On Sunday, Adult Swim launched the second season of Tigtone, from Benjamin Martian (The Begun of Tigtone), Andrew Koehler (The Opposite of People), and Blake Anderson (Workaholics, Woke, Game Over Man). We had the opportunity to chat exclusively with Blake and Benjamin, but two out of three ain't bad!
We had a lot to talk about regarding Tigtone, as we especially wanted to learn more about the motion capture process. We did learn that the three creators handle all of the heavy lifting, and we also brought up Woke; the new series on Hulu that Blake Anderson stars in, about a cartoonist who starts to see things come to life.
To hear our chat with Blake and Benjamin, click the podcast player below, otherwise scroll down for this portion of the transcript and tune in all week for more Tigtone and Woke fun!
Literary Joe: So I was actually watching something about how you guys sit in a chair to do the motion capture. Can you guys tell me a little bit about that?
Benjamin Martian: I kind of refer to it as a digitally archaic sort of technique. And it's really convoluted in that we're using this motion capture technique, which you typically use for 3D characters.
So the reason that you do it is so you have the ability to turn your characters in three dimensions that correspond with the actor's or the performer's face. But because our art is all two dimensional, we can't turn our characters. So it creates this weird, convoluted strangeness.
So we needed - to do the motion capture, we need to keep our faces still. Like, it totally negates the reason for doing it this way, which is very Tigtone. So we have to literally clamp our heads down so that we don't move.
Literary Joe: Yeah, I was watching a video where you guys were in like a dentist chair.
Blake Anderson: That's exactly what it is comparable to! It's like going to the dentist for work. (Laughs)
Benjamin Martian: And then screaming, so it's exactly like going to the dentist.
Blake Anderson: Yeah, it's quite the process. Yeah.
Benjamin Martian: We actually, in the early days, Andrew, when he did The Begun of Tigtone, he would just hold really still. And that's kinda why The Begun has a little bit of a floaty quality to some of the faces and stuff.
But in order to streamline that for production, to repeat the process over and over again, we had to figure out some way to help us make our heads still. So we basically took a workbench with an EMT neck brace bolted onto it.
Literary Joe: And Blake, I think in the video I was watching earlier you said that you hate it.
Blake Anderson: Yeah, I'm pretty anti the chair. Yeah, it's like a dentist's office shoved into a closet at Titmouse Animation. So you come out of it a different person for sure.
But that's a part of the whole Tigtone process. I feel like it's almost a Tigtone-ifier.
Benjamin Martian: I always say, I can see the performances come through in the final animation because the animators do a lot of work to make this stuff work. It's not a direct correlation, sorry, Andy Serkis, to pop your bubble, but it's not a direct performance-to-final picture sort of process.
So there's sort of three performers that go into each character, which is, of course, the voice actor who does all the lines. And then, once we get the lines locked, then we get into the chair with the motion capture dots and listen to each line on a loop repeatedly and try to sync our performance up to the vocal performance. And then the animators take that, and they do their thing to it and add a little bit more to the performance.
Literary Joe: Okay. And that's all done by the three of you, right? You, Blake, and Andrew?
Blake Anderson: Yes, I have the least amount of the face work for sure. Andrew and Benjamin, they're some troopers, man. But, hey, you know what? It's their show. It's their show.
Benjamin Martian: So we just like to ask Blake to do it because we know he dislikes it's so much. (Laughs)
*This interview has been edited for clarity. Audio is co-hosted by fellow writer Nick Brooks and cosplay actress Darth Lexii.*
With their once idyllic fantasy land now reduced to an idyllic fantasy wasteland, Tigtone the master-questerer and his magically regenerative sidekick Helpy must face all new mischievous monsters, all new enchanted chaos, and all new irresistible quests in their all new baffling adventures!
Tigtone airs on Adult Swim on Sundays at midnight!