Atomic Betty: Defending the Universe and Trying to Find a Home on TV
Going to Market
The partnership was announced in June 2001. Samantha Daley told the press: "We are extremely excited to be working with Phil Roman on Atomic Betty. Phil is an animation guru and his experience will surely make an already great property much better." Phil Roman was equally enthusiastic: "All of us at Phil Roman Entertainment are excited about our new association with the young, energetic and talented team at Atomic Cartoons. We are delighted to be working on Atomic Betty, a project that is both unique and distinctive." The final handshakes were negotiated by Rick Ramirez for PRE and Cheryl Nelson for Atomic Cartoons. Betty was now ready to conquer the universe.

Producer Samantha Daley helped to finalize the deal with Phil Roman Entertainment.
With an eye on wider exposure, the Atomic team prepared Betty's "pitch pack" for MIPCOM 2001 in Cannes, France. (MIPCOM is an international film and program market where hopeful producers of TV, video, film and satellite properties meet potential buyers.) Animation director Mauro Casalese worked with Atomic animators Chaz McKenna, Ridd Sorensen, Jeffrey Agala and Benson Shum to produce the three dynamic minutes of footage seen at MIPCOM Jr., where properties aimed at the children and youth markets are typically screened. As Casalese related: "I came up with the idea and storyboard. I animated along with Chaz, Jeffrey, Ridd and Benson. They also did the bulk of the compositing and assisting." The final demo, which went through several stages of development, was the result of considerable work by Casalese and his team.
Several other Atomic artists, including background artist Warren Flanagan and designer Victor Marchetti (who styled some of the initial character poses), helped with the early development. "Warren and Victor did some initial work on the pitch pack," says Casalese, "but I decided to go in a different direction for the background styling once the demo got underway and unfortunately some of those designs were not used." Jono Howard and Dennis Heaton came on board later as developmental writers. They really enhanced the story ideas and helped solidify the pitch pack." Trevor Bentley recalls: "We were working on a service job at the time so any development was done on the side. Sort of like reading comic books in math class at school."


Writers Dennis Heton (l) and Jono Howard fleshed out the story.























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