that's crazy. You guys only had said
six weeks, like, you only had six weeks to put
it out, and you guys were trying to create this remotely,
like you created him remotely.

Speaker 3 (01:22:30):
Yeah, the first stage of it was remote while I
was thumbing it and organizing the team. And then I
got back to Melbourne and I worked locally with a
lot of the artists in Melbourne. But there are still
people working remotely. Often it's a mix with animation, particularly
the stuff I do, with not working at a giant

(01:22:52):
studio with hundreds of artists at her disposal at all times.
It's more like you assemble the team you need for
the job that you have, and sometimes people are the
first picks aren't available, or the local picks aren't available,
so you go who else around the world can work
on this that I trust? And there's an international community
of artists out there that are all that can be trusted,

(01:23:16):
that you build relationships with. And more and more, I'm
kind of as I used to go show off, we're
trying to just do exclusively local stuff. Just communications just
a lot easier. It's more'n you don't have to be
worried if somebody is not pulling their weight. You can
see that they're doing it, and you can communicate creatively
in more complexity verbally than in text. I think mostly

(01:23:40):
no one wants to be spending their days on spreadsheets
or like slack or something. It's just we use all
these tools, but it's so much nicer to be able
to just look over someone's shoulder and say that looks awesome,
or try this. Rather than having to type this little essay,

(01:24:03):
it's much easier to just draw it over the shoulder.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
Understandable. Definitely understandable. Yeah for sure with that. Oh go ahead, Josh,
worry about you had a question.

Speaker 5 (01:24:14):
Oh yeah, I was also just going to just ask
you about whether what's the process of being able to
just work with other I don't know, just these other
companies such as like Adult Swim and and but that's
just like the processes of being able to just get
work and a place where you'll be you'll be able
to see it, or what's the process of even making

(01:24:35):
it available for them?

Speaker 3 (01:24:37):
It's a one way straight if I'm honest. It's they
come to us and we respond and we just try
our best to give them what they came here for.
Every job is a little different. Sometimes it's an agency
coming to us, and the agency has a relationship with
the client, and the agency might be going out to
multiple directors or studios. Like I said, and we're actually

(01:25:01):
like pitching against other people. And a pitch can look
like anything from two pages on a Google spreadsheet or
Google slide sorry, or it could be like fifteen minute
presentation where we write and prepare and we do designs
and we really go hard. The difference between those two

(01:25:24):
things is usually how much money they have in the
end for us to devote that it's the gambling really
and hoping that you win. But the best relationships I
think I've had is when the creator we have a
direct line to the creative team. So in the case
of the musician actually being able to talk to the musician.

(01:25:47):
That's a relationship I have with Wally Goutier and we
have with those Texan band surfaces, And that's great because
there are artists too. They get it. They trust usually
trust us to do what we want and it's awesome.
They're usually the best people to work with. Agencies can
be good if they've got the right people on it.

(01:26:08):
We've had a great relationship with the studio that we
work with on the Fallout stuff, So Studio ak Qa.
There's a huge advertising agency, but they've got key creative
people there that love the brand and understand it, so
they're great to work with. But yeah, there's no real
way to pitch these places yourself. You just have to

(01:26:30):
do good work when an opportunity comes, just don't disappoint,
and that's something that can take a while to learn. Yeah,
and you've got to know your self worth as well.
Usually most of the time these places are coming to
you because they know you're an expert or good a
one particular thing, so usually they'll listen. If they have

(01:26:51):
a request that's not reasonable, Can you make this pixel
moving in two weeks, We'll say no, but here's what
we can do. Sometimes when you get notes and feedback,
often people will say, oh, I didn't think this worked.
Why don't you try this? And they pitch you a
terrible but very specific idea, and you're like, Okay, my

(01:27:14):
job is to recognize the problem they have with it,
but I'm going to solve that problem myself. They don't
like something about this, I've heard the complaint, but I'll
fix that and usually there's a better, more like a
simpler or more creative way to fix that than their suggestions.
So it's learning and usually they'll listen to you because
you know what you're talking about, so it is those

(01:27:35):
relationships can be difficult, but they can also if you
present correctly and confidently you're and you're the expert, you
can usually find a way through that you're still happy with.

Speaker 5 (01:27:48):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's definitely interesting because one of my
next questions we're going to be like, what are like
some of the pitfalls that being an animation director and
stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:28:02):
I think the hardest thing is you can lose you
can lose yourself in the job, Like you can lose
a sense of your own creative intuition because you're so
often responding to notes Like I think the idea people
have this idea of a director, whether it's animation or film,
that we just sit there calling all the shots. It's

(01:28:22):
really not the case where our job, my job is
to not make this thing suck. For my job is
to be a link between the client who has all
the money and the power and the team that I've assembled.
And I never want to treat I never want to
pass on any of the stress from the client to
the team. I want to protect them from that and

(01:28:43):
I want to navigate the feedback or the notes from
the client into something that I can be proud of,
and that doesn't always happen. Sometimes the thing gets bent
so far away from what you thought it was going
to be, or you finish the thing and it never
gets released for whatever reasons, maybe the company who hired
you when bankrupt, or they've changed strategies, or they've got

(01:29:06):
a new CEO. Whatever. All you can do is focus
on doing a good job. But in that process you
can lose a sense of what your job is to
have opinions as well. So often directors are really opinionated.
This thing sucks, this thing's awesome. But you can't lose

(01:29:27):
a little bit of that if you're just responding constantly
to other people's taste. So that's why I try to
do things for myself, like the Muscles book, other shot
films I've written and directed, other little things I've written.
It's like I'm doing that because it keeps me sane
and it's just for me.

