The Triumphant Independent

The Triumphant Independent
an interview with John R. Dilworth
(continued from page 1)

Dilworth continued with When Lilly Laney Moved In (1991), and a Nickelodeon pilot in association with Jumbo Pictures, Psyched for Snuppa (1992). During this time, Dilworth formalized his theories on color and design. "What I look for a lot is non-traditional colors in contrast, and it's all a part of the design," he says. "I see color as design. Whereas a black-and-white drawing of a design is only just a stage. It's not a final stage, unless it was going to a black-and-white medium.

"You have to consider relationships. Nothing stands alone. Everything is a relationship of something else. It's whether something is the rear end of a horse, or a cloud. The other information around it reveals whether it's a cloud or the rear end of a horse. So when you see a design, you're never looking at the design isolated. You can't, or it would be a mistake. You must see the whole thing. And even then, you have to determine if the color in that scene reflects in the next scene. Things that come after and before it. Relationships."

In 1991, Dilworth founded his own production company, Stretch Films, incorporating in 1994 "just for tax reasons," though in our interview he insists, "I've always had Stretch Films."

Dilworth's studio produced Smart Talk with Raisin (1993), which aired during Liquid Television's third season on MTV, and became a part of the home video, The Best of Liquid Television. The director followed with Angry Cabaret (1994) for MTV and the internationally-acclaimed The Dirdy Birdy (1994), where, during the making of the film, he refined his sense of timing. "I refer to a beat as something between four frames and eight frames," he says. "Eight frames are enough to register something. The rest is pure intuition. You can actually train timing to somebody if they want to learn it, but I don't think they really appreciate the orchestration of images combined as a whole to leave an impression that's directly related to the plot. The pieces are just a part of the whole," he says. "You see it from beginning to end, in all of its elements. The story has to be as supportive and add an equal level as the color, as the designs, as the music, as the sound effects, and as the pacing. It all has to work together.

"In Dirdy Birdy I wasn't looking at the whole picture as a whole. I was still learning then. In Psyched for Snuppa and When Lilly Laney Moved In I wasn't pleased with the timing at all, and realized I didn't know it well. I spent a lot of time learning about timing on The Dirdy Birdy as a homework assignment. It's so important the number of frames between when Dirdy Birdy revealed his love to Furgerina and her reaction. That really had to be studied until it became something that was intuitive."

In other words, Dilworth experimented with the animation, studying the results from his pencil test machine. "As we were discussing earlier, you learn as you go. In animation you must see the stuff move. You have to see it move in the time that you anticipate it would move. That's the only point of reference."

Enter Courage
In 1995, Hanna-Barbera and the Cartoon Network sponsored The Chicken from Outer Space. It introduced Courage, the Cowardly Dog, who lived in the middle of Nowhere with an elderly farm couple, the kindly Muriel and her cantankerous husband, who delighted in scaring the dog with a fright mask. When an evil chicken from outer space lands, Courage has to overcome his terror to protect the family. Chicken was noteworthy because it was mostly pantomime; dialogue (all by Howard Hoffman) was limited to grunts, screams, cackles, the Farmer's "Booga-booga-booga!" and Courage's sole line, "This shouldn't happen to a dog. Ouch!" The short was eventually nominated for an Academy Award, Annie Award and CableACE Award, and was so popular among viewers that the Cartoon Network wanted it as a regular series.

Meanwhile, Dilworth created, wrote, directed and animated Noodles & Nedd (1996), whose characters later appeared in five one-minute shorts on Sesame Street (1997). He also produced a series of animated shorts called Ace and Avery for the Cartoon Network and Children's Television Workshop, which premiered on Big Bag (April 1998).

By 1998, Dilworth and the Cartoon Network agreed on a series format for Courage, the Cowardly Dog. For its first season, the show would be 26 eleven-minute cartoons (13 half-hour episodes). To accommodate the production demands of a TV series, Stretch Films expanded, and Dilworth hired producer Robert Winthrop (formerly from Robocop at MGM) to manage the operation.