Director's Commentary: Dicks Season 4
This season could be considered a "light touch" just before I drop the big drama hammer. Most of the episodes are reasonably humorous since I was completing production on a bunch of scripts I'd begun much earlier. Thus we have the two birthday episodes (Paul's and Dot's) and the autobiographical introduction to Paul's cats, in "ZZZ."
"Be Careful What You Wish For" is doubtless my strangest excursion into fantasyland, inspired by an idea for Glerp and Rita that morphed into something altogether different. Indeed, what it became is this season's heart-stopping final ep, the deceptively-named "Dreamtime," wherein I introduce the biggest dramatic twist of the program (so far): Rita's breast cancer. I timed it carefully so that the following season could focus almost exclusively on the events that transpire as a consequence.
I decided to start out the fourth batch with a straight up comedy. Sam Fullbush was a lot of fun to design
and create, so much so that I'm tempted to bring him back later on as a full-time resident. In truth, Paul's
punchline, "Works every time," may get a chuckle, or at least a smile, but doesn't really make any
sense if you stop and think about it. No matter; it sounds right. But once again Paul speaks for me: I fought
getting a smart phone tooth and nail, and was more or less forced into it by a health problem that required
mobile communication. Were it not for that, I likely would not have one either.
The acronym MESS came quite easily. Back at my last job, I was something of the acronym master: department heads and project managers would routinely seek me out to devise acronyms for their groups and programs. Not sure why, but I just had a knack for it.
Once again Paul represents me on screen: I hate birthday parties... my own, that is. Long story why, and
this is not the venue for an explanation. But a real-life experience is related in the episode: when I was
lured into a surprise party for me at one job, I turned around and walked out. Had a nice long chat with HR,
and it never happened again.
The surprise, of course, is not a gift for him, at least not directly; remember, he complained bitterly about losing the water in "Sacrifice," so it's indirectly a present. Technically, this entry presents a discovery I made recently on Voicemaker: you can make some voices whisper. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't; in this case, I think Dot sounds quite good.
When Paul revealed he had a PhD in "Sacrifice," it planted a seed that took hold in
this episode. And, once again, Paul reveals a facet of my own life: my fascination in trains. Now,
ferroequinology is not a real degree; it's an old joke about train fans. Ferro = iron, equine =
horse, and ology = study. Thus, iron horse, a.k.a. train locomotives. Not being an actual degree
means Paul does not really have a doctorate in it; it is, after all, just a stupid cartoon. However,
he might have a degree in civil engineering, since he states that his specialty is in locomotive
design and engineering. And of course Glen's misunderstanding of engineering, or at least his misuse
of it, leads to the admittedly silly joke about hating "toot toot." However, being a lifelong
train fan, I've endured such indignities countless times, so once more Paul draws from my own character.
Incidentally, I accidently discovered how to make Dot giggle, and I couldn't resist using it. In fact, I liked it so much that I feared overusing it, so I've had to keep the temptation in check. It does appear again in "ZZZ," however.
Technically, the grill smoke presented a fun challenge, and it took a few tries to nail it. I'd planned on adding a number of other grill party details, such as Glen holding a spatula and flipping a burger; I also thought of having most characters holding beers, but I decided that was an unnecessary detail. Plus, beer bottles are a minor pain in the butt.
"Be Careful What You Wish For" is pure fantasy silliness. It was the last episode
I produced in this batch, and what a monster it turned out to be, almost as challenging as
"Incoming!" But it was also a boatload of fun. So much technical stuff went into
it: new character design, animated bits out the wazoo, special visual effects for the scene
transitions, loads of sound design, and on and on. It was three long days of intense but
satisfying work.
The concept grew out of a totally different idea I'd had for a script, one that involved Rita and Glerp daydreaming about the future. But that was the point of a story I'd already finished by this time, and when the notion of a "Personal Wish Fairy" popped into my head, a silly fantasy along the lines of "Fractured Fairy Tales" from the ancient but seminal Rocky and Bullwinkle Show," started to gel.
Conceptually the ending was the roughest part, and I'd had a number of other ideas, one of them rather gruesome: Ping actually squashes the fairy like a bug. I also had Ping swat her away, and in another case just totally ignore her. The last of these remained the plan right up until the end, when I had to get down to animating Ping reading a letter. When I played the episode through just prior to that, I kind of liked the empty office better; it certainly saved me a lot of work. But then it became a problem of what the fairy should say, and "Offer ends soon" was a last-minute addition. I'm not entirely sure if it works, and it certainly leaves the episode with a feeble ending, but I had to wrap it up before I went mad.
I had a blast with character design, considering she's the only one younger than 60, so far, although in retrospect I wish I'd done a better job with her mouth articulation.
"ZZZ" is totally drawn from real life. I've had cats as long as I've lived, and Paul's
three kids are named, and even designed, after mine, although Roy
is no longer with us. But Zack and Pris
are very much alive and living with me now; indeed, Pris is curled up in front of my keyboard as
I write this, so the episode is very much autobiographical.