Speaker 1 (01:29:46):
Kind of think, no, I like that, And then it
gives you a chance, I guess, not to have a
I guess an artist block where you just hit a
all and you're.

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):
Just like, Okay, I don't want to do this anymore.
That whole thing.

Speaker 3 (01:29:57):
Yeah, yeah, thing I say when if you've got like
when you're in charge, if you're not if you're not
happy about something like, it's different when you're working for
someone else. When you're working for someone else, it's normal
to get shitty or annoyed. But if you're working for
yourself and you're shitty and annoyed, then that's your it's
your fault. Yeah, but some other pitfalls. I guess it

(01:30:18):
can be tricky sometimes understanding your relationship with your where
you sit with your crew, for instance, I think, particularly
because I hire people on a regular you've got to
be careful. You're not like, does this person like me?
Or do they just want work? So I'm sure this
is common with a lot of people, but you've got
to create boundaries where like, you're not just befriending all

(01:30:41):
the people who work for you. Yeah, they're always going
to laugh at you dumb jokes and beat you. Well,
they're never going to tell you your ticket, So you
got to I think it's healthy to like, Okay, these
are my I have a friendly relationship with colleagues, but
I've got some other friends over here that don't, you know,
don't give a shit of that animation and we just

(01:31:03):
talk about anything else. I think that's healthy to try
to aim for that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:31:09):
I like that, Yeah, because like so that it's just
like anything else. And like I said, that operates like
on so many spectrums because at the end of the day,
even whatever kind of job like I have, or anything,
or just having a project in general, you have your colleagues,
you have your friends and things like that. But at
the end of the day, like you said, what's the
point if we have a six week time limit and

(01:31:32):
we can't get the job done, But still a job
at the.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
End of the day, So you still got to be
able to book.

Speaker 3 (01:31:39):
Yeah, it's a job where if don it can be
really creatively satisfying, really fun. With drawing for a living.
I'm going to remind people that, like when clients ask
you for something unreasonable and the only option I have
is to pass that unreasonable request onto my crew. I'm
just like, hey, when saving lives here, the client can

(01:32:02):
wait or they'll pay more, and then I can pay
my crew more to We try not to make people
work weekends, but they'll pay more. We can hire other people.
None of our crew have to sacrifice their weekends or
after hours to sell a video game ad like it's
come on, like it's nothing is worth screwing with people's lives.

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
I think.

Speaker 3 (01:32:26):
Veneration video games. But I just you're saying, it's not
even about that at that point, It's about making some
other asshole money. Why would I? If I can protect,
if I can throw my weight around and protect the
crew from that, why wouldn't I. Of course, I'm not
gonna Yeah, I'm not gonna suck up to the client
and say yes, we'll do whatever dumb idea you have.

(01:32:48):
I'll say no, let's think about it for a sec.
Let's try to.

Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
Yeah, I definitely no. I definitely understand that.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
It's because one of the things that me and the
guys I won't necessarily say, I think it's just being
a grumpy old man.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
That's not really a complaint.

Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
But we talk about just to D animation, and obviously,
like we talked about having when we started the conversation,
you grew up on two D animation, So did we
watching the Disney movies, watching the Studio Jibli and all
of that, and we see that, I guess, like on
a big spectrum.

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
Now you have like your your.

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
TV shows, and things like that that still use a
lot of that animation, but for the most part, for
a lot of the bigger animated movies, they've gone with
the three D model route.

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
And things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:37):
But at the end of the day, like I'm sure,
like you were saying, it's backbreak and having to do
two D animation and a time constraint just having an
artist here that I guess can vouch for that is
to D animation something that's is it more expensive to
do than like three D models or is there do
you have some sort of insight to that on why

(01:33:59):
that shit is made? And we're doing a lot more
three D than two D stuff nowadays.

