Producer's Commentary: Dicks Season 10
Season 10 is a landmark: it includes my 100th episode. When I started, I honestly didn't think I'd have made this many, although I had hopes. Indeed, the first season was so dismal that I considered giving up. But I stuck with it, and look how far the show has come.
Season 10 is also an interesting one in that it's a single concept start to finish. When I arrived at the idea, I immediately knew I had the season in the bag: I saw it complete from start to finish in a flash. Writing was a breeze; I think I finished the first draft in about fifteen minutes, and made only a few minor tweaks as I went into production.
I also knew what I was up against technically: virtually zero effort for the first eight episodes, and then a steep, steep challenge for the last two. The showdown between the Grim Reaper and the Dicks had to be epic, and indeed it challenged me on every level, from character design to effects, editing to sound design. And it was so worth all of the work. And as a tie-in, I created a Making Of documentary showing a bit of what went into it, at least from the perspective of the "actors" in the show.
Incidentally, the theme of this season is not meant to suggest the show is over; it just turned out that way. Trust me, I have enough ideas for another hundred episodes, so stay tuned, and thanks for watching!
When I conceived the concept for this season, I immediately realized I could give each episode much
more room to breathe. I didn't have to keep everything so incredibly compressed. So I luxuriated in
simple pleasures, like watching the Traveler arrive, contemplate his first visit, and have an
unhurried conversation with Ping. His departing words, "Until we meet again," became the
refrain for every episode save for one.
My favorite shot in "The Traveler" is Ping opening the blinds to keep a wary eye on the stranger. I was a simple effect to execute, but it conveys so much.
Dot's visit sets the stage for the episodes to come: our Traveler visits each character, and their
reaction to him provides us with some new hints about their nature, little glimpses into what makes
them tick. Dot is especially unnerved by him; she is on high alert the moment he arrives. His
supposed familiarity with her is especially alarming to her, although we don't yet have a clue as
to why he knows her so well. In fact, by the end of the season we might have the answer: since he's
the Grim Reaper, he's visited her each time she lost a Rat Dog, although you may need to pay close
attention to connect these dots. (Sorry about the pun, Dot!)
Originally I was going to have him greet and address Rat Dog IV directly, but in the end I thought this might give away too much. And besides, animating this would have been rough. KISS.
Director's Commentary: Glen's Visitor
Dot's quick cell phone call created the perfect lead-in: I didn't need to invent some kind of random
encounter; Glen is just standing there waiting for the guy. Easy as pie.
I struggled to squeeze in the Obi-Wan gag: the episode was already pretty chockablock full of dialog. In fact, I'd wrapped the episode without it, then went back in and recut. And I sure as heck wasn't going to lose the fart gag. Remember, he farts when he's really nervous, and our Traveler really freaks Glen out big time, although he puts on a good front.
Technically the only issue I faced was getting just the right fart sound effect. It surprised me how hard it was finding a more subtle, realistic one.
Carl's visit was quite a lot of fun. By now his character is quite well established, so it was
easy to write, once I chose the means of their encounter. I took the opportunity to remind
viewers that Carl has a past, and his naturally suspicious nature leads him to automatically
assume the worst when he meets a stranger like our mysterious Traveler.
Technically, I took the opportunity to improve the lawn mowing effects. Why I never thought to apply a linear motion blur to the grass before is a mystery. But I enjoy making improvements such as this.
Sam's visit was a speed bump for a while: how to engineer their encounter. When I struck upon the
idea of Sam in his car, it opened up all sorts of other possibilities, such as why he's in his car.
remember M.E.S.S.? ("Remember Me?") I decided
that he's no longer just selling meals for seniors; he's running the company. That provided a
great little gag about knowing stuff about the business. Other than that, Sam's a simple guy. Not
stupid, just simple. He doesn't get philosophical; a great contrast to what the Traveler seeks.
Technically the only thing I had to do was make the power window effect, which was a very simple vertical wipe. But man, the Traveler's closing signature line, with that Mona Lisa smile of his, is sure creepy when it's delivered through a closing window...
Val's visit plays right off of Sam's, with the Traveler unintentionally eliciting Val's sharp
remark about her husband's intelligence. I love finding these little gems buried in the story as
it progresses, and it helps build her character. She is, I think, an underrated member of the cast,
and this season provides a moment for her to really shine.
