Call Me Bessie!

It’s back to Burbank to pitch our latest and greatest storyboard. After acting it out (don’t worry, we won’t quit our day jobs!), we got creative feedback from the gang. For example, we took Bessie’s head out of the oven in this deleted scene in favor of her searching in a dresser (a much more pleasant environment for a cow). These sessions (all two of them) have been really helpful as we finalize the story and the acting.

Day two, we held auditions at Nickelodeon Studios. A slew of super talented voice actors came in and showed us their stuff! We’ve narrowed it down and will keep you posted.

A survivalist to the core, Al is a stubby, near-sighted elephant who’d like nothing more than to spend his days avoiding disaster-ALONE. When he’s not putting finishing touches on his moat or installing new locks on his doors, Al is hanging up MORE barbed wire or reading the latest books on self-defense.

With a face only a mother could love, Al’s look has been slowly transitioning. Alex Kirwan, character designer extraordinaire, has really tightened up our original drawing. His squat-like shape is lower to the ground giving him weight. His eyes have become oval and his tail droopy and tattered. Much to his dismay, Al’s snout has also become shorter.

These poses have been helpful in storyboarding.

Wow! We received so many wonderful responses from our last post, we thought we’d do it again. It occurred to us that we’ve neglected to introduce ourselves (how rude!). So for those of you who don’t know us (Diane’s the one with the big saucer eyes, on the left):

How did you two meet?

It all started 20 years ago when Dana asked a young and innocent (yeah, right!) Diane Clark Kredensor to help carry her house-sized, red suitcase up fifty flights of stairs to her new dorm room. She obliged and Dana hasn’t been able to shake her since.

Have you done this before?

Have we done this before?!!!! Are you kidding?!! Puleeeeaaaase! OK, well, we haven’t actually been paid in the past, but we’ve been working together to develop children’s media for quite a few years now (as Fred mentioned in an earlier blog, we are working with Frederator and Random House [Read more…]

Hello Burbank! Double Ds in the house (Dana and Diane for those of you who don’t yet know us). We have had a fun three days so far and are soooo excited to have this fantastic opportunity (thanks Fred and Eric - you’ve been putting up with us for a long time-hmmm, or is it the other way around?!).

Day one we met our fantastic director Yvette Kaplan, a whirlwind of energy (and a shoe-in understudy for Bessie should our almost famous cow get sick). After our expensive massages and bonbons (thanks Nick), we’ve spent most of our time here fleshing out our story so that Diane can then put it into a kick-butt production board back in New York.

We’ve also been fortunate to get the brilliant Alex Kirwan on board to help design our characters. And as you can see above, he’s taking Diane’s original sketch and playing [Read more…]