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):
I think, like you said, like a lot of the
majority of TV animation is still two D. There's not
a lot of I think it's like a bell curve.
There's savings to be made at a certain point with
three D, but in the beginning there's a lot of
work like rigging and lighting and texturing that's all hard work,
whereas I can just pick up a pencil and quickly
draw something. And also with TV quality two D animation,

(01:34:30):
it's not like you're drawing a It's not like on
ones like you're not drawing a frame. Every frame. It
might hold a key pose of the character just in
their mouth, So it's inexpensive at the TV end of it,
but we feature I think the appeal of CG, and
we see a lot in CG the three D animated films.
These days, they're taking a lot more inspiration from two

(01:34:51):
D animation. They break the model and there's smear frames,
and there's cool effects like that. Storyboards are still all
done by hand on all these films. The concept that
it's all gone by hand, so there's a two D
there's a two D kind of sentiment coming through, temperament, whatever,
coming through all these CG films. I think the advantage

(01:35:13):
of three D is it's a lot more like cinema.
It's a lot more like having a camera in a
space and you light the space and you create sets,
three dimensional sets, and I think it allows the directors
to have more iterations. If this isn't working, let's try
this camera up here like this, or you can light

(01:35:36):
it cinematically so it looks really dynamic compared to hand drawn,
which even with multi levels of shading, it always looks
like a drawing. But CG kind of gets closer and
closer towards real life and cinema, so I can see
the appeal of that. There was a point where it
looked like two D was dying back when I was
starting out, like in the early two thousands, it felt

(01:36:00):
like all movies are going three D and there's not
going to be any more to the animation. But that's
just not really true. Anime is stronger than ever and
it's still two D. That's some incredible stuff, but that
nearly all of adult animation, like comedy, is two D.
We're just not seeing those big budget kind of Disney

(01:36:23):
kids movies. But honestly, that's fine by me. Like we
talked about before those things. I mean, there was some cool,
weird feature two D animation in the seventies and stuff
like like weird kind of adult stuff. But I think
we're seeing awesome two D stuff in the advertising space

(01:36:45):
opening around the world. It's like studios doing incredible work
that we've never seen before. So I think two D
is not going anywhere. It's just it's not in that
feature animated film space until it is again, Like somebody
will make a great two D film and it'll be
because it's a great film, not because of the technique.

(01:37:06):
Even the Spider Verse movies that did so well, a
lot of that was paying tribute to comic books and
the comic book print and the way things moved on
like threes and fours, and it was all referencing hand
drawn stuff, even though it was still CG. I think
we're just gonna see more and more of.

Speaker 1 (01:37:23):
That, Okay, No, I definitely I like that approach because
we never really get to we talked to animes. There's
from time to time, but we always forget to get
your get their take on on that kind of on
the two D versus three D because it comes up
a lot of the time, especially in like the like
podcasting and conventions and anime nerds and all of that.

(01:37:45):
Everybody talks about it, so it's interesting to get that perspective.

Speaker 3 (01:37:49):
So that's totally and when you talk about it, the
majority of the feelings are that two D is better,
or you miss two D or what are you normally.

Speaker 1 (01:37:58):
Yeah, oh yeah, because we're all like I think from
like twenty twenty twenty five and up, we're all like
just grumpy and where's the hunchback of Notre Dame Animation
where did that go?

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
Or why is everything? And I'm kind of like you,
I haven't with that. It's just I did enjoy those movies.

Speaker 1 (01:38:18):
And I'll be honest, I haven't really watched a lot
of the three D Disney movies, not because for a
lack of wanting to see them, just time. I just
never really get the chance to sit down and watch
stuff like that. I'm always late to everything, But I think.

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):
They all have their their place.

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
Like one thing you were saying, and because we were
talking about video game, I do follow a channel on
my Instagram that talks about a lot of animation and
how a lot of those two D aspects were brought
into three three D movies and things like that. One
of the Newest Mario game. One of the concepts used
for the Newest Mario video game was pretty interesting to

(01:38:53):
me because the character Mario, naturally from the first game,
it's like a side scroll right the way the newer
game is. They wanted to make it give you that
side scroller a vibe to it, but they were saying
that they couldn't just turn a three D Mario character,
or the character of Mario to the side because he

(01:39:15):
would just look weird with the with his nose, I guess,
and the eye on the side of his face. So
the way they did it, he's not it looks as
if he's like going like a side scroller, but the
character's kind of pointing out a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
So the way.

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):
Yeah, So the way they had to model the character,
they had the like you said, that was the exact
terminator had to break that model in order for the
character to look right while he was caught to the
side and running forward, and they showed the model how
it would look from front on, and Mario's eyes are
like here and the mouth is there and there's like
nothing on the side. So I just find that really

(01:39:51):
interesting when you talk about breaking the models and being
able to use these kind of these things learned from
two D animation and apply them to these three D.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
Yeah, there's a great example from the newer Charlie Brown film.
They did like a CG three D Charlie Brown film,
and it's when he's on his side, the front on
it actually has to morph because otherwise he doesn't look
like the comic book and if you would hear too
much to what's literally correct, it doesn't actually look good.

