Tooting High in the Sky with Harmony

Having delivered hundreds of hours of animation and family entertainment to televi- sion and theatres worldwide, Mercury Filmworks offers full script to post services from concept and creative development to design and production.

Specializing in animation, puppets, and hybrid techniques, Their last recent projects are worth highlighting due to their Mercury is one of Canada’s premier family entertainment uniqueness and importance. The first one is Gerald McBo- companies with facilities in Vancouver, British Columbia ing Boing, one of Cookie Jar Entertainment’s highprofile and Ottawa, Ontario. Constant quality, utmost reliability properties. This property has a very long history and Cook- and proven efficiency make Mercury the partner of choice ie Jar trusted Mercury to animate it remaining true to its whether providing production services or co-producing a original stylized design. The team recently completed the project. Mercury’s track record testifies to its reputation. delivery of this 52 half-hour series. A second project is titled Since 1998 Mercury’s client list has grown to include some Weird Years. Jason Hopley and Jamie Shannon known as of the finest companies in the world, recognized in the in- the Grogs, created this property and along with Jack Lenz, dustry for their commitment to quality television and fea- they were looking for a studio that could do justice to their ture entertainment. Among many others, Mercury is proud vision. As Weird Years has a distinct look, the goal was to to be associated with: BBC, Breakthrough Films & Televi- preserve the rough feel of the lines and create a design that sion, Cartoon Network, Cartoon Network Studios, CBC, has never been done in digital animation before. Mercury Classic Media, Cookie Jar Entertainment, Corus Kids/Nel- co-produced this series with Lenz Entertainment and has vana / YTV, Discovery Networks, Disney Television & Fea- again met, if not surpassed, expectations. ture Animation, DreamWorks Animation, MTV Networks / Nickelodeon, National Geographic, Paramount Pictures, Their next project will certainly draw a lot of attention. Universal Studios, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Tele- Based on the stunning and whimsical series of illustrated vision & Feature Animation. books by celebrated author and artist Holly Hobbie, Toot & Puddle will now become a 26 half-hour animated television Mercury has been using Toon Boom’s products since the series. Mercury acquired the television rights to the books USAnimation days and has kept up with the technology to from National Geographic Kids in order to develop and this day. produce the series. Toot & Puddle will air on Treehouse, Canada’s only dedicated preschool network, as well as Nickelodeon US’s NogginNetwork, Nickelodeon UK, Nick- Considered as a Toon Boom Harmony elodeon Germany, Nickelodeon Australia, TV2 Norway, exemplary set-up, Mercury has mastered ABC Australia and there are hopes to soon announce a presale in France. The series will be produced in High Defi- this powerful solution to fully maximise its nition and available in all standard world formats. Each epi- benefits and reach new heights efficiency- sode will air in Canada as a 22 minute episode comprised wise and quality-wise. as two 11 minute stories. Internationally, the episodes will

NETWORK ANIMATION SOLUTION be available in both the 22 minute and 11 minute formats National Geographic TV International in London is the des- ignated sales agency and will surely garner a lot of interest from broadcasters worldwide.

Targeted for a pre-school audience, Toot & Puddle will charm even the older kids and parents. The show follows the adventures of two fun-loving, inquisitive, but very differ- ent best friends. Toot is a young pig on-the-go—a globe- traveling adventurer. He loves to explore and is constantly on the lookout for a new challenge. Puddle is the back- yard explorer of the pair. Although he enjoys traveling, he is more interested in finding fun closer to home and paying meticulous attention to all of life’s little details. First and foremost, Toot & Puddle is about friendship and all of the happiness and knowledge a lasting bond can bring. The fun and adventurous show is designed to encourage exploration and adventure both at home and afar by piqu- ing kids’ natural curiosity about the world around them.

