Un-CONventional

Now that the new episode is out in the wild I thought I'd talk about the step-by-step process of how we make Happy Tree Friends episodes. Hopefully, it'll give you a rough understanding and shed some light on how we do this crazy show. If you haven't had the chance to check out the new episode you should do so now, 'cause... um... spoilers below!

Step 1 - The Beat-sheet!

So, how do you get this whole ball of wax rolling down the hill where it can pick up all sorts of dangerous objects and plow right into town? Actually, if you guys find out how to do that post it on YouTube cause I'd love to see it!

Anyway, it all begins with rubbing two brain cels together... well six actually, if you count writers Ken Pontac and Warren Graff... well, ok, maybe it is just two shared among all three of us. As many of you regular readers might know we LOVES us our comic book conventions! Specifically, THE greatest convention ever, The San Diego Comic Convention (aka "Comic Con") held every year at, ironically enough, San Diego! It would be awkward if it was called San Diego Comic Con and be somewhere else... but I digress...

Since we're all nerds on this side of the fence we thought it would be fun to do an episode about Comic Con! Naturally, you can't do comics in HTF without either Sniffles (our resident comic nerd) and Splendid (go to super-hero). After much deliberating, awkward silences and some turkey sandwiches, we usually end up with a "beat-sheet" like this:

1) Sniffles steps out of a bus. We can see that he’s decked out in complete Splendid paraphernalia (Splendid costume, comic, pack-pack, shoes, posters, flags, foam fingers, etc…) Cut wide to the convention center. There’s Splendid banners and all sorts of comic book decorations heralding the comic/nerd convention. Sniffles walks up to the line.

2) The first kid in line gives his ticket to the door man (Lumpy or Mole) and goes in. Sniffles walks up and the door man gestures for his ticket. Sniffles pads his pockets down and can’t find his ticket. The door man points him away and Sniffles turns and walks away, dejected.

3) Inside the convention, Splendid is sitting at a table signing autographs. There are three kids in line. The first kid hands Splendid a comic which he takes and starts to sign with a pencil. As he’s signing, the lead of the pencil breaks off. Annoyed, Splendid flicks the pencil lead off the table. Cut to the three kids in line, the pencil lead skewers through them like a bullet, killing all. They all collapse off-screen. Splendid reaches for another pencil, finishes signing, looks up to hand the book back but there’s nobody to be seen. Splendid shrugs and looks at his watch and notices the time. Splendid gets up and walks off-screen in a hurry.

4) In the hallway, 2 kids are dressed up in Star Wars costume (one is dressed as an Ewok and the other as Princess Leia). They both have toy light-sabers and are play-fighting. Splendid walks into the scene. As the kids play, one of the light sabers blinks on and off and finally fizzles out. The kids’ shoulders slump in get sadness. Splendid sees this and directs his heat beam onto the saber. The saber glows red hot and looks like it’s a light-saber again! The kids rejoice! Splendid pats the kid on the head and continues on. The kid with the glowing hot saber swings at his friend and cuts him clean in half (both ends are cauterized). As the kid looks in horror the saber melts onto the kid catching her on fire. The kid screams and runs off screaming.

5) The auditorium is packed with people. Up on stage, Splendid walks up to the podium. He taps on the mic and breaks it. Doh! Splendid gets rid of the mic, clears his throat and bellows a loud, “hello!” into the room. The sonics of this vocals reverberates throughout the room causing everyone’s ear drums to pop and break! Suddenly, the kid on fire comes running in and catches the drapes on fire.

6) Splendid sees the fire start and quickly sucks all the air out of the room. Cut outside, we see the sides of the building buckle in. Cut back to the fire as it smothers out. Splendid, holding his breath in, looks pleased. He looks over and sees that the crowd is turning blue, gasping for air. Splendid freaks out and blows all the air back out. Cut back outside and we see the building puff up, like an over-inflated balloon.

7) Cut back to the front door, Sniffles runs up with his ticket in hand. He hands it to the door man, takes a step and opens the door. As soon as he does, a giant explosion shoots out of the door and wipes Sniffles out. Cut out wide, we see the whole building blow-up!

8) When the smoke clears there’s nothing but a giant crater left in place of the convention center. Splendid is standing in front of a burnt up podium, only the wall shaped like Splendid behind him is intact. The podium crumbles to dust.

This is our rough guide on the beat-by-beat events that will take place in our episode. From here we can see how things are flowing, how the gags are playing out and the major, over-all arc of the story and how everything fits together. There might be some specific notes on how we envision certain shots or how things cut together but these are just rough ideas on how it will be eventually presented. Think of it as a sketch for a script! You'll notice that there are differences from this beat-sheet to the final episode. From here on out, we'll be polishing and tightening things up as best we can. It could be anywhere from re-cutting how a certain scene plays out or re-doing entire sequences all together. It all depends on how the episode shapes up and ideas we can plug into it on how to make it better.

Step 2 - Script!

Typically, either Pontac or Warren will generate an actual script from our beat-sheet. This will be a more specific, almost shot-by-shot call out of the story. Lots of cuts and overall timing will be worked out in this process as well as any type of "dialogue" we'll need. I put that in quotations since there really is no dialogue for the characters but we still need to know who and what to record when we call in the voice actors. When they're not screaming or saying, "huh?" we like to write in phrases that they might say like, "hey, hold on to this" or "excuse me, is that my spleen?" We find that it helps the voice-actors vocalize the action and we use it as a starting off point for the performance. Think of them as "stunt lines," standing in for the actual ones.

Since we're doing this episode internally, we usually skip the script phase since we have a very small team to work with. Just to show you guys what one of our scripts actually look like, here's an excerpt from an older episode "Aw, Shucks!"







Step 3 - Thumbnails

Thumbnails are a quick and dirty (emphasis on dirty!) step that visualizes the script or beat-sheet, in this case. We break it down and sketch what the storyboards will eventually look like. You're probably thinking, "Kenn, this is totally an extra step that you can skip and go out and grab a smoothie instead." You're probably right about the smoothie (mmm... smoothie) but this step is crucial to the process! Here is where we really work the camera, the cuts, the pacing, the lay-out, etc... To me, this is one of the most creative and rewarding part of the whole process (second only to the good times of brainstorming silly ideas and getting smoothies). This is the first time the concept is transformed into a visual language so, there's lots and lots of things to be worked out.



My apologies for the bad scan. These thumbnails were never really meant to be archived or even saved so I do them on pencil (in this case Carmine Red, Col-Erase brand), which doesn't scan very well. I tweaked the contrast and levels in Photoshop a little so you can at least see some of the sketches but it does make it look like crap.

Anyway, you can almost see the process in this excerpt thumbnail above. Some panels I wasn't happy with that I crossed out, some panels I added in, etc... How does a character enter the frame? What direction is he/she facing? Do we want a medium shot of Splendid at this scene? A close-up or a long shot? How does that cut to the next scene? Should we use a transition instead of a cut? How should Splendid act at this point? Where is he standing in relation to the other characters? Etc, etc, etc... These are some of the questions in my mind when I'm going through this. And this is just an example for one shot! Magnify that for the whole episode and you'll see why this step is so important.

The goal is to refine how to most clearly and funnily (is that a word?) tell the story. No effort has been made whatsoever to make the drawings pretty. It's all about blocking and general positions, poses to get a feel of how the episode will play out. These are just notes to myself so they really only have to be intelligible to one person... and that's just barely the case!

Whew! That's lots of words and not enough pictures! But we're getting out of the wordy stuff and into more pictures. Yay! Let's break for now and continue in part two... "Revenge Of Con!" I have to get a smoothie...