The importance of sound
One of my back projects is an animated series and the one key aspect which tripped me up was the theme. Unlike any other aspect of the production, the pilot bears the theme which remains with the show; it sets the tone, provides backstory, has a memorable hook, has noises reflecting the genre or style, has broad appeal, is unique, is short, is exciting, builds anticipation and above all, wows the execs at the network – or at least, doesn’t clash with their values and might have promise.
So, no pressure then.
I am of the opinion that 75% of any presentation has the power of delivery in sound. Sound is the most important aspect when communicating emotion, it has greater power to move than the visuals do. So sound is really important, and I have experience with sound and could probably do it, but I don’t think I’d do a very good job.
So far the writing (for 3 seasons, to circumvent any major character changes), the visual character development, animation components and scenic back plates are all made by me. The animation, and the voices, can be AI for the pilot. Those can, and do, change.
However…
The theme tune, there’s a stumbling block.
Then…
On Youtube, in the shorts, a Canadian musician mucking about with mini-synths - lo-fi, experimental, wide-range, all-mood demos - and there, in the midst of this lot, not one but two short compositions which could easily be the theme. I haven’t thought of the project in 3 years yet from the first chord, these found that je ne sais quoi which instantly managed, somehow, to tick all the boxes.
The unimportance of video
In the 90’s, Turner bought Cartoon Network and created Adult Swim. The idea was to have a 24-hour cartoon channel, meaning anything running between 10pm and 5am needn’t be mainstream, adult-oriented toons, really, MTV style. One excellent show was Space Ghost, a 1968 character recycled from the Hanna-Barbera archives, which Turner also owned. Space Ghost aired on Adult Swim at midnight on a Sunday - hence a budget of almost zero.
But the show needed a sound guy! Because Zorak, the arch-enemy, was now the band and the hero Space Ghost was now a talk show host (the idea of a talk show is genius, because it requires virtually no animation). Aside from the theme and outro, you need stabs or stings which are the fanfare preceding the guest, or accompanying a joke. So Williams Street, the production company, get their friend Sonny Rollins, who plays guitar, in to do all that, and his band riffs the theme and a few stings and there’s the sound.
The result is the poorly-animated mantis, scaled poorly, in low resolution, whose mouth moves randomly and whose arms move randomly over a keyboard, to imitate drums and guitars. The animation is so bad, it practically doesn’t relate to the sound at all, and the sound is nothing more than strangled noise.
And yet it airs because none of those things matter.
What is important:
1. Zorak is now the band
2. Zorak hates Space Ghost
3. Some sort of musical sting announces the guest
4. The sting relates to the theme
Visually, the scene does not need to be congruent with the sound and for this reason, I set the sound down first and use that to guide the visuals. It's always sound-first.
Why pitch a pilot?
Does it make sense for a show to generate 1.5M views on release while a clip from that show generates 15M views on Youtube? Surely vertical shorts, which require no music or theme and get auto-dubbed, at sub 30-second inserts, are a LOT easier to make?
A pitch can always be cut up for Youtube, so that’s the go-to (all vertical format).
However, if successful, the pilot (and costings) lead to an order for 1 or 2 seasons. Conservatively the budget per episode would be under $200K. All of that will wind up on Youtube, eventually, sliced to shorts, but a network or streaming service will pay for it and afterwards, you still get paid every time it syndicates. There are many advantages without ruling anything else out.
The downside is the first season analytics, projected, factored against the cost analysis, is the metric which determines if the show will be renewed, and if so, for how long. The projections simply predict when the metric falls below threshold and simply does not order that season be produced. Those thresholds are fluid, leading to shows being cancelled, then rebooted then cancelled again, then rebooted by a different network with lower thresholds, then cancelled. Then everyone goes back to what they were doing before.
The AKAI MPK Mini Mk.3 Limited Edition
I haven’t used it in like 2 years and it deserves more than that! Maybe I should give it to the Canadian musician and see if I can't bribe him into helping with the theme. I'd feel better knowing it was being useful.