(01:40:22):
Same with Mickey Mouse. I always remember reading in an
animation book. I think the one written by the guys
who draw was The Illusion of Life. There's like a
big book by some of the Disney animators and they're like, yeah,
Mickey Mouse's ears always sit on top of and if
you've got a high angle looking down at him. Yeah,
because I remember somebody else, what do we do with

(01:40:44):
these ears? The camera looks like it's it doesn't make
any sense these ears. I just don't draw it like that.
Then it's easy to just not draw it like that.
But yeah, it's I get the nostalgia. People have the
hand drawn too deep, but it's still happening. It's still there,
there's people doing it. Maybe not to the same frame

(01:41:06):
rate is the feature Disney stuff, but honestly, I yeah,
this is a lot of debate within the animation communities.
People like, yeah, that stuff's kind of syrupy and smooth,
but it hasn't like I said before, in a soul
and anime has like held frames and lots of power
and intensity, and it's a lower frame rate, but you

(01:41:27):
feel the drawings, whereas like some of the Disney stuff
is so smooth that it's almost swims and doesn't carry
the same weight anyway. It's also a fucked on of
work to do all those drawings. But it's a bit
like what do you get for that? Is it worth?
It doesn't. Some people just want it to be smooth,
but I can deal with things being a bit rougher

(01:41:49):
like Chunky. It's like Chunky styles soup versus smooth soup.
It's still good.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
I was about to say, yeah, I'll go ahead.

Speaker 5 (01:42:00):
Josh oh Yeah. Basically it's and it's funny we bring
up animation and video games because I don't know if
you guys remember Sonic O six Sonic the Headhog that
came out in two thousand and six. People didn't really
like it. The reception for that particularly game Sonic game
wasn't really good because Sonic used to be like a
two D scroller and it was pixelated, and Sonic O

(01:42:20):
six was like the biggest, like a mainstream Sonic game
that introduced the three D Sonic and him having this
whole open world thing, and people didn't really people didn't
really like it, like it was really had really mixed
reactions and I remember all the vitriol that it had
in the old game informers, and now people say it's
still like the worst Sonic game ever.

Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
But we're now making Sonic games just like.

Speaker 6 (01:42:45):
That now is now came a long way.

Speaker 4 (01:42:49):
He's had a bad game here where you were a
wear with for a little bit and some nights and
stuff like that happened. He went back to the old
school day.

Speaker 5 (01:42:58):
That's that's a tough one. The world of Sonic was tough.
That was tough.

Speaker 1 (01:43:05):
No, it's yeah, I do like I said, how I
guess you could say direction changed over time, because like
I said, back then, with that game, it was so
drastically different that people just automatically hated it. But now
even fighters like I remember when Naruto that for the
first time he had an anime game that was like
an open kind of arena instead of it just being

(01:43:27):
the classic Mortal Kombat style side scrolling.

Speaker 3 (01:43:31):
It's always interesting. Oh go ahead, I'll be honest. Though
I never liked Mario sixty four, I thought that was
really Yeah, I find the camera just wasn't ever in
where I wanted it to be, And I was like,
when I'm jumping, it doesn't feel like I'm jumping because
the way the camera is, it just didn't feel like

(01:43:52):
side scrolling. The same with my favorite of the Zelda games.
It's not like a arena of time. It's it's the
top down game Boy linked to the past, or one
of those games I enjoy more.

Speaker 5 (01:44:06):
Yeah, saying to be honest, like I didn't really you
never heard.

Speaker 6 (01:44:12):
I didn't really like.

Speaker 5 (01:44:14):
Yeah, I never really cut onto the three D Zeldas either,
like I'll always play the other top down ones.

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
And they don't get them as much love I feel
the top down ones, but like the four seasons when
they did anyway, all those game Boy Advanced ones were cool.
That's the Zelda I. But then something twitches, like same
with if you try to play like GTA three or
one of those ones, it's pretty hard to play those
games now and then and then and then you get

(01:44:42):
to four and five they're like, okay, these are like
feel like the three D has found its groove, and
it feels because there's another three in like Vice City,
all the characters have these real whack walk and they're
just like randomly standing in this place. They don't feel okay.
It doesn't feel realistic yet. It's like I either want

(01:45:05):
it to be really silly and two D or I
want it to be like realistic and believable. It's this
middle ground with three D that's weird.

Speaker 2 (01:45:16):
No, definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:45:17):
And one thing I wanted to ask Ivan, did you
see did you see Across the Spider Verse?

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
Did you watch that?

Speaker 3 (01:45:24):
Actually I saw the first one and I didn't catch
the second one. I enjoyed visually the first one, I
had some issues with the story. If you guys want.

Speaker 6 (01:45:32):
To hear it, yes, talk about it, let's go it.

Speaker 3 (01:45:36):
Is yes, come on, okay, okay. So I thought that
the all the other characters that come in, all the
different versions of the Spider Spider Men from different universes,
I felt like at that point they were I knew
they weren't going to contribute anything to the story. That
was just there for comic relief, because I feel like
I've seen this before, this ensemble of just they're coming

(01:46:00):
in the end of the second act and Lego movie.
It's just like a big bunch of characters running around
doing stuff. But I didn't feel like they really ever
added anything, and I didn't like it just felt like
a kind of empty kind of Yeah. So that was
my first one. It's very minor problem. It's still fine.
But the biggest problem I had was the uncle character.

