tapehead wrote:slow day at the office...?
RHYMES WITH RAINING
Crave talks to Matt Groening about the Simpsons and Futurama.
CRAVEONLINE
FEBRUARY 26, 2007
Crave Online: The Simpsons is one of the last examples of traditional animation. What do you think of the new CGI?
Matt Groening: I think there is a certain charm to the hand drawn image that I like. My problem with CGI is that it's so rich in texture that my eyes actually get tired. Everything is in focus down to the littlest leaf. For me personally, when they put things out of focus, a masterful version of that was Brad Bird's, (former Simpsons director), The Incredibles. He knew exactly, I thought, where to limit the detail.
Crave Online: Why did Hollywood go so crazy for CGI?
Matt Groening: I mean, it is amazing. I said personally my taste. It's very hallucinatory. It's very dream-like. I guess if it's charming, the Pixar movies are great.
Crave Online: Are you more involved now than you were in the past?
Matt Groening: The idea that I was not involved with the show or less involved with the show is simply not true. I've always been involved with the show. It's true there's only 24 hours in a day so then I have to work on Futurama. I can't be two places at once but the best thing about having two TV shows is I can go to each show and say I have to go to the other show and then I can go do whatever I want. Talk about a day job and night job, my night job after The Simpsons is Futurama, which is coming back on Comedy Central in 2008, 16 new episodes, and we're going to be running the old episodes, as well. Then, I a draw a weekly comic strip that locally appears in the LA Weekly and it appears in alternative news weeklies around the country. That's something I do just by myself. I get to go and sit at a drawing board. Generally, I put it off as long as possible. It's due on Fridays at 5:30, I have to get it on the computer. So I start drawing it Friday afternoon. I can't twist my ankle. I can't get the flu. I've got to do it. So far, 27 years I've been doing that.
Crave Online: Why do you still want to do a comic strip?
Matt Groening: It's me working by myself. It keeps me honest and The Simpsons is the biggest collaborative project I could imagine and this is me by myself. They serve different needs. The great thing about hand lettering is there's no editing. I don't turn my stuff in and it gets changed around at all. It is what it is and I love it.
Crave Online: Futurama on Comedy Central, are you frustrated that Fox didn't pick it up like Family Guy?
Matt Groening: Well, I was frustrated when it got cancelled, but Fox, 20th Television is the one who came back and said, "Would you like to do a DVD movie?" and we said, "Let's do two" and they said, "Well, why not three?" and we said, "Well, why not four?" and they said, "Okay, four" and then that's it.
Crave Online: Are they really full movies or just three episodes together?
Matt Groening: We're writing them as movies and then we're going to chop them up, reconfigure them, write new material and try to make them work as separate episodes.
Crave Online: Can DVD versions be more extreme than the ones for air?
Matt Groening: Those are the marching orders we gave ourselves, yes, to really try to push it and do things we might not be able to do on TV. And then Comedy Central picked up the show and we went, "Okay, probably there's nothing we can think of that Comedy Central won't run" because I'm astonished at what I see on Comedy Central every day.
Crave Online: How will you turn those into episodes then?
Matt Groening: We are reconfiguring them and writing new material and narration and this that and the other so that they'll stand on their own as episodes.
Crave Online: Could it go on beyond that?
Matt Groening: I hope so. My guess now is that this is basically a season that we're in production on which is complicated because they're also DVDs, so that they'll probably wait and see how they do and then we'll get the pickup.
Crave Online: You never gave up on Futurama, did you?
Matt Groening: Well, I always felt like we were a little bit like the original Star Trek. I always thought that working with my partner, David X. Cohen, that we knew that the people who loved the show really, really loved it and they wrote petitions, they wrote letters and e-mails and it just seemed right. And also, everybody that worked on the show loved it. So when it came time when the show did come back, everybody without exception said, "I'm on board." At this point, I said, "We're thinking of gearing up the show again." They said, "I'm on board." Everybody, Katy Sagal, all the actors, John Dimaggio, Billy West. The original animation team, the original animation house, the original writers. Everybody came back. It was great.
In October 2005, Comedy Central picked up the exclusive cable syndication rights to air Futurama's 72-episode run at the start of 2008, following the expiration of Adult Swim's current deal.[32] It was cited as the largest and most expensive acquisition in the network's history.
MonkeyM666 wrote:BA! I'll be back.... I'LL BE BACK DAMN YOU DOC!!!!
tapehead wrote:You and SBF should tag-team
MonkeyM666 wrote:Futurama: Bender's Big Score is the proposed name of the straight-to-DVD movie based on the animated series Futurama to be released around December 2007. The movie is written by Ken Keeler and David X. Cohen, directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill, and is set to include: the Nibblonians, Seymour (Fry's dog), Phil the Chud, Barbados Slim (the limboer who always defeats Hermes), Morbo, Robot Santa, the God space entity, Al Gore, and Zapp Brannigan.[1]
MonkeyM666 wrote:That's a good filter...
I can't wait, Futurama is easily one of my favourite shows and it's about bloody time it comes back!
Adam Balm wrote:MonkeyM666 wrote:That's a good filter...
I can't wait, Futurama is easily one of my favourite shows and it's about bloody time it comes back!
Couldn't agree more. Plus for a geek, there's more subtext than the Simpsons to appreciate, with all the math in-jokes and nods to obscure SF stories. (Like the what if machine episodes)
And just to get something out of my system....I don't know how Aqua Teen Hunger Force can get a motion picture in theatres but Futurama can't.
Matt Groening also briefly spoke about his other series "Futurama" which will be returning in a big way later this year. "We're doing four straight-to-DVD 'Futurama' movies and then new episodes on Comedy Central starting in 2008. The first DVD for 'Futurama' will be out for the holidays."
Adam Balm wrote:Now last time they were talking about this, they said something to the effect that the episodes on Comedy Central were just going to be split up versions of the DVD movies. Do we know now if they're going to be doing any original episodes on top of that?
Ribbons wrote:Well. I suspect I know what I'M getting for holidays...
CeeBeeUK wrote:I thought comedy central was going to show it in 4 parts?
Or is that a new series
ThisIsTheGirl wrote:Hi Monkey! Long time no see mate
I don't see any talk of a UK release for this yet, so I pre-ordered this badboy from DVDBoxOffice a couple of days ago. Can't believe I'll be watching new Futurama this xmas!!
The Vicar wrote:ThisIsTheGirl wrote:I'm the Chanukah Zombie
But they're only reanimated for 12 days.....
.....and they're after all the matzos, the undead douches.
tapehead wrote:oh, and trailer - those assinine morons at the Box network pulled down the old u toob link.
Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 1 guest