Producer's Commentary: Dicks Season 11
And now we arrive at my deepest, most personal season. Having struggled with chronic depressed my entire life, this is a topic with which I'm altogether too familiar. It's been in the back of my mind for a while, but what brought it to the fore at this point came about when I decided it was time for Glen to retire, and to have him deal with an unexpected existential crisis over his lifestyle change.
Although it's Glen's crisis, Paul is actually the lifelong sufferer of depression, since he's my avatar of sorts. While Glen is sidelined by his obsession with football, I allowed Paul to speak about the disease in terms I've been using lately. A good friend of mine has been having a crisis of his own, and I've been suggesting that he treat me "like dirt" as a means to work out his frustrations. I assured him it was no threat to me, and it seems to have worked. Thus came about the whole concept of "rocks and dirt."
These episodes were at once effortless and painful to write. They practically wrote themselves, but once I'd voiced the dialog and assembled it, I found myself in tears most of the time, especially with ">ell Me What To Do," when Glen melts down. Some may find it odd that, as an atheist, I'd include characters with strong faith, but it's actually not at all difficult for me to write them. Emotions are emotions, regardless of their origins, so all I need to do is put myself in their place.
The story arc covers events that, in real life, might take months or years to resolve. I wanted to wrap things up in a single season, so the timeline is compressed out of necessity. This made it challenging to organize and build: I kept rearranging the episode order over and over. I'm not 100% satisfied with it as it stands, but I think it holds together well enough to do the job. It would have been altogether too easy to double the number of episodes, but I felt dragging such a dark topic out any longer would make the series too maudlin, so I did my best to wrap it up quickly.
Technically I started over with all-new character art. I devised a new system to streamline lip-syncing, the most labor-intensive process. It's actually something of a step backwards: originally every eye and mouth shape was part of a single piece of art, which was a messy, cumbersome process that limited what I could do in terms of character expressions. Then I switched to bodies, heads and eyes as separate elements. This was vastly better in terms of flexibility and image clarity, but it was a lot of art to organize and assemble, especially when attaching heads to bodies. Season 11 marked a return to heads and bodies as one art piece, and eyes as separate overlays. This provided the simplicity of the first system with the flexibility of the second. I also have all of the artwork organized, sized and queued up in a master library, which saves an enormous amount of time.
After I wrapped production on Seasons 11 and 12, but just prior to uploading, I flipped the two seasons. I thought it would be better to have the really heavy stuff be followed by something lighter.
I wanted to start off what would ultimately be my heaviest season yet with something deceptively light,
so I threw Glen a retirement party. I even let Paul deliver a good zinger at the end. I didn't want to let on
that I was going to take the series into some deep, dark places.
For the terminally curious, by the way, I made over 10,000 bits of confetti, and animated them in three passes to create some depth. Some fall in front of Glen, some behind him, and a handful land on him. How many of you noticed that "congrats" is spelled wrong?
"Not Himself" is actually a cheat: story-wise some time has passed, enough that people are
beginning to notice that Glen is acting strangely. However, Dot is just now taking down the decorations.
The latter aspect was simply to add visual interest, and remind us that they'd celebrated Glen's
retirement.
But the key takeaway here is of course that Glen is not himself. I let Paul explain the likely reason to Dot in order to establish that Paul is very likely correct. But his explanation sends Dot into a brief reverie, as we focus on her expressions instead of Paul droning on. This also meant I didn't have to lip-sync Paul's long monologue, but in this case it was a secondary motive; I really wanted to stay on Dot; watch her smile faintly as Paul talks about not having married.
I am of course telegraphing dark things to come through Paul's cautionary remarks; I didn't see the need to misdirect the audience at this point. I also used this episode to write Glerp back out of the show... for the time being. As much as I love the little alien, he's as much a liability as a benefit. Let's just say he serves a purpose on occasion, and in the case of the Halloween story, he did so admirably.
Now we begin the descent into Glen's hell. It had to be done quickly, since I only have 48 seconds
with which to work, and I fought the urge to make this another two-parter. So I crammed in as many visits
at the door as I could into the first half, then devoted the remainder to a look into Glen's
increasingly troubled soul. I used the slightly sickly green tint of the TV screen to give him an
unhealthy look, and his grim stare says all that needs to be said about where he's headed.
I started with "Tell Me What To Do" first, as this was the climax of the story, and
the emotional core of the season.
I wrote it in one swift pass and recorded it in one quick session, only changing one phrase to
include the show's second F-bomb, as it didn't have the desired emotional punch without it.
Up until that point, things had gone almost alarmingly smoothly. Then I cut the sound together, and began to fall apart. Writing it was one thing; hearing it, especially with the astoundingly effective voice performance enhanced by the echo, was gut-wrenching. It was all I could do to finish the episode; every time I played it back, I began to weep.
I chose to stay on Glen's back for the whole of the monologue (save for one brief line at the beginning to establish his emotional state through his face) mostly because I felt that I could not do facial expressions that matched the power of the voice performance. But I also thought staying on his back was a different way of looking at it, in the hopes it would add interest and keep viewers more engaged. And finally, I wanted to present it from the perspective of onlookers, in this case Dot and Ping, who we see face-on only briefly at the very end. That shot of their reactions had to be quick; otherwise it would lose its impact.