To meet deadlines, Mercury takes advan- tage of Harmony’s integrated workflow, powerful scene planning, sophisticated effects, compositing tools and seamless 2D and 3D integration. Here’s an outline of how Mercury has achieved Harmony in its studio:

Pre-production This stage provides definition to the animator’s vision. • The script determines the final design and number of characters, backgrounds and props. • The storyboard is an essential reference for production. It contains a graphic representation of what will be animated. Several drawings can be used to illustrate what is going on in a shot. • Corresponding dialogue and additional information are The team assigned to this high-quality project includes written under these drawings as a guide. Clint Eland, Executive Producer, Marianne Culbert, Super- • The dialogue of each character is recorded and mixed to vising Producer, Jerry Popowich, Creative Producer, Bryan obtain the voice recording. Popowich, Associate Producer, Stu Krieger, Story Editor, • Music that needs to be in sync with the animation should Tara Sorensen, VP, Development for National Geographic be recorded at the same time. Kids, Donna Friedman Meir, President National Geographic • Using the storyboard and the voice recording, an animatic Kids Entertainment, Delia Leandres, Treehouse Production on which final animation will be based can be created. Executive and Bonita Siegel, Treehouse, Director of Origi- The animatic, essentially a draft version of the animation, nal Production, to name a few. provides a sense of the scene planning and timing of the animation. Production Artwork Animation • Rough character and prop designs are traced off and • An animator is assigned a scene and opens it from the cleaned up as vector lines on a Wacom Cintiq tablet in database using Harmony. Harmony by the Key Animator. • He/she uses the leica’s broken-down audio and images • The clean-up process also includes breaking the character as reference. The animator manipulates the characters down into separate parts or elements i.e. head, eyes, much like a virtual stop-motion puppet to create all the pupils, torso, arms, hands, etc. key poses needed for the scene. • The Key Animators analyze the storyboards to create all • The key poses are approved or sent back for revision by variations of parts needed to fully animate the character or a senior animator. Once the key poses are approved, the props i.e. speaking mouths, various hands, eye positions, rest of the animation is completed. parts to accommodate different angles. • All camera moves and pans are able to be created at this • Once all the parts are drawn, the artists use an approved stage. colour reference guide to add final colour to all the • Any additional FX needed for a scene is created by an character’s separate parts. effects animator. The approved scene is opened and the • The key animator is also responsible for the final character FX are animated in a traditional style using a Wacom Cintiq construction. tablet to draw directly into the digital environment. • Construction includes assembling all the raw vector • The completed scene is submitted for approval from the artwork onto motion tracking “pegs” and putting them animation director and supervisors. Any final revisions are into cohesive limbs that all rotate and distort (stretch addressed by the animator or directly by the supervisors and squash) properly. The character is then ready to be and the scene is sent to compositing. placed in an animatable scene. • Ramp up time for the animators to hit quota (35-50 sec/ wk) is 4 to 6 weeks.

Setup Compositing • A project folder for each episode is created in the • Integrate animation, backgrounds and traditional Harmony database. Each project contains a number effects. of scene folders which match the scene count in the • Adding digital effects to 2D elements (lighting, shading, storyboard and leica reel. blurs, etc.). • An approved leica reel is broken down into separate • Adding digital lens effects (depth of field). Quicktime movies for each scene, and imported in • Adding 3D elements (toon-shaded props/characters, CG Harmony. sets, particle effects). • The Quicktime gets separated onto two tracks: audio and • Doing all final camera work (pans, trucks, multi-plane, image. etc.). • The imported leica and storyboard are used as reference • Last pass check for continuity (animation and to set the stage for each scene. backgrounds). • All appropriate background elements and props are • Overall show quality control. imported to the scene and arranged to match the • Render scenes for edit. established board panels. • Characters are then imported from a network based library, placed and scaled to fit into the scene. Offline Editing • Loading rendered sequences. • Conforming rendered output to leica. • Finalize pacing of show. • Adding digital transitions (cross dissolves, wipes).

Mercury has always adopted the latest Toon Boom technol- ogies to rely on the most advanced animation techniques and tools.

“With Harmony, we have furthered our level of efficiency within our pipeline and simultaneously, increased our standards of producing quality animation,” openly shared Bryan Popowich. Mercury might be known as the smallest planet in the solar system but in our anima- tion universe, it certainly shines high in the sky as a strong industry leader that we can look up to.

Images courtesy of Mercury Filmworks. © Toon Boom Animation Inc. All rights reserved. Montréal, Canada: +1 (514) 278-8666 • Paris, France: +33 (0)1 40 18 77 90 • Herts, England: +44 (0)20 7193 9114 [email protected] | toonboom.com | ICAS610HAR10EN