A mere 20-some years after it first premiered on Canadian cable community Teletoon in 2002 (and on MTV in early 2023), the pioneering and ill-mannered grownup animated sitcom Clone Excessive is again for a second season! Created by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Invoice Lawrence, all of whom return for the second go-round, the “gleefully anarchic and relentlessly foolish cult favorite” (Andrew Parker, The Gate) appears at what it is perhaps like if adolescent clones of well-known historic figures occurred to be in highschool collectively.
That includes a central forged of characters who had been launched in Season 1 – Abe Lincoln (Will Forte), Joan of Arc (Nicole Sullivan), John F. Kennedy (Christopher Miller), and Cleopatra (Mitra Jouhari) – the brand new season additionally contains “newcomers” Frida Kahlo (Vicci Martinez), Harriet Tubman (Ayo Edebiri), Confucius (Kelvin Yu), and Christopher Columbus (aka Topher Bus, voiced by Neil Casey). A lot of the present’s wacky humor derives from the distinction between the characters’ well-known historic virtues and legacies and their latter-day incarnations as sometimes jerky adolescents.
The reboot of Clone Excessive delighted not solely at-home viewers who had embraced the primary season of the sequence, but additionally some extremely completed artists.
“As a result of Clone Excessive is so beloved amongst animation people, we had a stellar group of administrators who had been followers of the unique season,” says Supervising Director Anna Hollingsworth (BoJack Horseman, The SpongeBob Film, The Ricky Gervais Present). These embrace Mark Ackland, who labored as a designer on Season 1; South Park veteran Jack Shih; Kristen Morrison (SpongeBob SquarePants); and Animation Supervisor Justin Nichols (Wander Over Yonder, Child Cosmic).
We spoke with Hollingsworth about her duties on the present, what it was prefer to deliver a 20-year-old sequence again to life, and the way she and Clone Excessive got here to be in the identical place on the similar time.
AWN: The present’s reboot was a very long time coming. When did you come on the venture, and what had been your first ideas about how the present could be resurrected?
Anna Hollingsworth: I first got here on Clone Excessive within the early summer season of 2021. Having labored with [animation and production studio] ShadowMachine on BoJack Horseman as animation director, it felt a bit like returning to household. I used to be a giant fan of the preliminary run of Clone Excessive and watched it religiously when it was on MTV. I simply thought it was so weirdly great and I appreciated the satirical portrayal of all the teenager dramas I had beloved rising up. I can truthfully say this was a little bit of a dream venture for me. I used to be additionally very acquainted with the numerous methods through which reboots can go flawed, and felt an enormous accountability to not try this.
AWN: What had been your essential duties on the present?
AH: My job has encompassed having a voice in design, story, animation, music, hiring, and so forth. Throughout our animatic stage, my major job was working alongside our administrators to create the animatics, however I by no means wished to shrink back from getting my fingers soiled. I might usually assist board, create mouth charts, animate retakes – principally no matter supported the staff to create the very best finish product potential. Fortunately, we’ve extremely proficient individuals concerned that I’ve full religion in. That makes the job a lot simpler.
AWN: What was the design course of like?
AH: Working with our artwork director Tara Bilinger and animation supervisor Justin Nichols has been such a pleasure. From the beginning, all of us agreed that we wished to do our greatest to remain as true to Season 1 as potential, for the reason that UPA-meets-90s-CN look of the present was one of many elements that made it so interesting.
From an animation standpoint, the unique run was good in its restraint. The animation is not complicated, however the design is so graphic and interesting. There are such a lot of examples from Season 1 which have these attractive compositions and pushed expressions to create this over-the-top dramatic parody. The flattened perspective backgrounds elevate the medium.
We wished to verify we might seize the Season 1 look as intently as potential. In story, we prevented utilizing real-world perspective and saved the world very graphic. Motion-wise, we did not need a bunch of overshoots, settles, and overlapping motion just because we might, however reasonably wished to stay devoted to our supply materials in our timing and spacing. FX-wise, we did not need something to appear to be After Results was thrown at it. We needed to be a bit delicate and tough across the edges. We even talked about going with a standard pipeline, however finally it could have been unfeasible with all of the script revisions post-color.
AWN: Did you do any animation testing?
AH: I created a brief take a look at for our worldwide animation candidates, which concerned recreating a stroll cycle from Season 1 that had a number of the quantity adjustments and hand-drawn quirks of conventional animation, in addition to a fast appearing scene. [Canadian animation studio] Jam Crammed Leisure handed the take a look at with flying colours.
AWN: What dimension staff had been you supervising, and what instruments had been used to do the animation/compositing?
AH: In Story, we had three groups of 4 at any given time. The animation was finished in Concord and compositing was finished in After Results, led by our incomparable comp supervisor, Nick DeMartino. Our comp staff pulled off some actually extraordinary particular segments over the course of the season. For those who watch Episode 9, you will see what I imply! They had been handed a lot of challenges all through, often on the eleventh hour, and whipped up one thing good.
AWN: What had been the largest challenges for you on the present?
AH: Other than making an attempt to easily stay as much as Season 1, a Lord Miller manufacturing is a really iterative course of, so every episode would entail many variations of scripts and animatics. We in all probability made three animatics for each one we ended up utilizing. Even after we received colour again, an episode might nonetheless change considerably! We went again to boards usually to verify the story was sound and the jokes had been enjoying, which is much less widespread in TV animation.
Since this labor-intensive method makes use of so many assets, it was typically all fingers on deck. We’ve a strong staff of in-house retake animators, so we had been capable of adapt rapidly to dialogue adjustments. I reviewed each shot to verify it was prepared earlier than passing it on to our editors, Ron Babcock and Molly Yahr.
AWN: What are you able to share about what’s we’ll be seeing?
AH: For those who’ve ever questioned why [robot butler/vice principal/dehumidifier] Mr. Butlertron calls everybody “Wesley,” you’ll have a solution in retailer! Critically although, there are extra bizarre, wacky, attractive moments than you possibly can think about, in addition to some superstar cameos, and a few rattling good music that you simply will be unable to get out of your head (sorry, not sorry).
Jon Hofferman is a contract author and editor primarily based in Los Angeles. He’s additionally the creator of the Classical Composers Poster, an academic and ornamental music timeline chart that makes an exquisite present.