(01:46:22):
Like he's a bad guy. He was willing to kill
a child, a kid, until he realized it was his
and then all of a sudden, like did not kill
this kid? How many other kids is he killed? And
then at the end they paying at the end, in
the end credits, they're painting a mural of him. I'm like,

(01:46:42):
wait a second, Like you want to have this positive
role model for this character, but he's not a good guy.

Speaker 2 (01:46:49):
This is not the right guy. Yes, and that's what
I was.

Speaker 1 (01:46:57):
I was, that's we're exactly on this same page, and
I felt the same exact way. I'll let you watch
the second movie. But yes, in the first movie the Prowler,
I had that same problem. And to be fair, Demitri
is like the Prowler. A more realistic version of that
is in the video game. I think for how they yeah,

(01:47:19):
in the Miles game, how Miles and the Prowler's relationship
would actually be because I understand that same thing, like
you said, I mean, he's like this evil, stupid, evil dude,
and he's like ripping through all the other Spider Man
and like literally the one in the Robots she's a child.

Speaker 2 (01:47:35):
Too, and just ripping through all these folks.

Speaker 1 (01:47:38):
But here's the thing, though, I felt like one of
the things that me and the guys we talk about
this all the time, and we always talk about stakes
and like the weight of situations in different.

Speaker 2 (01:47:50):
Films, and you were completely right.

Speaker 1 (01:47:52):
Like in that moment, it was just like it was
just like a switch and he was like, Oh, I'm
gonna kill you. And then he takes the mask off
and he's like, oh, hey, Miles, all right, we're good.

Speaker 3 (01:48:04):
What I don't what I don't like to see in
films or TV shows is I like, I don't like
to see I don't like to think that the world
just exists for the viewer, because then it feels contrived.
I want to believe that the world exists for the
characters and that they can interact in this space the
real person was. If it feels like this is all

(01:48:26):
for the benefit of the viewer, then I'm out of it.
Like now I feel like pandemed too, And it's like that.
So sometimes my gripes with a movie is as simple
as that this you only showed that for us, or
this only happened for us. It's like with horror movies
when like the trope of a horror movie where a
character sees something horrible and then they turn to the

(01:48:48):
others and go, did you guys see that? And then
they all look and it's not there anymore, and then
they're like going crazy. I've seen that so many times
that it's going like lazy. It's like exists for the
viewer almost anyway. Yeah, So that but a really good
film that I really I don't know if you guys
have seen. It's by the same studio that like the

(01:49:10):
same directing duo, Lord Miller that did. I don't know
if they directed Spie of this, but they did. Their
production company made both films that Mitchell's Versus the Machines.
Did you see that?

Speaker 2 (01:49:21):
Oh no, but I heard it was.

Speaker 3 (01:49:26):
That one. I love that one everything. It's got a
weird kind of visual style as well. It doesn't look
like pixel They involve like memes and emojis and stuff
into how the teenage characters communicate. And then the emotional
stake of the film. It's just a simple conflict between
a daughter and a dad, and the daughter's creative and
she likes making these weird little movies and animations, and

(01:49:49):
then her dad is just like a hands on kind
of build a kind of style, and he doesn't get
her world and she doesn't get his. And meanwhile a
robot apocoly happens and they have to the family have
to like work together, and it's just it's it's so funny.
I just laughed every in every scene. I watched it twice.

(01:50:12):
I thought it was great. I'm have to check that out.

Speaker 1 (01:50:16):
Yeah, I've seen, Yeah, I've seen the trailer. I've never
actually yeah, I actually totally forgot about this.

Speaker 3 (01:50:21):
Yeah, I have to check it's on Netflix. I think
it's a Netflix original. Danny McBride plays the dad, and
he's always funny.

Speaker 2 (01:50:30):
Okay, yeah, I'll definitely check that out. But yeah, that's
how we are.

Speaker 1 (01:50:33):
I'm like the stakes in films, and specifically with the
Spider Man to the trilogy, a lot of it, like
I said, the story is good, but a lot of
it is like, Okay, yeah, this is fan service. Here's
the who's who, especially in the second movies, like here's
the who's Who's Spider Man. But since we were talking
about frame rate, that second movie artistically is one of

(01:50:54):
the greatest things I've ever seen or at least recently. Yeah,
and they even pay it tensions the smallest things. It's
not really a I guess you could say it's spoilers.
I'll go ahead and tell you one of the characters
in the movie, he's a spider Man that is completely nonconformist.
He doesn't he's he's from He's Spidery, He's basically from

(01:51:16):
he he's basically from the UK, and he's like this
like anti establishment. But the thing that's so cool about
the character is that he's so anti establishment that even
his animation style is grossly different from everybody else, Like
he doesn't conform to one color palette, his color palette
change at the time, and his frame rate is completely

(01:51:37):
different than all the other characters in the like, yeah,
like you were talking about in anime, how like their
slightly more jerky frame rate gives them more like you said,
more like action. It's more action feeling exactly, that's him
the entire movie. He's got this jerky kind of frame
rate and yeah, it's completely different.

