@BroatsShorts - @Aalasteir (Q) - Index

Q: You were inspired to become an animator after seeing Nicktoons for the first time in 1992, with your second major influence being Adult Swim during your high school years. Why do you think animation resonates with you? How do you distinguish between good and bad animation?

I suppose animation resonates with me because it's a stylized, colorful and exaggerated version of reality, and can communicate things in a really punchy and simplified way that I find really satisfying. I always had a wild imagination as a kid, and animation can replicate the stuff I imagine in my head. I also have ADHD and I feel like cartoons are a really soothing balm for the ADHD brain.

As for good and bad animation, it's largely a matter of taste. Things can technically be "poorly" drawn and animated but be fantastic. For instance, shows like Life and Times of Tim or Ten Year Old Tom are really deliberately rough looking, but I love the style and the writing and acting are great. Anything with a specific point of view that's executed well on its own terms is something I appreciate. At the end of the day I tend to especially gravitate toward shows with really punchy, poppy, memorable character designs & colors, and humor that is kind of absurd and weird and over-the-top - The Amazing World of Gumball, Invader Zim, and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack are some of my all-time favorites.

Q: How did you develop your process of starting with a concept, writing the script, then recording a “radio play” of the dialogue, followed by creating an animatic? You move on to designing and painting backgrounds, exporting scenes for animation, compositing in After Effects, and finally editing in Premiere with audio. Have you experimented with different workflows, and how did this particular process come about?

It's just the typical process I've encountered while working in the industry. I've worked on a bunch of shows over the years (Rick and Morty, DuckTales, Final Space. Pickle & Peanut, Future Worm, Randy Cunningham 9th Grade Ninja, Animals [on HBO]) and I'm always really interested in the entire pipeline and observing how everything gets made at each step. A lot of people get locked into their particular bubble (character design, boards, etc.) and don't really venture outside of that specialization, but I always wanted to be able to do everything from start to finish on my own. I haven't really experimented with other processes because this approach really works for me.

Q: How did you develop your series Broats?

Broats was initially just a joke in my head combining Check It Out With Steve Brule and My Little Pony. Steve Brule always mispronounces "boats" as "broats", and to me that word sounded like a goat version of "brony". So after chuckling about that for a minute I realized it could be a funny name for a cartoon, and started working backwards from there. I initially pitched it to Cartoon Network, but the setup was a lot different. They were 3 goat bros living on a farm, and a human kid came from the city to take a job as a goat herder. The goats would follow him around and try to learn how to be cool like humans. They were more exaggeratedly "bro" stereotypes in this version, and the names Chad, Thad and Reggie were intended to sound like frat boy names.

CN passed on it, and a couple years later while walking through a farmer's market at the Americana at Brand (a famous outdoor mall in Glendale, CA) I saw a petting zoo set up with some goats. That was a lightbulb moment where I realized a much funnier premise for a Broats cartoon - the goats run their own petting zoo inside a mall like the Americana. I pitched that version to Nickelodeon and they greenlit a short, which was made around 2013. They also greenlit it for early development, but wound up passing on it. Eventually the rights reverted back to me and I decided to just make it myself, with some of the original voice actors returning for the roles of Chad & June.

Q: What are the defining attributes of a concept that you believe are worth developing into a script? What is your process for scriptwriting, and what would you say is the optimal way to structure a script for an animation pipeline?

For the current Broats shorts it's pretty simple. I usually get a specific, quick gag in my head. Like, with "The Cake Is Lava", my kids were watching tons of "Is It Cake" and "Nailed It!" and they also love "The Floor Is Lava." It was a simple, dumb gag that popped into my head. So if something like that occurs to me, I'll write it down, or make a post it note with the general title of it. I have a whole list of these little titles and descriptions on my phone.

When I need some new scripts I'll pull one of those and then open up a screenwriting app called Beat to flesh it out. As far as how to structure it, Broats is kind of different to trying to write a whole 11 minute script, which would have a different structure. With these it's often more like a comic strip structure, a quick setup and then a punchline. That said, as far as optimizing it for animation, I do consciously write and board stuff in ways that allow me to simplify the animation and minimize poses and movements and locations and such. I do really strive to be economical and do a lot with a little.

Q: What does it mean to be an artist?

Being an artist just means doing anything creative in order to express yourself and communicate a message. I'm pretty open to almost anything being art, if the intention and thought process is there behind it.

Q: Your advice for artists starting out

Don't wait around for someone to give you permission to make what you want. Just start doing it. I'm much happier with Broats now than when I was trying to make it at Nickelodeon (even though I'm not making any money off it now). At Nick I got so many notes and so many limits and so much pushback on my particular take on it, and then they cancelled it. Now I'm free to do exactly what I want with it. I wish I had just done it myself years ago!

If you do your own thing and make what you're inspired to make, it's all practice that'll make you a better artist. It can eventually help you get seen by folks that might be able to help you get work in the industry, as well.

Q: What are some common misconceptions people have about animation?

