Sparkles and Gloom

Screening Time!

anne — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:01:16 +0000

Gloom here…So last night we had our big premeire…thing for Nickelodeon. It was pretty cool. Everyone was asking if we were nervous or not. I was totally cool about it, but Sparkles….yeesh.

Don’t gimme that look, I saw you biting your nails!ji &&@

!rhiuw11This is Sparkles and I’ve taken the keyboard back from Gloom and I wasn’t nervous at ALL it was GLOOM THAT WAS THE NERVOUS ONE AND SHE WAS SHAKING IN HER BOOTS CAUSE SHE’S A BIG BABY!!

AM NOT!!

ARE TOO!!

Anyways, since my immature, sparkly, sister has left in a huff, I suppose I’ll tell you that our screening went great. Even though the entire room laughed at the part where I farted out a giant–

HA HA!! YOU FARTED!! YOU SAID FART!!

Sparkles!! Get out of here! I’m trying to typ!HU## …FART FART FART FART@$&*(Hh OW! sTop pulling my hair….

(A HUGE thank you again to the Fred, Eric, Larry, Claudia, Kevin, Kim, Therese and her production Ninjas, Jessica DiCicco, Kari Wahlgren, Annie Mumolo, Kevin M. Richardson, Ginny McSwain, Brad Gake, Julia Kalantarova, Vanessa Cook, Michael Lander and the rest of the uber-talented crew at Renegade Studios, Guy Moon, Molly Maldonado, and the sound Ninjas at Oracle post for helping bring our short to life! It would not be what it is without the superb talents of this huge and awesome group of people. So THANKS!

-Anne (and Melissa!)

Jumping on the Postcard Bandwagon

anne — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 11:16:49 +0000

Behold, the super happy awesome postcard for Sparkles and Gloom!

Things are almost wrapped up here in production land. We’re locking picture on Thursday, which means I need to get my rear in gear and crank out some retakes this morning.

The uber-talented Guy Moon will be composing for our project, and we’re set to meet with him too very shortly. In addition, our SFX mix at Oracle is coming up, too, which promises to be a lot of fun. And full of fart noises.

-Anne (and Melissa)

EEIIIiii! BATS!

anne — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:28:15 +0000

Happy Monday! Enjoy some more delicious screencaptures from Sparkles and Gloom.

Jazzhands!

Sparkles loves performing with Fungus SO MUCH.

We just delivered our completed animation on Friday afternoon, and our network retakes are scheduled for this Thursday. Everything has gone by so fast…where has the time gone?! But we’re not out of the woods yet–after animation delivery comes network notes from Nickelodeon, followed by a session at the editing bay in which we hack our darling short to bits and put it back together again, followed by sound effects, quiet periods of weeping over our cut scenes, final dialogue mix, and music!

Phew. Stay tooned, Sparkles and Gloom fanatics…the ride isn’t over yet.

-Anne and Melissa

Screeny McScreencapture

anne — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 19:53:25 +0000

We’ve started animation this week on Sparkles and Gloom! Exciting times ahead, filled with 80s rock, tweens–but not TOO many tweens, keyframes, green fire, and rainbow-colored fart clouds.

For your viewing pleasure…a sneak peek at the madness in store.

-Anne and Melissa

Geevil School Backgrounds–Before and After!

anne — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:54:50 +0000

It’s a strange school that Sparkles and Gloom attend. One where the forces of evil and the sugary cupcake of love are encouraged to mix and mingle. When Anne and I discussed how we envisioned the Geevil School background design, we wanted to get an interesting storybook look, but at the same time, introduce some darker elements into the feel of it all.

Before…

…and After!

Background artist Brad Gake did a terrific job of taking this concept of ours, and and making everything “meet” at the Geevil School. Kudos to our fabulous color designer Julia Kalantarova who rocked it with her rainbow skills and spooky hues.

Melissa (and Anne!)

And My Powers Are…

anne — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:07:21 +0000

EEEEEEVIIIIIIIIILLL!!!

Character layout continues on Sparkles and Gloom! Things are heading upstairs to the Technical Directors in a week or so, where the BGs and characters will be set up into scenes for the animators.

Layout has been fun! I’ve especially liked working on Sparkles and playing around with her crazy facial expressions…

Randy Sanchez has done a fantastic job helping me with Gloom!

And the layouts for the other 13 characters in our short? You’ll just have to wait and see…

-Anne

BG Ruffs

anne — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 18:13:17 +0000

Rainbows and unicorns! We have BG roughs for Sparkles and Gloom! Designed by the one and only Brad Gake, of Mind the Kitty fame.

The top is the Geevil School, where the girls learn valuable lessons about good, evil, and what happens when you shoot a rainbow out of your butt.

Below, the fancy Geevil school stage, in the equally fancy Geevil School auditorium.

There’s only one proper way to end this post–a drum solo. ROCK!

-Anne (and Melissa, long distance from Boston)

Animatic is Cut

anne — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 15:12:51 +0000

And by “cut”, we mean, “cut together”, and also, “trimmed down to a lean mean short machine”. Anne and I spent the better part of Thurday afternoon tightening and tweaking our initial edit so that it was brough down from 8 minutes (and change), to 7:05. The final short has to be 6:40, but we are going to animate what we have and trim the rest down in post.

I wanted to show a little clip of the S&G for anyone who’s curious. If you’re not curious, DON’T CLICK HERE.

Sparkles and Gloom discover that their powers have switched due to their “extreme bout of sibling rivalry”. Gloom now has good powers, and Sparkles has the evil ones. Because of this, Gloom is forced to perform on “The Happy Rainbow Dance Team” for the school talent show…

Annie isn’t here right now Mrs. Torrance.

anne — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 19:31:14 +0000

So I walked to Anne’s office this morning, jovial and bright eyed, but when I got there, the door was closed. And locked! Sadly, I remembered that Anne has moved to Renegade Animation Studios where she will be working with the team over there to animate Sparkles and Gloom, and all of the Geevil School creatures.

Like any children dealing with separation anxiety, Sparkles and Gloom didn’t take the news of Anne’s departure very well. Gloom said, “Great. So what do you do again? You’re the writer?” Sparkles tried to make me feel better, and said, “I think it’s great that you’re a writer! I learned to write when I was five!”. Her cheerie charade didn’t last too long. I found her at lunch time huddled in the corner of Anne’s office, using her index finger to talk to me in a low voice, and writing on mirrors in lipstick: “Enna…Enna….”.

I [Read more…]

We’ve recorded!!

anne — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:28:37 +0000

From left to right: Jessica Di Cicco, Annie Mumolo, Kari Wahlgren, Anne Walker, and Melissa Wolfe

And man did we have fun!!! Why, you might ask, was our record so much fun? Well, for starters, we had four of the most talented women in the business working with us. They would be Jessica Di Cicco (Gloom), Annie Mumolo (Pixie), Kari Wahlgren (Sparkles), and our voice director extraordinaire, Ginny McSwain. Then, a bit later, Kevin Michael Richardson arrived. He, in my slightly professional opinion, is one of the most talented male voice actors in the business. Score!

Besides the mega stellar super great acting abilities of the cast, there was a terrific camaraderie that I felt in the room. Call it cheese ball and cue up the string quartet, but I’m serious here, folks. The way we all clicked together was something I couldn’t have predicted, and something I am so appreciative of. I couldn’t think of [Read more…]