Speaker 3 (01:51:58):
So definitely, I definitely liked how in the first one
they don't really explain why it looks so visually different.
But then you realize, wait, these are all comic book
it's specific to comic books. It's like the half turned
dots are like the printing comic book and different characters
from the different universes. This one's a film noir kind

(01:52:21):
of style, like Dick Tracy comic or this one's like
a kind of silly kind of Disney cartoon character. And
they don't really ever explicitly draw the link that it's
all comic book related. I know that's referencing the comics,
but to do that in animation and to still have
at work was cool. No, yea as a concept, but yeah,

(01:52:44):
I think my gripes were always only ever with the
some of the story stuff. But I think as well,
I'll admit I'm a bit fatigued of superheroes in general,
as most pop a lot of people are. And I think, ye,
I'm sure, and I think, but more than that, I'm like,
I want the best films that come out to be original.

(01:53:06):
I feel like it's such a they keep rebooting Spider Man,
and I just I'm just kind of like, ready, I
just you guys were lamenting the death of two D
kind of stuff. I just I want to see more original.
I want to see weird stuff, and the same with

(01:53:28):
when the Barbing movie came out. I know, I understand
that the Barber movie was like a comment on a
lot of things politically, but I don't want the best
movie out to be owned by Mattel. I want it
to be like an original idea. I want other people
to be able to make fun of Mattel and like
in a punky kind of way, I don't want. I
don't like it when the corporations are making fun of themselves,

(01:53:51):
and I want to be able to other people who
to make fun of them. It's like when the Simpsons
said the Malibu Stacey doll, that's the funniest SI Bobby
and Bobby doing it of themselves. I don't know, there's
something uncomfortable with that corporation.

Speaker 4 (01:54:08):
Yeah, yeah, I said. It just feels like they're holding
their punches back. There's no they're not like really getting
themselves down. If a company out of someone outside of
the company, like a fence or whatever, made fun of it,
They're they're not going to hold back what they really think,
Like Barbie Mattel is gonna be like we can talk
a little bit, is where the line is. But we're

(01:54:30):
not going to go past this line, but you already
know they're not going to give you like a really
hard take or anything like that.

Speaker 6 (01:54:36):
You're just like, Okay, that was cool, but you really
to talk about it.

Speaker 3 (01:54:41):
It's like when you see these movies about bands, like
a buy a Pick of that Queen or whatever, and
if it's been endorsed by the band, it's never gonna
be They're never gonna get gritty and slimy and weird. No,
I don't want to I don't want to see the
catalog version of it by the band to sell them mute.
That's just disgusting creatively.

Speaker 5 (01:55:03):
Yeah, exactly like you was saying, I don't want like
the craziest, the most critically acclaimed movie to be made
by a company who's who, whose job they pretty much made.
Their job is just try to make a try to
like pump out the most financially successful idea. That's just
what they do, that's just their whole thing. They have

(01:55:25):
a thousand board meetings every day to figure out how
they can maximize like profits in this particular way.

Speaker 3 (01:55:33):
And yeah, it's yeah, I want to say more like
a twenty four kind of style.

Speaker 6 (01:55:42):
Yeah, a great exact Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:55:45):
I think a lot of people feel the time, but
I get I also don't think people shoot on Marvel.
And I don't think it's one or the other. It's
Marvel is doing that thing and people I'll keep doing
it as long as people pay to see it.

Speaker 2 (01:55:59):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:56:00):
The only thing we can do to change that is
go see different.

Speaker 2 (01:56:03):
Kinds of movies exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:56:05):
So the powers, you know, the powers with us, I
talk about that all the time. That's the best form
of protest or whatever. If you want something, if you
want more of something, go put you know, your efforts
into it, money into it, put time into it. But
if you don't want to see it, if that, if
whatever Marvel movie you don't want to see.

Speaker 2 (01:56:25):
Don't buy a ticket. No, just don't, don't don't buy
the ticket.

Speaker 1 (01:56:29):
And that's the and I think, I mean, that's the
crazy part about the times. Now it's not so much
it's not enough to just not really vibe with something thing,
but you still want to go see it. Because now
I'm going to try to monetize off the fact that
I don't like it. And in order for me to
make a video about how much I don't like it.

(01:56:50):
I have to go watch it so I can see,
so I can talk about specific points of what I don't.
So it's just a weird kind of snake it in
its own tail sort of situation.

Speaker 4 (01:57:00):
And situation even negative, but just from like a you know,
I don't want to miss out on whatever.

Speaker 6 (01:57:07):
Then this movie is gonna be for another movie I
like in the future. There's gonna be a teether here.

Speaker 4 (01:57:12):
That's gonna lead into a movie that maybe I'll like
in the future, so I can't miss out on that.