Since "ZZZ" was produced after "Bingo Night," I already had renderings of my kids, so it came together quite easily... well, except for Paul. His bloodshot eyes meant having to re-render all of Paul's facial elements, and even create new ones. But it was a worthwhile investment of time.
"A Good Man" emerged from the desire to flesh out Ping some more, as well as a wish
to speak generally about human nature. Most people are frighteningly stupid, so I used this
episode as a soapbox upon which I could do a little complaining. I also wanted to explore the
whole notion of genderized language, and while it might be rather subtle, it nevertheless plays
a part in the episode. One thing I really wanted to avoid, however, was any hint of "wokeness,"
as that whole social trend is most annoying and unnecessarily polarizing. I simply wanted to
question the accepted concepts of behavioral traits typically considered male or female.
I wished to assert that being a "good man" in the traditional sense was not
necessarily exclusive to the male gender. Emotional strength is non-gender; anyone can stand
up and be strong in a stereotypically male fashion.
"Bingo Night" came about owing to a fleeting thought that the game always seemed to
connote bunches of old farts filing into some cafeteria to kill some time. Thus, Paul's objection
to it sprung from my own feelings.
The final sequence as great fun: I got to make cartoon versions of my real-life kitties, although I've never played bingo with them. I also enjoyed creating Paul's room, which features a picture of his parents hanging on the wall. They of course look just like him, even his mother; she simply has his fringe of hair rearranged over the top of her head.
"Dot's Birthday" grew out of a desire to continue the story thread about Dot's dog,
officially known as Rat Dog. I also wanted to mend their fences, because while conflict between
characters creates drama, it also creates discomfort and mistrust, and I wished for the community
to remain a close-knit family. Spock and McCoy might grumble at each other, but they have a tight
personal bond.
Going into it, the ending was something of a worry, as I'd not thought about how to wrap it up at the outset. The answer came quite easily, however, once I let Carl be Carl; his final line simply flowed out as I wrote. It really helps knowing these silly characters as well as I do now after nearly 40 episodes.
Without question the big reveal of Rat Dog the Third was an enormous problem. I spent countless hours contemplating different ways of presenting him, with the majority of the ideas involving some sort of messy technical nonsense; it was very much in keeping with "The Gift." Ultimately I struck upon the idea of simply having Carl step aside, with rat Dog patiently and quietly waiting behind him. It was a simple, clean solution that involved very little work.
Friends of mine who have become hooked on the series love how Carl misuses Semper Fi all of
the time. For him, it's a noun, verb, adjective, whatever. But I felt as though I wasn't exploiting
the joke as much as I'd wanted, so I decided to use it for the title of an episode. Indeed, the
story for "Semper Fi That Lawn!" was conceived entirely around the title. The ending is
kind of tepid, with Glen admitting that his pastime is watching Carl mow the lawn, but it seemed
to fit. Besides, I wanted to put a light episode before the final one, which is without question the
heaviest story I've yet to conceive.
In all honesty, I conceived "Dreamtime" before I'd finished the first
batch. At the time, I wanted a dramatic sucker punch for the end of some future batch, and inventing
Glerp as a character offered me the fertile soil in which to plant the idea. It's based loosely on a
real-life event: a former significant other was diagnosed with breast cancer, so I've been through the
ordeal. Indeed, it's been said that the caregiver of a cancer patient has a tougher emotional time of
it than the patient, which I learned firsthand. I wrote a real-time blog as it unfolded, and I was
lauded for my work, because there's precious little in the way of resources to support caregivers.
Anyway, once I figured out when to unleash "Dreamtime," I went to work on it right away. In this case, it was the third or fourth episode I produced during this batch. Fortunately I'd already done "A Good Man," which provided the setting. In fact, I'd originally created some new effects for that episode, including the flying bird and ripples in the water. When I decide to use a sunset scene for "Dreamtime," I yanked those effects out of "A Good Man" and used them here, thinking they were much more appropriate for the mood.
There weren't many technical issues this time, aside from getting color balance right and keeping the characters' eyes from looking jaundiced due to the sunset glow that washes over everything. The hardest part of all was actually the title. It was originally "Prognosis," but I felt that was too on-the-nose, and also telegraphed the ending right from the outset. Several other candidates came and went, until I took another look at the origin of the script: discussing dreams. While this morphed into discussing one's remaining time on Earth, the core concept stuck, and thus I arrived at "Dreamtime."
The only other challenge was getting Rita's delivery of the final line just right. I spent hours fine-tuning Voicemaker's settings, and even tweaking the audio after the fact. Ordinarily I allow for some leeway, but this time it had to be perfect, right down to the subtle cracking in her voice. Ultimately it became a tough episode for me to watch, which I took as a sign of success.
This does of course set up a whole new story arc, with many new dark, dramatic episodes to come.