Interview: 7030 @ The Weirding

The Weirding: I know some of the LARPers in the last few episodes. Do any of y'all game and if so, what do you play?

70-30: We do not LARP, although we look forward to seeing LARPers in the park and pointing at them and laughing.

The Weirding: What is the group's main creative focus in general (script, voice talent, art, etc.)? Does it change depending on the series and idea(s), or do you try to keep it consistent - or later find a certain style dominates most of your work (whether or not you intended for it to be present at all)?

70-30: The most important thing is the script. Because of budget limitations, the other aspects of the show just won't be the best in the world. However, we try and do the most with what we can in those aspects. For our new show, I think our art is amazing for the amount of time and money that goes into it. I am not saying that we don't spend time on it, just that there are only five guys to draw all of that stuff and they only get three weeks to do it! So, their efforts must be limited. They can't spend three days making the most kickass robot you have ever seen in your life; they are forced to kick out stuff as fast as possible. But still, I think the end result looks pretty great.

The style that mostly dominates our work is what makes us laugh at the time. More specifically, what makes my partner Adam laugh as he does the overwhelming majority of the writing. When we began thinking about this show, our jumping off thought was Arrested Development. We loved the serialized soap-opera/comedy angle. Also, we had just finished working on Sealab for five years, where there was really no character development or consequences to actions. The idea of going in a completely opposite direction from the extreme absurdity of Sealab [2021], to a real world, with real consequences, was very appealing. Now we find that we keep having to tie-up all of the loose ends in an episode.

For example, in one 11 minute episode, we need to resolve or further a plot line for Xander, Stan, Grace, Killface, Simon, Sinn, Phil, and the Xtacles. To not just make this a drama can be challenging from the stand point of what is going on with the plot. Although, we are enjoying this problem rather than having a world of no character development.

The Weirding: Are all the episodes for this season already "in the can," or are you doing it on a continuing schedule?

70-30: We are currently animating #11 and writing/recording #12.

The Weirding: Do you prefer doing it this way or would you rather do it the other way?

70-30: We love making the show and we love how we are able to do it. It is really unique to have a crew of eight people doing this job. That is the entire staff: illustrators, animators, writers. There are a couple more when you add in VO [voice-over] people, but they don't live with the show day in and day out. I know no one watching cares, but eight people making a TV show is incredible. I can't even begin to think how many people make the Simpsons. At it's core, that is what I feel [Adult Swim] is about: the vision of mom and pop comedy shops that don't get bogged down with some giant structure. This creates a truly unique voice in the comedy. No one is focus-grouping these things to death or having some Vice-President of Vice-Presidents trying to insert ham-fisted jokes.

The Weirding: I absolutely love the artwork. How did you achieve that effect? Were computers used and how?

70-30: The majority of the art is produced by using photographs as a base. For characters, we draw over the photographs in Illustrator. For the backgrounds, we treat the photos in Photoshop with some line filters and then add our own color. However, some stuff you just can't find a photograph of and we have to do it from scratch. When this happens, our head designer will make something in Lightwave (3D) and kick out some stills to be worked on further in Photoshop.

Originally, we went this way for speed. Now, we just love the look of it.