The fun starts after the game ends for the Smashenburn family. From left, son Billy, dad Rip, daughter Alice and mom Raquel, with pet Turbo in front. All Game Over images © 2004 Carsey-Werner-Mandabach.

Computer animation is sexy — and hot. Perhaps a little too sexy and hot in the aftermath of Janet Jackson’s breast baring controversy during the Super Bowl telecast. Game Over, the first-ever CG-animated primetime network comedy, makes its debut March 10 on UPN, and has already incurred the wrath of its network, which reportedly ordered the deletion of a two-second glimpse of female buttocks from the pilot.

Starring the voices of Lucy Liu, Patrick Warburton and E.G. Daily, among other top names, Game Over takes a wild, comedic look at what happens to popular videogame characters after the game ends. In this show, the protagonists — the Smashenburn family — live far-from-ordinary suburban lives in an alternate videogame universe filled with action heroes, monsters and cartoon characters.

The idea for the Carsey-Werner-Mandabach production was ripe for development, but the real challenge was finding a CGI shop that could deliver fully rendered, quality computer animation to meet Game Over’s demanding primetime TV “shooting” schedule.

Dan Krech, founder of DKP, and his team created theGRID to save time on Game Over’s production schedule.

Enter 20-year-old DKP Effects of Toronto, Canada, founded by Dan Krech and the producer of 3D-CGI animation for scores of feature films, TV series and more than 3,000 commercials. DKP is solving the time crunch problem by using its proprietary production system dubbed theGRID — Graphical Realtime Information Display — on Game Over.

The Game Begins
“[Game Over creator and exec producer] David Sacks really wanted the show to be 3D, and we really co-developed it together,” comments John Morch, vp of business development for DKP. “We embarked on a 12-minute pilot, and now we are producing 22 minutes of CGI for each show.”

DKP is working on six episodes of the action-packed 3D comedy, which features a race-car driving Dad (Rip); a gun-toting, monster-fighting government agent Mom (Raquel), who is at the center of the animated debate over nudity; a hip-hop loving, trend-obsessed 13-year-old son (Billy); a 15-year-old “save-the-world” sister (Alice); a weird 300-pound family pet (Turbo); plus anime love interests, zombies, elves, tomb raiders, soldiers and anything else that has ever appeared in a video game.

“We’re delivering full CGI on this series at almost unheard-of speed,” says DKP’s vice-president of production, Terry Dale. “There were some 280 character designs for the first six shows. The characters came in as design sketches and alterations were made based on the timeline requirements,” he says, adding, “We have worked very closely with the series’ producers, and theGRID makes it possible.”

By using theGRID, anyone involved with the series’ production, located anywhere around the world, can be directly involved with every step of the production process — from character and background design, storyboard, scene layout and animatic, to final animation.