Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1188718
I N P R O D U C T I O N 26 KEYFRAME says writer Vanessa McGee, who crafted the rhythmic dialogue. To prepare, she also read the author's biography, which discussed the theory behind his rhyming scheme. McGee says that Dr. Seuss is an icon for a reason—his rhymes look deceptively simple, yet there's "something inimitable about it…an essence that you're never going to quite get." She was deeply conscious of dealing with something that people hold dear and having to handle that with care while still having fun. She loved the freedom of writing for animation, where you can make characters do absolutely anything, even fly, a stark contrast to live action where, "if you dare write a scene that's exterior night, they'll be so angry with you!" Reem Ali-Adeeb worked as the Lead Props Designer on the series. Born in Syria, Ali-Adeeb only discovered Dr. Seuss as an adult and was "blown away by how simple yet incredibly fascinating his writing was." Her biggest challenge was to "hit the style" of Dr. Seuss and it took a while to find out exactly how to introduce the old favorite in a new way. When she designed a vehicle or a prop, she'd look at the '60s aesthetic and then tried to incorporate Dr. Seuss shapes, like the s-curve line that is so prominent in his work. Ali-Adeeb loved the vision of art director Pascal Campion, who wanted the world to be imbued with a sense of realism so that, "it didn't seem as if everything is made of marshmallows and pillows." She explains that this approach adds dramatic tension, allowing the viewer to be afraid that the character might actually get hurt. Her favorite prop was the oxicycle, a bike with eight wheels, and she loved working on Guy's strange inventions— like the anti-umbrella—which has water coming from inside, as well as thinking up different ways to serve green eggs and ham for each episode—from smoothies to breakfast burritos. Storyboard artist John Anderson was not really interested in going back to television but when he saw the scale of this production, he jumped at the chance. The process was very much like a feature, which gave the show a cinematic feel. "The fun thing about 2D and hand drawn is that you can really stretch it and move it," he says. Working on it was thrilling because sets weren't built in a CG environment and so weren't locked down. "There was so much freedom," and "every shot was new and exciting because every shot was drawn." Stern adds, "There's something beautiful about hand drawn animation that we missed and hasn't really been done for a broad family audience in this way for a while." The nostalgia it evokes felt like the right fit for Seuss's illustration style. Anderson also found it exciting that the series is essentially one long epic story—the characters didn't reset at the end of each episode as is common in television. Because they develop and grow emotionally as the story progresses, he had to be constantly aware of where they were emotionally in the story. There was freedom for the actors too, if they did something fun or made a sound, then it came back to board and was reworked. Stern is quick to credit the 300 talented people who poured their creative energy into the making of the series. The showrunner recalls pitching the series to Geisel's widow, Audrey, who was in her nineties. He sat in Dr. Seuss's office filled with the author's personal belongings, with a view overlooking the Pacific and a "single, perfect Dr. Seussian tree." It was pretty intimidating but when Stern was done, Mrs. Geisel said: "I wondered how anyone was going to do anything with that one, you know, it's pretty simple. But you pulled it off." It was as close as he would ever get to the author who died in 1991, whom Stern believes would approve of what he has done. He hopes he'd say something like, "'You didn't screw it up that bad.'" And perhaps he'd say it quite eloquently, in rhyme. —Karen Briner left: Reem Ali-Adeeb at work. opposite, clockwise from top: Guy I Am, Sam I Am and the eponymous ham; the oxicycle, one of prop designer Ali-Adeeb's favorite creations; Guy I Am's invention; Bad guy McWinkle and his side kick; overprotective Michellee with daughter EB.