Fred Seibert's Blog

Joe Schiappa is a comedy writer who likes cartoons. He came by my New York office today to say hello and introduce himself and his work. Hi Joe!

Dan Shefelman is an artist, designer, and story guy who’s worked on Blue Sky features and a bunch of TV things too. He’s New York based but somehow we’d never met until the other day when he came by to show me his project “Ooze.”

Thanks Dan, for kind permission to post your artwork.

We had a full house in New York last week when one of our favorite directors, Kevin Lofton, was in with Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling, and partners Rohit Sang and Lynn Shaw. Many of you know Jackie from his stint on the Howard Stern FM radio show and are familiar with his adult comedy act. But, we discussed the team’s idea for an animated kids show.

Thanks for coming in folks. See you soon.

It’s 11:21pm, Friday, July 20, 39 minutes before the official release of the new Harry Potter. I’m in line at the Maine Coast Book Store in Damariscotta, Maine (”We’re not online yet — someday!). I’m with over 300 fans (including my two boys and my wife)–most of whom are well over 16– waiting for our reserved copies of Harry Potter + the Deathly Hallows. I’d never been in Maine until six hours ago and standing in this small town with all this excitement is a fantastic introduction to the state. I’ve never stood in line for the release of anything and it’s thrilling to see that a book can motivate all these folks as much as a movie star. I can’t believe I left my camera at the hotel.

Everyone at Frederator Studios has been busy with shorts, series, and now, movies.

Lots of you know how much we admire Genndy Tartakovsky. He created Dexter’s Laboratory, the first series to come out of our first shorts program, before breathing life into The Powerpuff Girls and Clone Wars. And, of course, creating and directing the semial Samurai Jack. I’d always felt it would make an awesome movie, and thanks to the good graces of the folks at Cartoon Network, who saw clear to letting it into our careful hands, that awesome feature film might have a chance of seeing the light of day.

It’ll be written, directed, and creatively overseen by Genndy in glorious, un-PC, 2D.

Doug TenNapel has been a powerful creative force in comics, videogames, and TV series, and Kevin Kolde, always the videogame fan, introduced us to the creative opportunities in Doug’s innovative (“wacky and quirky animation”) back-to-the-future claymation game The Neverhood.

Doug will be writing and directing.

Dan Meth wrote a post about the movie he’s writing and directing based on the Seven Deadly Sins. What we hadn’t mentioned is the involvement of the inimitable Don King. In the year Dan’s been associated with Frederator he’s seen the release of his first big YouTube hit, and the first festival recognition of one of his productions. Seven Deadly Sins will be his first feature.

Our logo’s been designed by Floyd Bishop though I’ve been too busy to get back to him to finish it and even to negotiate a fair price. Of course, he’s been busy having a new baby in his family and moving cross country. Please don’t mention it to him.

That’s it for now. It’s an honor that these world-class creative people would be interested in working with our company. I hope we can live up to their expectations. We’ll be posting more information as we’ve got it for you.

Here’s the full release:

Frederator Films Comes to Life in 2 Dimensions

FRED SEIBERT AND Producers KOLDE AND GARDNER OPEN FILM DIVISION; ANNOUNCE FIRST THREE FILMS IN PRODUCTION SLATE

LOS ANGELES, June 26 /PRNewswire/ — Frederator Studios founder Fred Seibert announced plans today to launch Frederator Films, an animated feature film company with a mission to produce 2-D animated genre movies budgeted below $20 million. Seibert is launching the company with Kevin Kolde and Eric Gardner, with all three acting as producers on the projects.

Frederator Films has over a dozen projects on its initial development slate, the first three of which were announced today, each representing a different genre:

– A feature based on Samurai Jack, with original creator Genndy Tartakovsky attached to write and direct. The seminal, Emmy-Award winning, animated TV series aired on Cartoon Network from 2001 until 2004. The Russian-born American animator is also renowned for the series Dexter’s Laboratory and Star Wars: Clone Wars.

