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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.05 - AUGUST 2000
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Writing for CGI: A Talk With Ian Boothby HK: Now, it seems like Casper wasn't a case where you and Roger just wrote a script and handed it to Harvey and then left. It sounds like you were really involved in the production with Mainframe. Is that the case? IB: Yes it was. What had happened was we had been writing on Weird-Ohs already, so about once every two weeks we'd go sit with all the animators in a big room and jam on ideas. In that way we got to know them and they again told us what the limitations were, and even more importantly, we were asking them, 'Well, what do you guys want to animate? What's fun for you to animate?' We'd get a good vibe from the room. If you have an animator animating something that they like, they're going to do a better job. So we kept that relationship. We had meetings every once in a while but then when they're doing their thing we'd leave them alone and let them work their magic, and then they'd leave us alone and let us write our thing. Harvey was very hands-on, and Mainframe was very hands-on. Both Roger and I live just a couple of blocks away from the Mainframe animation offices so we would be able to pop over. Plus, I knew a couple of the animators on this because I also write for comic books and I knew a couple of them from the comic scene in town as well. So we already had a little bit of a pre-existing relationship. They're just all great guys and girls to hang around with. HK: That's good. I think when you have the writers and the artists interacting that lends itself to a much more cohesive story and project at the end of the day. IB: I've been in so many projects where you write a script, get a check, which is lovely, but then Bob's your uncle, you're off. Then you watch the show months later and go, 'That was my name at the beginning? But a giraffe was the police officer? What the...?' I've sat down with friends to watch a show and I say, 'That was my joke,' about once every two minutes. HK: It was a luxury then that you got to work with Mainframe so closely. IB: It was a luxury. It was also a luxury working with a company -- it sounds like I'm kissing ass -- but that does such great work. We'd write a scene and then a couple of months later, we'd go in and we'd see the scene and take our jaws off the floor, and go, 'You guys are great! Oh my gosh!' And that would so pump you up to write more stuff because you're going, 'Did you see what they did? Okay, now we really have to write this.' It would be so exciting. Of course, that's encouraging to the animators, too, 'cause they're working in a big vacuum there. Who knows if the joke's funny anymore after you've been working on it for a month? It's nice to have someone come in and say, 'That's good.' We're going to see that, come Christmas. The footage I've seen so far, I was really, really pleased with. HK: In animation, there's a real struggle, because there's some studios that are letting the 'board artists almost write the whole entire thing. Then there's other studios where the writers are writing everything and then like you said, just getting a paycheck. It seems like somewhere there has to be a middle ground, but it's really hard for animation studios to find that ground. IB: You've got the John Kricfalusi way, which is where the animators themselves do the writing, and then there's also The Simpsons style, which is the writers write it all and then the animators take over. There's almost like animators first or writers first. Those are two very distinctive styles, and there's some really hilarious Ren and Stimpy cartoons and there's very hilarious Simpsons cartoons. Then there's some studios that just want to turn around and make a buck and so they buy a property and say, 'We got our animation studio that's going to do it, great.' And then, 'Who are the writers?' 'Well, these are some writers who have written animation with boards.' 'Good! Them. Okay.' And you're there in the business of selling the toy or whatever it is. They're making a buck. And fair enough. But something like Ren and Stimpy or The Simpsons both work, because they've got a lot of heart to them. Ren and Stimpy were Kricfalusi's creations and he really cared. And Matt Groening was very hands-on with The Simpsons because he really cared. You've got to have someone who gives a damn. I think 80% of the projects out there, people don't give a damn and you can tell. But with Casper, luckily, it was obvious they really did care. And that was swell. It's really important to make comedies as funny as possible. A lot of times something is called comedy and it just -- it is not funny. I think we've got something here that hopefully is funny and that we'll be proud to show all our friends. Here's the other thing that is really cool for both Roger and I. A Christmas special airs forever -- just airs forever. It's so nice to have something that ten years from now, they'll probably be showing. So much of your work is disposable. It's on for however long the TV season is and then it's done, unless Nick at Nite picks it up in thirty years, but a Christmas special lives on for a long time. And to make it with Mainframe, was really a great experience. Heather Kenyon is editor in chief of Animation World Magazine.
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