I was fortunate to have an interview with Craig Bartlett on December 1st. This was for a school project over the phone and it took me hours to transcribe, but it has tons of information and detail on such things as Party Wagon, Hey Arnold, CGI, the Simpsons, Futurama, and other things. So instead of letting it take up space for no one but myself, I've decided to put it here. Enjoy!
Kim: Can you give me a quick run down of the process you use to make cartoons?
Mr. Bartlett: Sure. I've been doing it pretty much the same way since before Hey Arnold. Because when I started out I did claymation. Which is really different from cel animation for TV. Are you familiar with claymation?
Kim: Yeah
Mr. Bartlett: ...with stop motion and stuff. And that’s what I did in Oregon. Mostly because it was the only kind of work that was available up there with World Inc. the head studio at Portland. And when I came to Hollywood I had to find a job in the mainstream TV animation world. And the first job I did was at Rugrats in their first season. And that was just story editing so I was just involved with writing scripts. But I also directed an episode too. So that was my real introduction to how they put together a cartoon show for TV. And it's really always been done the same way ever since by me because it's the stuff I learned on Rugrats and I just took that to Hey Arnold and the stuff I've been doing on cartoon network. And that first means you have to come up with a story for an episode and then you write that up and get it approved. All of these steps you have to get the approval of what ever network if it's Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network or anywhere. And once you get through with that idea you write up an outline which usually is quite a few pages for an eleven minute cartoon which you'd write a few pages of outline. And you get that approved. Then someone writes it. If it isn't me it would be some other writer some times we would collaborate a couple people would write it. And if we wrote the script we'd split the work, if two people write it we'd say you take the first half and I'll take the second half and we'd do it like that. And so then we write the script and it has to go through a bunch of approvals again. And several drafts which I guess should make it better. You know you have other people reading it as well. The other story editors who work on the show definitely have 3 people looking at it. And then you... when you have done enough versions and are ready to go, then you record it. Bring in the actors into the recording studio and having them read the script. And then I would take it from there, I would keep going, some people don't do this but for me I would then edit the dialogue myself I'd sit with a sound editor in a program called Protools where they on a computer would digitize the sound on a computer they cut the track. And we do that mostly so I can be sure that the running time is right and it's not going to be too long or too short. And if it's too long I have to decide things to cut. And then it's ready to story board. And other productions do it differently some people like to storyboard first and do dialogue afterwards. But I never did. I thought it was always better to have control over it. And tell the storyboard artists to draw this. And once it's been story boarded that takes several weeks, once it's been storyboarded we basically wrote these complicated exposure sheets for the overseas studio and in our case that would be Korea. We have a studio in Korea that gets the storyboard drawings and some key background paintings and the exposure sheets about how to animate it and then they animate it in Korea. And they send it back to us. Now it comes back to us all digitally on digital tape and then we load it into a really cool editing computer basically which is called an avid and then that combines with sound an picture and we cut it. Again we get it to be a specific running time. It's all about getting it to the right length. And then we put sound effects and music on it and mix it and give it to the network. And that's been the same way I've done it since as long as I can remember. So that’s it.
Kim: Do you ever get it back and it's still too long so you delete scenes?
Bartlett: Yeah. Generally I like to try to keep... to me even when your just working on the story you should at that point really figure out how many scenes it should have... what are the minimum requirements that are going to tell your story. And so that goes to your storyboard and you each step of the way try to eliminate things that aren't necessary. By the time I get everything back I should know what all the scenes should be. And it's really rare when I have to cut a whole scene... in other words not a shot but a whole sequence of shots that make the scene. I usually wouldn't want to cut something that drastic. It's more like you sit with the editor and you tell the editor that we've got to cut another minute. Then they just shave off a couple frames off a couple of shots. That's what I just got done doing on Party Wagon too. I just finished it and delivered it today. In that case we have to make it come in a 70 minutes because it's going to be an hour and a half TV movie with 70 minutes meaning there is extra time for commercials. They said 70 was absolutely as long as it they could go and I really wanted it to be more like 72 minutes. And so the way we cut it instead of cutting any sequence we cut just individual frames off shots all the way through the whole show. And just tightens up the whole show in general. So yeah that's how we get it to length.
Kim: Do you ever use the 3D animation?