Speaker 2 (01:57:16):
I can't miss it.

Speaker 3 (01:57:18):
I didn't see Oppenheimer Old Body.

Speaker 5 (01:57:24):
Yeah. Same.

Speaker 3 (01:57:25):
I'm gonna go watch some weird Italian TV show. I
don't know. I just want to split different things into
my head.

Speaker 5 (01:57:34):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:57:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:57:35):
Same.

Speaker 5 (01:57:36):
And one of the most like craziest, most like different
ambitious movies I've ever seen is Hardcore Henry and I
haven't seen anything else like it.

Speaker 2 (01:57:45):
Okay, did I watch that?

Speaker 5 (01:57:50):
I think that was I think that was just me
and dead.

Speaker 2 (01:57:54):
I'm gonna have to watch that now.

Speaker 6 (01:57:59):
Yeah, gonna have to be on my list for sure.

Speaker 5 (01:58:02):
It's crazy, like the whole movie takes place in first person,
like a mirror's edge. It sure does.

Speaker 2 (01:58:08):
Yes, I never saw it. Okay, yeah, I'm on my word.

Speaker 6 (01:58:12):
Yeah, I have to edit.

Speaker 5 (01:58:15):
Yeah, it's so dope.

Speaker 3 (01:58:18):
Is the editing like or is it continuous first person?

Speaker 5 (01:58:23):
Yeah, it's continuous first persons?

Speaker 3 (01:58:25):
Like?

Speaker 5 (01:58:25):
Is this continuous first person? Start to finish?

Speaker 3 (01:58:30):
Do you know? One of my favorite TV shows is
The peap Show. It's a British comedy of the same
guy who made Succession, and it's all every shot is
first person, either from one of the two characters point
of views. But it's so funny. It's just that it's
a big inspiration on muscles.

Speaker 2 (01:58:47):
Actually, is it on any Is it on any streaming platform?

Speaker 3 (01:58:52):
It would be, but it would be different in your country.
I'm sure. Oh yeah, because it was on Netflix for
a bit, but I think it's now on one of
the other ones here. It's it doesn't look like Succession,
it's not slick as that, but it's super duper funny.
Just these two housemates that one's kind of wound tightly
and the other one's really loose for want to be
a musician, and they just think, Yeah, if you thought

(01:59:16):
THEO on the head thing was funny, then some of
the stuff they got up through it's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:59:24):
So you said it takes place in all in first,
So does it follow one singular character that does a
jump from character?

Speaker 3 (01:59:29):
No, it does cut. It does cut, and it doesn't
ever explain it to you. But you're a lot of
the shots are just a character kind of talking straight
into camera. Oh, and then it cuts back to the
other person talking to camera and it's just there. It's
always from somebody's point of view.

Speaker 1 (01:59:44):
That's crazy. Oh wow, Yeah, I would love that. Yeah,
I would love that. I hate that. I probably can't
see it.

Speaker 3 (01:59:52):
The same guys wrote an episode of Black Mirror that
was largely first person. Do you know the one from
it's like season one of Black Mirror where they've got
the Audien plant and recordes everything they say.

Speaker 5 (02:00:04):
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:00:06):
No, I love.

Speaker 1 (02:00:09):
And no and Black Mirror. That's my that's one of
my many. That's an addiction from me right there. I
love Black Mirror. Every time a new season comes out,
I'm on it and I down it in a whole.

Speaker 2 (02:00:19):
Day, like one day.

Speaker 5 (02:00:22):
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:00:24):
Cool, Yeah, Black Mirror is it.

Speaker 1 (02:00:25):
But but yeah, I've been one of the things iaid
We talked about a lot of great things and just
to mirror and what you were saying about just getting
different types of art and different types of media. And
like I said, I'm not trashing Marvel, I'm not trashing
I am.

Speaker 2 (02:00:41):
Trashing the Fast and Furious movies. I am trashing them.

Speaker 1 (02:00:45):
But other than that, we largely feel that way about you,
and that's why we were happy and honored really chat
with you. And just like I said, when we first started,
see the phase behind a lot of these just different
projects that meant a lot to us. Man, We like
I said, we feel that same way about you. So
we really appreciate the work that you do for sure.

Speaker 3 (02:01:06):
Totally thanks guys, I appreciate that. Yeah. Oh yeah. Supporting
weird little artists making whatever they want. That's the only
way to the only way to get good ship, different ship.

Speaker 6 (02:01:20):
Oh yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1 (02:01:24):
Yeah, exactly, it's got to be good. But but yeah, man,
the last thing before we wrap up, just let us know,
Man of Flor, what are you excited about?

Speaker 2 (02:01:34):
Like, you have your company right now and that.

Speaker 3 (02:01:37):
Is yes, Studio show Off.

Speaker 2 (02:01:39):
So what are you working on? Man?

