We interrupt our tale of nostalgia to bring you some shameless self-promotion in the form of THE TANTRUM...
For those of you who are unaware, Fred Seibert is one of the biggest producers in the animation business (he also co-founded a little basic cable station called Mtv).
One of his more recent ventures into world conquest are his cartoon podcasts and his 'Channel Frederator' site... to learn more, go here:
http://www.channelfrederator.com
An eternity ago when I first started working at Nickelodeon, 'Oh Yeah! Cartoons' was going into its 3rd (and final season). 'OY!C' was, essentially, the pitri dish in which many of Nickelodeon's new series were spawned (including The Fairly Oddparents, Chalk Zone and My Life as a Teenage Robot - all of which I have directed and/or storyboarded at some point or another).
I had pitched about a half a dozen ideas for 'OY!C' and they were all rejected (with good reason). But after lots of trial and error, I came up with this little gem of a kid superhero character (long before the current onslaught of kid superhero characters) and, much to my overwhelming joy, it was approved (unlike a lot of Nickelodeon pilots, what was nice about 'OY!C' was that it was basically Fred's baby and he made the picks personally - eliminating the usual red-tape that new cartoons have to go through to get picked up... plus, the shorts were created specifically to air on the show whereas many cartoon pilots never see the light of day).
Fast forward to today, and Fred is running a bunch of the shorts from 'OY!C' on his podcast, and this week's feature is my little 7-minute story, 'The Tantrum.'
This was the first cartoon I'd ever created, produced, designed, written, directed, storyboarded and - yes - voiced (I'm the voice of The Tantrum himself). Consequently, I sort of consider this my 'student film' insomuch as I am proud of it for what it is, but I've learned a lot since then.
Anyway, enjoy my humble little cartoon.
By the way, it's interesting to note that Nickelodeon wound up buying the rights to this idea from me and tested it for a series pickup. Obviously it never got a series deal, but I was pretty stoked that my first film actually recieved such serious consideration.
3 comments:
You're the tantrumist.
John, I still love this little gem, and to my non-industry way of thinking Nickolodeon was foolish not to pick up such a fun concept for full development. Also, your blog readers shold check out the interview you did for in conjunction with this on ChannelFrederator (http://www.frederatorblogs.com/post/3674) I'm quite impressed with your voice acting! Could you refresh my memory about the other voice talents involved?
P.L.:
Is that like a floutist?
Vinnie:
That means a great deal coming from you, since I consider you to be one of the most brilliant unknown filmmakers EVER.
You simply MUST put "The Bunny Film" on YouTube someday.
I can't describe it, folks... but, trust me, it's sheer genius.
Anyway, thank you for complimenting my acting. To be honest, it was probably the least challenging part of the whole cartoon.
As for the rest of my cast, the two most notables were Michael Bell who has done voiceovers for practically every cartoon ever (and is the voice of the Parkey Margerine tub who says 'Butter!') and the New Hope of the Jedi Order himseld, Mark Hamill.
What's interesting to note is that I knew Hamill did voice acting, but I never assumed he'd be available to a little operation like mine. So, suffice it to say, I jumped at the opportunity to have him in for an audition.
That's right... an AUDITION! He AUDITIONED for me just as he had auditioned for George Lucas so many years ago. Quite a trip.
The funny thing is, as much as I wanted to cast him just so I could say I worked with Luke Skywalker, I was determined NOT to use him if he didn't seem right for the parts.
Obviously, he rocked the house.
I'm happy to report that he was very nice, did an AMAZING job, gave me tips for my own voiceover parts and was also kind enough to autograph like a billion STAR WARS trinkets for me.
Mark played the voice of Travis' dad as well as Commander P'Twang. Michael Bell brilliantly provided the voice for the cowardly president.
Ah, memories...
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