Technically all I needed to do was make her door open and close; it was easily accomplished with a simple horizontal squeeze. The only tricky bit was composing the shot to allow us to see both characters at once. I was going to have her slam the door in his face, but I thought that was a bit much; simply closing it before he could finish his line seemed to work much better.
Ping's visit was probably the hardest of all in terms of setting it up. I didn't want to have him
return to her office, or have a chance encounter right outside the door. I didn't like the idea of
having her sightseeing at the pond, either, because I never felt it was in her nature to do that.
But in the end it seemed to work pretty well. At least it was different from all of the rest of
the visits.
This in fact marked the birth of the Traveler delivering his parting line as he's walking away, and once I created that shot (it's a bit of a PITA to do), I went back to the earlier episodes and popped it in wherever I could.
Paul's visit was a dream come true, especially when I decided to use the ticking clock as the
"room tone." It all just seemed so perfect. I was also loving the fact that I could
include long, dramatic pauses in the dialog, and still have time left over for the brief
"emergency meeting" at the Community Center.
The dialog was deliberately misleading to give us the impression that the Traveler, who most viewers should by now have identified, is there for Paul. I was originally going to have him sitting in his chair petting Roy, but it was a technical challenge I elected to avoid simply because it didn't seem necessary, and in fact might have telegraphed the true purpose of the visit. Also, the shadow marking Death's arrival was a last-minute idea, and I'm awfully glad I thought of it. Rather Bergmanesque.
Stops: all pulled. This was it, the Big Bad Battle between Life and Death. Making Lady Val his foe
was the only logical choice. Bit the Big Bad Battle had a few issues at first. For one, it was originally
devoid of humor. Selling a high-stakes conflict in a cartoon seemed kind of pointless, so once
I blocked it out, I looked for opportunities for jokes. It started with Tolkien's line
"You shall not pass!" so magnificently delivered by Ian McKellen.
Then I got to Lady Val's seemingly endless monologue ("I call upon the Great Spirit..."), and dreaded lip-syncing the whole bloody thing. That's when it occurred to me that the Grim Reaper should be an amusing chap with an impish personality. Thus he gets bored by Val, rolls his eyes and checks (what used to be) his nails. And with that I realized he needed some very special character development that included a lot of articulation: I mean, skulls don't have eyebrows, but adding them gave him loads of personality. I had an absolute ball animating him and all of his little gestures.
The big surprise came when I re-engineered the ending. Originally the episode was just going to suddenly stop mid-battle. But this seemed kind of boring. Then I thought about the effects to come in the next episode, when the Grim Reaper deals a blow to Val. I thought, wait a minute, move that up to make a cliffhanger for this episode. It meant really compressing the battle, but that wasn't such a bad thing. For one, it was starting to drag a bit, and for another, it meant less effects work.
In the end, this one episode was nearly a week in the making. (Compare that to the other episodes, which all combined took a day and a half.) I fabricated a number of new effects, some of which came out much better than expected. In particular, that swirling vortex that surrounds Val and Death was something I wasn't sure I could pull off. But I started digging deep into Sony Movie Studio's bag of effects tricks and found what I needed: a rather sophisticated video noise generator that, when combined with a spherical distorter, did the job perfectly. By contrast, all of the lightning from Val's staff was hand-drawn, and it was a pleasure doing some old-school animation.
The first ten seconds of Episode 100 took two days to build. I had to cram a lot into this one, and I was
mighty thankful I moved Val's jeopardy into the prior episode; otherwise I'm not sure I'd have had the room
to do it all. I had to conclude the battle, have Paul's explanation, and finish with the closing shot at the
gravesite, all in a mere 48 seconds.
What helped was rewriting the Grim reaper's dialog in the eleventh hour. I wrapped up a lot of stuff with just one simple line: "I hope you've learned your lesson" summarized quite a lot and replaced a boatload of other dialog. And in keeping with Death's (new-ish) Puckian nature, I added the little hand gesture when he delivers his parting quip.
I'm quite fond of how this episode turned out; indeed, the whole season is most satisfying. One of my favorite bits is Dot's line about Paul's cat. Sometimes I'm stunned by how good the synthetic voice acting can be. By contrast, it can have me pulling my hair out (if I had any) trying to get Voicemaker to deliver what I hear in my head. Sometimes I'll spend forever trying to get just two words right, doing endless takes, rewriting the dialog to fit around the hole where the problem is, etcetera. Dot can be a troublemaker, but this time she delivered the line perfectly on the first take. Makes me choke up when I hear it, much like her plaintive "no" when Rita dies ("Voyager 1").