Speaker 3 (02:01:41):
We've got to We've got a few things gonna be
kicking off at the end of this year. Started next year.
I can't say too much about them, but one of
them I'm really excited about if it happens. And so
everything's maybe until it's definitely happening. But I guess we're
doing more stuff related to video games, that's what I
can say. I'm working on a game graphics for a

(02:02:03):
game that's coming out. Hasn't been announced yet, so that's
all top secret. It's not my game. It's an established studio.
I'd love to make my own game. I actually have
some concept up for it, but it's still early days
for that. And yeah, I'm just going to keep working
on the comic when I get time. And it really
means a lot to me that you guys have read

(02:02:24):
it all and you supported it. That engagement with the
people reading it, that really is a motivator to keep
doing it. So you really appreciate you guys spreading the
world and saying something nice things.

Speaker 2 (02:02:38):
Oh yeah, no problem, man, totally. You were definitely welcome,
like one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (02:02:43):
Like I said, the work that you do, man, you know,
from your comic to your animations, it's all fantastic, And
I guess it's some of the stuff that I'm just
learning tonight that I had no idea that you worked
on some of the stuff with Gotier and how that
started off your career to things with the Simpsons and
Rick and Moore, all things that we even some of
the animations that you've done for different properties like Okko

(02:03:06):
and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (02:03:07):
That's all really cool stuff, man.

Speaker 1 (02:03:08):
Yeah, that's an honor to get a chance to chat
with somebody responsible for all of that, for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:03:13):
Definitely.

Speaker 3 (02:03:15):
Yeah, I've had I've been really lucky in the opportunities
I've had, and i just want to keep doing it.
So yeah, thanks, Oh yeah, no problem, no problem.

Speaker 1 (02:03:25):
So let all our viewers and listeners know where they
can find your your website where they can get what's
left of the books after we buy them, and then
social media and.

Speaker 3 (02:03:36):
Your social media of course that yeah, for sure. So
you can go to Ivandixon dot com. That's Dixon with
an X, and that's where you can find my store
that sells T shirts and caps and the last remaining
muscles mcquick Volume one First Editions. And then I'm on
Instagram at Ivan re Stixon at Ivan Rey Stixon. I'm

(02:03:58):
on Twitter and other places, but that I'd say Instagram
and my website, the best place is to go, So yeah,
check it out. And then I've got my company studio
showoff dot com. That's where you'll see a bunch of
the work that myself and my directing partner Sean's wand
and yeah, and enjoy digging through all the garbage I've

(02:04:20):
worked on over the years.

Speaker 1 (02:04:27):
No, but for sure, guys, for all of our viewers
and listeners that have been listening to watching the whole time,
we appreciate that and we will put all of Ivan's
information in the description below. So for my Square Round
Table guys, as always, guess what time it is shameless?
Yes sir, yes, sir, So it is time for the

(02:04:47):
shameless promotional and we are the Square Round Table Podcast.
You can catch this podcast as well as all of
our other amazing shows on our website, and that website
is Square Round Table Pod fandomlim dot com. And one
more time, that is Square Around Table Pod dot fandomlim
dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:05:06):
So what you got for is demetris And.

Speaker 4 (02:05:08):
If you want to catch stuff so visually, you can
catch us on YouTube. If you like the video, hit
that like button, subscribe to the channel and hit the
notification on the right set of videos, so you get
notified of this video and feature videos and calm it
down below. If you've seen any of Ivan's work, these
that he's talked about in this podcast, and if you're
gonna pick up those books, those T shirts and I

(02:05:29):
think you said hats that you go on your web
check those out. Let us know all this stuff, about
all everything you've seen and about it and even if mostly.

Speaker 6 (02:05:37):
Ducks like we need to know it all and we'll
be down there talking about that.

Speaker 5 (02:05:40):
Too, sure and if you want to, if you want to,
oh yeah, for sure, follow us on all the and
if you just want to hear our sensual, sweet buttery
voices instead of just looking at us, you can check
out check us out anywhere else, like literally anywhere literally
on a podcast.

Speaker 1 (02:06:00):
Literally, we're all over any social media platform. We're all
over every podcast platform. And don't forget to.

Speaker 2 (02:06:06):
Mention our good friends.

Speaker 1 (02:06:08):
We are the in house podcast and radio show for
rap Nerd Radio, so we're so happy to be with
those guys and whatever. Yes, we're on Firestick and Roku
for always Press Record so you can catch us on
TV with those guys also, So yeah, man, those are
all of our platforms. So whichever one you go to,
we don't mind. Just check us out man and I

(02:06:29):
always comment we love to chat and converse with you
wall So yeah, guys, that's it. So the last thing
before we wrap up, I would love all of our
co hosts and amazing guests to reintroduce themselves before we
head out. And as always I'm your host Chad Singleton.

Speaker 3 (02:06:48):
Singleton Jack, and I've been Ivan Dixon. Thanks for having
me guys.

Speaker 1 (02:06:56):
All right, man, yes, thank you, thank you so much
for being here. And we are the Square Around Table Podcast. Guys,
we are out peace