Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1532153
18 KEYFRAME Nickelodeon's VP of Development Eric Coleman who, at the end of their lengthy pitch, declared: "This is my priority project." Coleman would become the series' Executive Producer. The partners' main request was to make sure each episode could function as its own story. "So if you dropped in, you still enjoyed that particular story on its own even though it was part of a larger narrative," says DiMartino. In assembling their team, one their first calls went to long- time Storyboard Artist Dave Filoni with whom DiMartino had worked on King of the Hill. The future producer and director of multiple Star Wars series, Filoni introduced them to the films of Hayao Miyazaki and was a frequent director on season one. "He's just a super-talented, passionate guy," DiMartino says, remembering Filoni's thumbnail drawings of the first episode and how he helped establish a unique aesthetic. Over the course of the last two decades, during their interac- tions with fans, DiMartino and Konietzko have seen time and again how beloved their world and their characters remain. Konietzko recalls a survivor of Hurricane Katrina who, in the face of having lost their home, took emotional inspiration from the depiction of Avatar's tortured Prince Zuko. "These characters are very real to me," says Konietzko, "but you still can't really anticipate how much this will mean to someone [else], when it will come into their lives at a really critical moment." "We wanted to create a show that definitely stood the test of time," adds DiMartino, "but it's one thing to say that, and it's another thing to actually see that happen. Twenty years on, people are still… having emotional responses to the stories and the characters." 18 KEYFRAME The show's creative team thought the concept of bending sounded cool; Konietzko drew this sketch when they eventually needed to see what that concept would look like. An early sketch by Konietzko uses a quiet moment between Aang and Appa to capture the epic spirit of the series. "THESE CHARACTERS ARE VERY REAL TO ME, BUT YOU STILL CAN'T REALLY ANTICIPATE HOW MUCH THIS WILL MEAN TO SOMEONE [ELSE], WHEN IT WILL COME INTO THEIR LIVES AT A REALLY CRITICAL MOMENT. " —BRYAN KONIETZKO F E AT U R E