– The Neverhood, a film based on the cult favorite claymation PC-based computer adventure game created by Doug TenNapel and released by Dreamworks Studios in 1996. TenNapel has signed on to write and direct the feature length film, which will be painstakingly shot in Claymation. TenNapel is an Eisner award-winning graphic novelist, has created a number of computer and video games including Earthworm Jim and Skullmonkeys, and the animated series Earthworm Jim and “Catscratch” for Nickelodeon.

– The Seven Deadly Sins is a hip-hop animated feature. The film will be written, designed, and directed by flash animator Dan Meth. Renowned personality and boxing promoter Don King is the first voice actor attached to the project.

Production on the first film, Seven Deadly Sins, is expected to commence in the fall of 2007. Frederator plans to produce two films a year.

Principal production will be located in Hollywood and New York.

“Our studio’s successes have been built on the best creative talents in the animation business. Genndy Tartakovsky, Doug TenNapel, and Dan Meth are continuing a tradition of original cartoons we began in 1998 and moving it
into feature films,” explains Seibert.

Gardner added, “Fred is the master at identifying voids in the
marketplace and filling them with paradigm-shifting content– there has been a dearth of both 2D and genre animated feature product which Frederator Films will be rectifying, much to the delight of young males everywhere.”

Frederator Films’ producers each bring a unique range of capabilities and experience to the company. Fred Seibert, the former president of Hanna-Barbera and the original creative director of MTV, opened Frederator Studios in 1998, an independent American animation studio producing original cartoons. Seibert’s debut production for Cartoon Network was What A Cartoon!, which spun off a number of hit series including Cow & Chicken, Dexter’s Laboratory, and Powerpuff Girls. Moving to Nickelodeon, he continued his streak with The Fairly OddParents, ChalkZone, and My Life as a Teenage Robot. Kevin Kolde is a veteran producer who ran Spumco, John Kricfalusi’s (”Ren & Stimpy”) company, for over a decade. Gardner is Chairman/CEO of Panacea Entertainment, a talent management and production company he founded 36 years ago, repping such diverse clients as Donny Osmond, Richard Belzer, Paul Shaffer, The Sex Pistols, Elvira, Timothy Leary, and members of the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and The Who. He has produced over 100 hours of televsion and several features.

SOURCE Frederator Films

Writer Warren Ellis has more on the Rule of 3 on the Castlevania blog.

My friend Richard Lewis (no, not the comedian) brought by Debby Carman who showed me her wonderful pre-school characters and books.

Thanks Debby for kind permission to show your work.

They’re moving in for number 2.

Manny & Alan aren’t the first and they won’t be the last of this season’s creators to try for a second short. Yesterday they came by with the unique sci-fi comedy Dogstar.

Everyone better hurry, we’re down to the wire.

We’ve started 21 shorts in this season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, and I met 9 of the 15 creators in their pitches over the last year or so (that’s 60% for the mathematically inclined). I only mention this statistic to counter the impression I sometimes leave on this blog that I’ve known everyone forever. I love meeting and working with new people; it’s the lifeblood of how I do what I’ve done for my working life.

Now, the other side of this startling fact is that once I become a fan of someone it’s great to work with them over a long period of time, through various phases and ebbtides of life. I try to be a loyal collaborator; I think it has served everyone well.

All of which leads to my full disclosure that I’ve worked with Alan Goodman for 35 years, and now he’s making his first Oh Yeah! cartoon with Nickelodeon New York animator and comic book artist Manny Galan. I won’t bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say that I met Alan in college radio, did my first moving picture work on his student films, was partners with him for several years, and he’s my brother-in-law. Along the way he’s been a journalist, ad writer, TV series creator, and my most constant creative confederate.

I’m thrilled beyond description that Alan and I have found another great way to work together.

Photography by Elena Seibert. Hand coloring by Candy Kugel. See, I was too skinny once.

Two old friends stopped by today in New York to pitch us some Oh Yeah! Cartoons.

John Dilworth and I worked together at Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in the mid 90s on Courage, the Cowardly Dog, and today he brought by a storyboard on Garlic Boy.

Voice actor and producer/writer Joe Bevilacqua pitched us a story of Willaby & the Professor.

Thanks to John and Joe for kind permission to post images from their storyboards.