Bartlett: Yeah sometimes we do. But I've only done a little bit, because our stuff is still really cell and 2 dimensional and still very much in that same traditional way where its flat drawings you do in pencil and then their turned into a cell level. Even though now it's digital and that means it's all shot on digital tape and so they don't use cells anymore, you know those clear plastic things that they used to lay over the background. Now they just do it on computer where they scan the background in, which is still hand made you know it's not done on a computer still done by drawing and painting these backgrounds, and then they still draw the character level that would be a cell but now it's just scanned into the computer and then on the computer, like on a Macintosh based computer format they just fill in the colors now digitally by just putting a quick ink. They've got a mouse and their computer monitor and they just click on the cell colors and they are just filled in. The old cells we don't use them anymore and we are all digital now and they still have the old fashioned idea of a flat background and then the drawings that go on top. And we only use pure computer generated images, CGI stuff, once in a great while. Are you familiar with the... did you see the Hey Arnold movie?
Kim: Yes
Bartlett: Do you remember the bus? The bus was such an important character that we decided to do it in CGI and so in other words there were so many shots of the bus traveling that we wanted it to not look... usually like a bus that they overseas studios would do the worst job out of just because I think they put their worst artists on things like vehicles just because they aren't really important. And so we said we wanted the bus to be CGI and then they had a way of finishing it so it looked like flat cell the way they colored it. You know the way CGI looks kind of shiny and perfect we had to give it a kind of an out line and a flat painting style so it would look like everything else on the show. And we used CGI on the bus in the Hey Arnold movie and in Party Wagon we have another vehicle that we used CGI because it was another thing that we thought was worth it. The vehicle was really important and we wanted it to have a special quality, so we asked them if they could do it in CGI too. So yeah we use it a little bit.
Kim: Are you planning to use them both, to mix the sort of like what Futurama did?
Bartlett: Futurama is a really good example of the mix. And I think they did a great job with that. Like their ship is obviously CGI and they use CGI planets when ever they are... the other space shots all look like they're all done in CGI. And I think they also digitized their whole New York City to. You know where they can do all these really cool moves where they kind of do these fly bys and kind of snap into their office. And I think that is a really good example... and it still looks like a cell cartoon. But you know they use computers to assist their look and I would do it… it kind of depends. It's more expensive and you have to have a whole kind of dedicated crew or else use an out side supplier to come up with that stuff and my experience working here at cartoon network is it's pretty hard to get that kind of money to spend. You know Futurama was a really expensive show. And because it was a prime time Fox show they spent the money on it, but now they're done with it. Do you know that Cartoon Network picked up Futurama. And now that it's on cartoon network I though well that cool maybe they will do more episodes. But they told me that it's too expensive. So they're just going to rerun it and they won't make more because it's prohibitly expensive. So I don't know. I kind of have the feeling if I want to do something here at Cartoon Network, if I want to do a series here it will probably be the same way that I've been working and once in a while we can splurge on special stuff. But generally I'll be simple and straight forward with my story telling. So I don't think I'll change my methods very much.
Kim: So How much does it cost to make an episode?
Bartlett: If you make an episode of like Futurama or the Simpsons it's more than a million dollars a show. The Simpsons is up around a million and a half. And that's really expensive for what their doing and not much of it of that money actually goes to the production, you know the company that actually does the animation. I think a lot of that goes to the actors salaries and the producers, and there is a lot of people, there's Fox and Gracie Films which is Jim Brooks' company. They have a whole bunch of producers. And there a team of like 20 writers and they are all really well paid. And Matt and all of the other people and so.. I think the reason it costs so much is because it really's got a lot of people involved and a lot of expensive people involved. And in the world I'm in which is more like TV animation for cable like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network... they're trying to keep the cost under like say $500 thousand for a half hour. For Arnold it ended up... it started at about $350 thousand a half hour and by the time we were done, by the time we made 100 of them more like $550 thousand. But it was becoming expensive to them and I think that was part of the decision why they didn't order more than 100. There was 103 that we made. I think they stopped there because they didn't want to spend that kind of money for cartoons any more.
Kim: So how long does it take to make one episode?
Bartlett: About 9 months for a half hour. In the case of what I've been doing now it's been taking a little longer. Like I did another hour of... I did Party Wagon as the first half hour; delivered to them here and that took about a year instead of 9 months which is just because there was just a few of us doing it. Like making a short film, there was a crew of maybe five people. And only me full time. The rest of them just did it free lance you know just bringing and work in form out of the office. It started to take longer. So it takes us about a year to make a half hour at out rate. But when we were making Hey Arnold would do making 20 at a time. And each episode took about 9 months and we would over lap like crazy. We would start and a few weeks later we would start another one. Actually it was like every 2 weeks we would start a new show.