Technically my only challenge was animating Glen's arms, which I knew would need to be as smooth as possible in order to avoid pulling the audience out of the moment. So I rendered his arms in single-frame animation. The toughest part was getting his hands right. I'm still not totally satisfied with them, but they're infinitely better than the blobs that all of the characters have had up until this point.
"Rocks and Dirt" explores some concepts I'd developed over the last few years regarding
emotional support. Rocks are strong and solid, until they break. Then what? I've found that "former
rocks" are full of anger they need to get out. They need support they can't hurt. Enter dirt.
It not only supports rocks, but you can pound on it all you like and will never hurt it.
Maybe it's a new idea; maybe it's not. But I felt the need to have my characters explore it as a way to help Glen. I made Paul the keeper of this knowledge not because I think I have anything particularly special to say, but because his character suited the need. He's been the outside observer all along, and is now engaged in the process of helping Glen heal.
Originally titled "Rocks and Dirt Part 2," "The Beast" is unquestionably the most
deeply personal and emotionally arresting episode so far. I've been chronically depressed since
childhood, and so I know the territory all too well. I gave Paul the job of being me so I could
attempt to visualize what the sensation is like. I could easily have made the episode several
times longer, but once again I was thankful for the format, as it forced me to avoid becoming
obsessed with a point. Get in, say what needs to be said with as few words as possible, and get out.
I worked especially hard on the visuals. Getting sucked into an abyss, getting twisted and distorted along the way, I felt was a pretty close approximation of an impending depressive episode. I had to pull out quite a few stops to achieve it, but it was a cathartic experience. As an aside, a therapist watched this episode, and agreed on the difficulty of finding a doctor who could relate to such an issue, and also applauded my visualization, adding that it was uncomfortable for her to watch. Which I took as high praise.
Ping's closing line, "Thank you for existing," is something I'd been hoping to be able to use since before I conceived the series. It seemed like the appropriate time and circumstance. As for the title change, I wanted to focus more on depression than the rocks and dirt concept. Plus, I didn't want yet another two-parter, even though technically it is.
As I got into "Patience," it felt at first like an obligatory Grand Tour stop. I was
really close to dropping it in favor of a look at Glen in his earliest stages of falling apart.
But when I got to the end of it, and pulled in the rocks and dirt reference, Valerie's remark
"Who do you think I see when I need support?" really brought it all home,
and cemented its place in the season.
When Valerie shuts down her "cone light" and exits the spirit realm, I was going to have her remove her headpiece. But it seemed like a technical challenge that wasn't quite worth it; I think her opening her eyes, making eye contact with Dot, and having her voice go back to normal did the job.
Some time has passed before "Thanks for Listening" takes place; I leave it to the viewer to decide
how long that might have been. This is another man-to-god conversation that gives us a look into Glen's
soul. He realizes his mistakes, and is now prepared to address them.
Some people who know me, and know I'm an ashiest, wonder at my willingness to tackle material such as this, as well as my ability to not ridicule the character's beliefs. Honestly, I have no problem with it. The only people I might choose to ridicule are the ones who get in my face and try to tell me I am wrong. That's when the poison pen comes out. Otherwise, I'm fine with what others believe, and am perfectly willing to treat it with respect.
Incidentally, the new background showing the highway threading through the trees follows on the notion that the highway was widened, and the Dicks lost some of their woods in the process. You'll also notice the revised view at the pond. In reality, this are how I'd wanted to render them from the very beginning, but back then I was quite lazy and didn't feel like going to the trouble. Now I'm much more amenable to investing work in the series, and I'm using the whole highway-widening plot to justify revising these views. Just don't tell anyone this is the way they were supposed to look all along...
I'd wanted to return to the stargazing threesome, and this seemed like the perfect time to do so,
although I am aware I could put myself at risk of over-using it, so it may be a while before I
use it again. Glen gets to apologize, and they all get to summarize the whole rocks and dirt theme,
establishing Paul as the community's informal, ad-hoc therapist.
As an aside, I get a kick out of how Ping pronounces, "Oh yes, we were your dirt." I guess I'm easily amused.
"What Lovers Do" has an interesting history. I'd created it while producing the prior
season, before I'd even conceived this season's story. But I knew it wouldn't fit in the prior season,
because I'd already drafted all of the episodes and locked them down. Anyway, I was busily cooking and
cleaning in preparation for my weekly dinner guests when I had an idea flash through my head. I simply
had to get it down on (virtual) paper before the ideas evaporated. After I wrote it, I
had the sense I could actually finish it before my guests, who at that point were on the road,
arrived. So I popped open Voicemaker and started pushing buttons. About ten minutes later I had
the voice performances recorded, and started laying the tracks down. Given that I only had to
animate the lightbulb at the end, I knew it would be a no-brainer to produce, so I just forged
ahead, and had it in the can within a half-hour, start to finish. My guests loved it.
That it didn't have a home in the prior season was a stroke of good fortune: this season was so deep and dark that it needed something light to wrap it up. What surprised me was how good the voice performances are, and how great they sounded when the dialog overlapped. It has since gone on to become one of my favorite episodes. Whenever I need a little cheering up, I just play this. Never fails to get me chuckling.