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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.10 - JANUARY 2001
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Flinch: The House That Flash Built
Building A Rep Following projects with Z.com and others, Flinch again found itself in cahoots with Warner's, but this go-around on a project that won't officially premiere until February 2001. Animated by Film Roman, The Oblongs is a television series that no one has really seen yet, not even Flinch, and yet there are over thirty sequences on the Internet which Flinch has created "based on model packs, audio recordings and whatever feedback we could get from the show's creators," explains Flinch senior producer Viner. This kind of collaborative freedom and creative latitude comes from Flinch's growing reputation as an adventurous, high-quality studio, where they are not just given a project to execute, but they are often co-creators in it. Nothing could be more emblematic of this collaborative success than Flinch's realization of Tim Burton's Stainboy for shockwave.com.
When Tim Burton wanted to animate for the Web some of the characters from his book, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, the William Morris Agency introduced him to Flinch Studio. Apparently, it was a natural fit. Burton came to the studio with watercolor designs of his characters, and Amato remembers: "He was really concerned with it not looking like your standard Web cartoon. He emphatically did not want that. He really liked the idea of it being, as Tim put it, 'No big deal.' Meaning — a few artists could do it, on a few computers; he could work with us very directly, in a very informal way; there would be no budgetary committees, no big overhead producer. It would be almost like we were staying up all night making a funny comic book together. He liked that do-it-yourself scale." When Amato did some Flash-based watercolor versions of Burton's work, Burton then realized he was in good hands. Amato continues, "He felt he could relax a bit. I think he felt that Flinch was concentrating and noticing things that he had put a great deal of care into: like texture and line. We were putting other things that a lot of studios might have considered important -- like wacky character movements and bouncy motions — on the back burner. If they were ever going to be used, they were going to be used sparingly."
While Burton is certainly the catalyst for the show, it has been a very open and evolving process in terms of looks, techniques and storylines. Burton has been very supportive and encouraging of Flinch to be adventurous with the narrative style of the show, and the production has moved forward, episode to episode, in a very challenging and organic way. (Flinch has completed 6 of the 13 scheduled episodes of Stainboy, and will resume production once Burton has concluded location filming for his upcoming live-action adaptation of Planet of the Apes.) In commenting on Flinch's success in maintaining the integrity and charm of Burton's vision, senior producer Viner describes the initial collaboration as a "moment of osmosis." Yet this is, despite its being a lean operation of about 20 people, the secret strength of Flinch Studio — its emphasis on artistic sensibility.
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