Kim: So if you have it all in the computer does it take less time if you do it that way?
Bartlett: Yeah. Since it's all kind of ... Since we've done it digital and all of our stuff is on digital tape and then they can load it... like the avid editing system is basically a big computer with a huge hard drive and a huge capacity for memory and then you can load it all in a digitalize the whole thing and then it's much faster you can... all the steps are faster when you've got it all in the computer and it's non linear too so it's not like tape where you have to roll forward to the scene your looking for. On a computer you can just point and click to any where... for example the Party Wagon TV movie, anywhere in that 70 minute program you can just sort of point and click and open it up right there. So it is quite faster and it... the editing process is faster. Yeah the computer does make everything faster.
Kim: How many people are usually involved with the whole process?
Bartlett: Now it’s very few. What I'm doing here is just sort of me in an office and a small crew probably about 12 people involved with making Party Wagon as opposed to when we were doing the TV series at Nickelodeon with Hey Arnold I had about 50 people. There's really more like 12 people now. And that's not every body. There are probably half a dozen story board artists and half a... yeah it's more like about 20 if you could all the production people who help. But those people weren't full time. Each of those people just worked for a few weeks or a few months. Except for me I was here the whole time. It's much smaller now. Their trying to... well that's really how they'd like it. You know they're trying to save money now so they'd rather us... very small group. So if I ever go to series with these guys I don't know how many people I'll have on staff, but I know it won't be nearly as many as when we did Hey Arnold.
Kim: Do you think the computer will sort of wipe out the traditional cels... well you don't use cels but the traditional...?
Bartlett: ...the traditional 2D method. Well I hope it doesn't, because well I think it would be sad if that's the case. Because I feel like it the better the more variety there is, the more different kinds of looks there are, the different kinds of styles showing up on TV. That includes Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. They should not have just one way of doing things or it's going to be boring... and I think their audience will think so too. If I was speaking as someone who sits and watches animation on TV the more the variety you saw the better. And so I hope there will always be all kinds of ways of doing it, all kinds of ways of doing a production. I think that studios want to do it a simple as possible, they want to have one method of doing a cartoon show because that’s easier for them, and easier to kind of plan it, just come up with a budget and try to save money. But it's more creative to have a whole bunch of different styles. So I hope it stays that way.
Kim: So you think since Disney stopped all their traditional sort of things and going to computer since Pixar seems to be doing big. Do you think that it will come back?
Bartlett: Wait… Someone just told me today that Roy Disney just quit. And that's really a big deal. Roy is the nephew of Walt Disney and he was in charge of the features, the feature animation and so I didn't know anything about it, I just heard that rumor so you know you should look it up n the internet you can find a story on it. I'm going to look in Variety tonight when I get home .But if he did quite I wouldn't be at all surprised if he quit because he didn't like the way things were going. You know he was about... he was pretty old and as the nephew of Walt Disney I can imagine that he was kind of old school and about the traditional ways of doing things. I know he was around all through the '90's when there was a real kind of renaissance at Disney where they got back to the old style.. they had a lot of artist really good artists they were really paying a lot of money for really good movies like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin and the Lion King and those movies that were really kind of lavish. And there were 2D, they weren't 3D even though I remember they used 3D effects they still tried to make them look like classical old fashioned Disney movies. So I wouldn't be surprised if Roy's quitting. Because he doesn't like the ways things are going. I bet 2D movies are really like endangered species now. Because the big hits like you said are moves that are like the Pixar moves and Shrek and a lot the 2D features that have come out have kind of bombed. And so... have you seen Spirited Away?
Kim: No... I wanted to.
Bartlett: It's great. If you get the chance to see it. That one was the one that one the best animated feature Oscar last year. And I was thrilled that it won because I liked it much better than the other features that were up and the other ones were 3D and I just thought that Spirited Away was really cool. And it was done in a more traditional way. So it's not like they aren't making good 2D movies it's just that the pressure is for everybody to go 3D and I bet that’s why Roy just quit… he probably just said ...he's probably just sick of it. Any way I think they are going to try and make it so they aren't making any more 2D movies. And that would be very sad.
