Friday, July 25, 2008

The Family of Family Guy

I spent a generous portion of the day at Fox Animation on Wilshire. Most staff is back at work after the Writers Guild strike, but many were missing in action ...

"It's really quiet around here. Everybody is down at the Comic Con in San Diego" ...

Including the top brass.

... [Y]ou'll be thrilled to hear what they're doing with The Empire Strikes Back — it's called "Something, Something, Something Dark Side," executive producer Chris Sheridan jokingly revealed in the show's packed Friday afternoon panel at Comic-Con.

Flanked by Guy creator and star Seth MacFarlane, along with Seth Green (voice of Chris), Mike Henry (who spins off his own series, The Cleveland Show, next year), director Greg Colten, and producers Kara Vallow and Mike Henry, Sheridan was more forthcoming with Fox's take on the new Empire episode, than on the episode, itself. He read from a list of "notes" Fox executives gave the producers, offering guidance like, "Page 68: Han's comment at Lando that he is 'this close to going Michael Richards on your ass,' is in poor taste...." So what did the panel reveal? ...

(That info is here.)

The last couple of months, both Family Guy and American Dad artist have dropped pencils and paper and now use Cintiqs. One story boarder, still climbing the digital learning curve, asked how many studios were doing storyboards on computers now. I said "most of them."

Unlike a lot of cartoon studios, Fox Animation has long-term employment going on, since FG is good for two seasons, and American Dad has a full-season order.

It's nice that somebody has more than four months of work.

3 comments:

Larry Levine said...

I wish Seth MacFarlane would post those retired animation discs on ebay, I need one dirt cheap.

Anonymous said...

Seth MacFarlane is such a self-less guy with no ego. Never wants the spotlight, never takes credit.

Anonymous said...

Yes. He's not desperate for attention or anything.

Beware the nerd who gets fame -- he will stop at nothing to prove to himself that he's not a nerd.

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