I think one misconception is that cartoons are somehow a lower form of art, and more base and shallow than other art forms. Even within animation, the stuff that more people feel comfortable recognizing and celebrating the value of are things that are clearly high art, like a Ghibli film, or a very somber and serious independent animated film. I think there is a tangible and high spiritual value in something like a really funny episode of Spongebob, or an incredibly executed joke in The Amazing World of Gumball. That stuff is sublime. It taps into some kind of divine energy. A lot of adults are just too insecure to allow themselves to recognize that.

Q: Why do you think there's this misconception that cartoons are somehow a lesser form of art? What would it take to change that perception?

I think most adults are very insecure. They don't feel secure in their "maturity" and are afraid that if they like cartoons others will judge them or see though them and realize that they're not actually "adults." I think they think they will be judged and ridiculed and ostracized from "grown up" society if they indulge in "childish" interests. I suspect a lot of them had parents that kind of beat any kind of imagination or creativity out of them, as well. In any case, I don't expect that perception to change much. It's their loss!

That said, I was talking to a friend recently and their take was that the generations coming up now are going to continue to appreciate cartoons into adulthood and maybe change that. I hope he's right, but even if he's not, I don't really care what other people think about cartoons. I just feel pity for them that they can't let go of their insecurity and enjoy themselves.

Q: What are some animated series and films that you would recommend, and why?

Ok, I'm going to recommend a show that seemed to get a lot of pushback when it came out. It's a show that I worked on a little bit, as well - freelance BG paint on a few episodes. Pickle and Peanut. I get why people judge it on the surface and assume it's going to be really awful, but it's one of the funniest shows ever made. The pilot is a bit shaky, but give it a few episodes to get the hang of it and you will not be sorry. If anyone has the animatics to this show, do the world a favor and leak them online. They are the funniest animatics I have ever seen in my life. They were almost funnier than the show sometimes because the drawings were so unhinged. Anyway, justice for Pickle and Peanut!

Q: What is bad advice that you think artists get and why do you think that advice is bad?

I don't know. I know a lot of folks have the mindeset of "draw every day as much as possible, fill up notebooks upon notebooks with sketches until you get good." It's not bad advice, but I don't do that myself. Maybe I'd be a better artist if I did! But I like to take time to take lots of breaks and enjoy other aspects of life that might inspire my work in between all the drawing.

Q: Art resources you would recommend

I don't have a great tip for this. My biggest art inspiration and references are just watching lots of cartoons that I like and playing video games. Do that.

Q: How did you get interested in the K-pop group aespa?

So in the Broats universe there's a kpop group called V35P4 that's a parody of the real life group aespa. I got really into kpop during the COVID lockdowns because what else are you going to do (besides also reading all of One Piece)? As a visual artist I was especially drawn in because of the wild visuals and colors and style of the music videos, which are really over the top. There's tons of groups I love, but aespa specifically have a really cool aesthetic to all of their creative output. They have a very iconic poster from their "Savage" era that was really easy to use as a reference that I felt people in the know could easily identify.

Q: What do you like about Xenoblade Chronicles?

If anyone has ever played Monkey Island and run into that pirate in the Scumm Bar with the big button on his lapel that says "Ask Me About Loom," that's me with Xenoblade Chronicles. For many decades Chrono Trigger was my favorite game of all time - I love JRPGs, but that one has some of the best characters, story and music. Then when I got a Switch I caught wind of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and heard that Tetsuya Takahashi was involved, and that Yasunori Mitsuda had done some of the music. From the minute I turned on that game I was completely hooked - it felt the closest to a '90s SNES JRPG in spirit of anything I had played in decades. Absolutely loved it, and it replaced Chrono Trigger as my fav game and soundtrack. Since then I've played the first Xenoblade and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, as well as all the DLCs, and have a budding collection of art books, soundtracks, and amiibo. I am beyond hyped for Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition to drop next year.

Q: Why do you think you like One Piece and Pokémon?

I've always loved anime. Even as a little kid I watched stuff like Unico, and when I was older I got hooked on DBZ and Tenchi and everthing else on Toonami and Adult Swim at the time. When I moved to LA I had a friend with a garage studio whose walls were completely covered in One Piece figures. He told me it's the greatest manga/anime ever, you gotta check it out, etc., but of course, like most people I balked at the sheer volume of backlog. I knew that once I started it I would like it, but I put it off for a decade until just before the pandemic hit when I finally began reading the manga. Once the lockdown started it was like, welp, I guess I can really catch up now! It really is the greatest. All those annoying people bothering you about it are right.

Pokemon I mostly love for the character designs. When it first came out on gameboy, I actually didn't like the gameplay (blasphemy, I know). Like I said, I loved Chrono Trigger. I heard it was an RPG like that, and I was disappointed that it was mostly about collecting and battling (battling was my least favorite aspect of JRPGs) and very light on story. But I love the character designs so much I eventually got into the games as well, but they take a backseat to just enjoying the artwork of the creatures.

Q: What is boba tea, and why do you like it?