Kim: Does the traditional way take more skill then the computer?
Bartlett: I mean kind of... but I think there are just these really talented people working in all the different ways. And I think it takes a lot of skill to make a good 3D movie. I think like Finding Nemo... the looked like that took a ton of work. It's like everything moving like all the... basically if you think about it every shot that was underwater had all this kind of shimmering going on and really convincing atmosphere. And I'm sure that took a ton of work. And so it isn't that it's easier... maybe in a way. Maybe there is a thing about it that is more efficient. It takes a lot of work to draw a movie and it takes a lot of work to do it in the computer. I think that they believe, the people that are running the companies, I think they believe audiences want CGI now and that audiences don't like that anymore because they think it's old fashioned. I guess...
Kim: Do you have a date when Party Wagon will air?
Bartlett: Yeah. They said it's going to be on TV the last Friday in February... I'm looking at my calendar to see if I have the last Friday in February on. Yeah… last Friday would be the 27th. Oh but you know that's subject to change. It's up to them. But I'm going to deliver it to them... I just finished it today ... so I'm going to send it out today so they'll get it tomorrow. And they'll watch it. I'm going to screen it out here in LA for my cast and crew later this month and we'll have out own screening of it. I think it will be on Cartoon Network the last Friday in February.
Kim: Do you often change the voices by computer or do you try to leave them how they are?
Bartlett: I try to leave it, but the computer you know when we edit the dialogue in Protools. In a subtle way the computer does change the performance because the actors all come in and read their lines and I really like the make it how the actors did it as much as possible, but again when you try to make it come out at a specific length we end up taking just a little bit of air, just a few frames out between words and pulling performances up a little tighter. And some people, I know the Simpsons does this, the Simpsons will take the whole track that they just cut with the actors doing the scene and they would speed up the performance about 5%. And that's basically just taking the whole digital file of the entire 22 minute show and 5% faster means it's going to be 20 minutes. And so they just push a button and the whole thing is just a few minutes faster. And we don't do anything that drastic. Usually try to stick with what the actors actually did. But you know with the computer you could really manipulate what you got.
Kim: Is that the reason the voices change after a couple seasons go by?
Bartlett: Oh yeah. We did, like on Hey Arnold when the kids got older. We actually use the computer... your right. For some one like Gerald I did use the computer to pitch up his voice. His voice got really deep because you know Jenille is now like 21. So you know he went from being about 12 to 13 to about 16, 17 when we were doing that and his voice would completely change. And I just really wanted to keep him. I didn't want to replace him. And cause I liked his performance. But I had to change the sound of it because I had to make him sound younger. So we did pitch him up. We don't usually have to do that. But in the case of a kid actor getting older you do.
Kim: Do any of them use their real voice, or do most of them really try to change their voice?
Bartlett: Let me think of some examples. Some of the kids on Hey Arnold I really wanted them to just sound like them selves. The kids who played Arnold really just sounded like them selves. Sid did... Sam Gifaldi who played Sid. Pheobe was more of a cartoon made up voice. It was very different from Andi. Helga was a lot like Frannie Smith does. She just did it with this big attitude. So a lot of them just do their own regular voices. The adults that come in are usually professional voice over actors they generally can do a lot of different voices and stuff. The adults are usually doing the made up way. Like Dan Castallaneta played Arnolds Grandpa and he is also going to be in Party Wagon. It's always a made up voice. It never sounds like the real Dan. And same with Marice LaMarche who was Big Bob on Hey Arnold he's got a big part on Party Wagon. He does completely made up voices. You would never recognize him as the same guy if you heard the two characters. And I just started a new pilot for cartoon network and I had Marice play on that too and he did one that was a really extreme character and one I told him to play a middle school teacher and for him to sound like himself. And it was just kind of funny. He almost didn't want to do it. He is just so used to changing his voice. I think the voice over actors that do all these voices are sort of crazy.
Kim: Would that ever bug them that they turn on the TV and there is their voice?
Bartlett: Maybe they don't like the sound other their own voice. I don't know. That’s a good question. I think their all actor and actors are intense. They have insecurities on how they might look or sound. And that's what makes voice over a great thing for actors is because it's not how they look. They can kind of disappear in these parts. And it's a lot easier then working on camera and being how you look being part of it. And voice overs seems so easy and fun by comparison. It’s a good gig.