Flashforward 2006 Seattle - 28 Feb 2006
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Introduction
From the Flashforward web site:
Take a step back in time as Mike and Matt Chapman show how they still use Flash® 5 to make the weekly cartoons featured on HomestarRunner.com. Learn the secrets and not-so-secrets of making a 3-5 minute cartoon every week. Hear abour their six years on the web, watch some of their stuff, and learn how they've managed to make a living doing something they like.
The Brothers Chaps appeared at Flashforward 2006, a conference for Flash designers and developers, on February 28, 2006, in Seattle, Washington. They conducted a session called "How and Why Homestar Runner Cartoons Get Made" in Room 6B from 3:45 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Thunderbird was generously given a media pass from the people at Flashforward to cover the event on behalf of the wiki.
The Presentation
Introductions - 3:45 p.m.
The presentation was hosted by Mike and Matt Chapman. While booting up their laptop, one could glimpse "3726 unread emails" on Matt's user profile. After setting up and introducing themselves, they announced that they had each brought a Nintendo DS, and had started a PictoChat which they would carry on intermittently throughout the presentation. Before long two members of the audience had joined the conversation. Matt then showed what he had been working on during they keynote address: A humorous sketch of Mike and two gorillas. After explaining that they were Flash animators for their website, Homestarrunner.com, they showed a sample of their work: virus.
Early History - 3:50 p.m.
First they began with the site history, showing the early progression of the site.
- Stills from the Original Book, and related the history of making the book during the Olympics of August 1996.
- A clip from the next thing they had made, Super NES.
- A clip of a toon they made to teach themselves Flash: Marshmallow's Last Stand. They froze this clip and pointed out various animation problems, such as the jagged edges and inconsistent colors.
- A clip from the beginning of The Luau; from 2001. Mike commented on stealing the lens flair idea from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and pointed out the bottom edge of the cube of Tofu disappearing early.
- In late 2001 they started the Strong Bad Emails, along with the original intention of replying to every email in character, and animating a select email each week. That plan was quickly abandoned, but they did decide to start making a Strong Bad Email weekly around January 2002. They then showed a favorite clip of theirs, the love song from montage. They generally consider early 2002 being the point where their animation reached a "style plateau".
Samples of Styles - 3:55 p.m.
They went on to relate how the website is kept creatively interesting, through various animation styles. They showed stills from various animation styles, namely:
- Teen Girl Squad - A badly drawn comic book about four teenage girls.
- The Cheat Commandos - A play on G.I. Joe and Transformers, with Photoshopped, grainy backgrounds and hairline strokes around the characters.
- 20X6 - The anime version of Strong Bad, akin to a Speed Racer or Robotech style.
- Old-Timey - Their earliest alternate style, which was originally intended to make a fake mythology for the site. This was described as a spoof of Steamboat Willie, from 1933.
- Saddy Dumpington - A character Strong Sad made up, drawn in a watercolor style.
Because they are self-employed and thus don't answer to a boss, creatively they are able to do really whatever they want, such as a "bad heavy metal song"; they can do it and call it Homestar Runner.
More History, The Store, and Related Topics - 4:00 p.m.
They then returned to their history of the website, starting in 2001.
- In 2001 they began selling T-shirts.
- In August of 2003 Matt quit his job at earthlink, and began working on the site fulltime. Earlier Matt had gone on the earthlink website, and found a page that still featured many of his images he had made for the company, such as a calculator and a wad of money.
They also mentioned the Store, and how they sell products such as CDs, DVDs, Figurines and T-shirts. They try to keep the store a separate entity, without ramming it down visitor's throat. They recalled with distaste sites that would play an ad to buy some crap, and another ad after that would link you directly to the store. Their method of building their business ended up building a fan base first out of their own pocket, and then introducing merchandise, which they admit isn't traditionally a good business model. They mentioned that they now live in different houses, with wives, instead of in their parents basement as some may believe. They showed a still from the 2004 Pulse Interview; which was them pixilated wearing fake mustaches, posing as the Videlectrix programmers. They also mentioned that they still do all of their animation in Flash 5, and began relating the process of creating a cartoon.
The Process - 4:05 p.m.
As a courtesy, please keep edits of this article to minor spelling and grammar fixes for the time being.
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