Boba tea is tea with chewy tapioca pearls in it. It originated in Taiwan in the '80s, but now it's a worldwide phenomenon. I first had it when I visited my brother in college in the early '00s - it was almost nowhere in the US back then, as far as I know. They were calling it "bubble tea." Anyhow, I was a big coffee guy previously, and thought tea was watery and weak tasting, but here in LA there are such great tea places that I actually switched over to milk tea. I'm pretty picky about it. There are only a handful of places that really make a legit good milk tea with high quality tea brewed really strongly, and to be honest, I personally rarely add boba to it. Similarly, I only really like a good, fresh boba made in-house. RIP to Cha Bei-Bei, which used to be the absolute greatest boba & milk tea in LA. Currently Motto and Chapresso are some of the better options in the greater LA area.

In the Nickelodeon days of Broats Chad was super into coffee - a reference to how coffee was allegedly discovered by goat farmers who noticed their goats eating the berries and going bonkers. In the newer Broats shorts I switched the characters over to boba, because it's more fun, more specific, and it's more true to my own taste nowadays. The tea shops around me know me by name because I'm in there all the time.

Q: What has been your experience with skateboarding?

My experience skateboarding has mostly been being really bad at it and not able to do any tricks. I can do a small ollie if I'm standing in one place. But as someone who was a kid in the '90s it is burned into my psyche as being cool, and I still enjoy skating around. When I worked at Disney TVA I would bring my skateboard to work and skate all over the campus. When Pokemon Go! came out that was a really fun combo - skating around the Disney campus & catching Pokemon. Anyway, to me the visual of these goats skating around a fancy mall was really funny, so they skateboard. Recently the new Scott Pilgrim show did a bit of Lucas Lee skating the Americana at Brand mall and I both loved it and was kinda bummed about it because it's so similar to what I wanna do with Broats.

Q: How did you get interested in astrology?

When I was a little kid I had a little hardback children's book about astrology with like, one page spread on each sign & like one or two sentences about them. I'm a leo sun, and it said something corny like leos are leaders, and that's it. But I was always interested in mysterious and mystical kinda stuff, so it remained on my radar. When I got really deep into tarot and astrology was during the 2015 leadup to the 2016 elections, when the world was starting to look really scary and I wanted some sort of thing I could lean on to try to see a little more about where things were heading. I think a lot of other people had a similar experience - when things get scary and overwhelming in the world you reach for something to help you though it. I actually wound up pulling back from it a bit in 2020 because the astrology of that time was just really intense and depressing, and I was just like, ya know what, I'd rather not know! I'm just gonna read One Piece until this is over.

Q: What tarot decks do you own, and what have you learned about yourself through tarot? 

I own a few decks, but I realized quickly that the only one I get really clear results with is the classic Rider-Waite deck. It's just the most clear imagery for me, and some of the newer ones, while beautifully illustrated, kind of water down the message for me personally. I suppose I've learned about myself through tarot, but mostly it's just a good philosophical framework for processing the world in general by breaking it down into archetypes.

Q: How to become a certified Hellenistic astrologer?

There's an astrologer named Chris Brennan who has a podcast called The Astrology Podcast. He has an online course you can take to get certified, so I did that a few years back. He's got a fantastic book on Hellenistic astrology that serves as the textbook for the course.

Q: Favorite food and drinks!

Like I said, I love milk tea. But it's gotta be a very strong black tea, like a ceylon or assam, brewed very strongly. A very minute bit of sweetness, brown sugar or maple syrup, and then something thick like whole milk and or cream so it doesn't get watered down. That's peak milk tea.

Favorite food - I spent some time in Italy as a kid, so a really well made and simple pasta with tomato sauce. I lived in Napoli so it's gotta be that southern Italian style with pretty much nothing in it but olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, salt and basil. Adding anything else is blasphemy.

But I love food in general, especially international cuisine, so living in LA is like paradise cuz it's got everything and you can get it pretty authentic in the right neighborhoods.

Q: How would you describe your experiences of playing and writing music in a band during high school and college? Do you carry that experience with you when creating music for your shorts? What software, instruments, and VSTs do you use in your process? What is your philosophy and overall perspective on what music represents? Finally, what have you learned about yourself through creating music?

My experience playing music in high school & college was pretty much like my experience doing any other creative original works - I felt like very few people cared or noticed or liked it! But there were a handful of fans that really did, and I largely did it for myself because I liked it. When we were doing the Broats shorts at Nick they asked if I wanted a composer, and I said yes cuz I didn't trust my abilities and wanted a pro. It turned out I didn't vibe with the music they were presenting and I wound up writing all the music myself, ultimately, with the composer we hired just helping record it with in their studio.

I'm not that technical, equipment wise, I just use garage band and plug a guitar and bass in, use the distortion presets in there. I lay down some drums with the keyboard. It's really simple and bare bones, but I think it works. Again, I grew up in the '90s so a lot of music back then was just that. I was a huge Weezer fan, and the Broats theme is loosely based on "El Scorcho" by Weezer.

I don't know what my philosophy is on what music represents, I just want it to have a kind of fun, irreverent vibe that matches the tone of the show, and feel a little bit '90s as the show is somewhat a spiritual throwback to old Nicktoons and CN shows.

Through creating music, I have learned nothing, lol. Just to make what I like.

Q: If you were to create an inspirational catchphrase, what would it be?

Goat for it!