![Hi [YOUR NAME], The Wonderful World of Animation](http://www.christiancinema.com/catalog/images/lenny_sid_top.jpg)
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Hi friend,
When I was growing up, Saturdays were workdays around our home. Vacuuming, dusting and cleaning the bathroom had to be done and inspected before we could go out and play. But between breakfast and chores, something magical happened – cartoons!
My dad loved Looney Tunes. As long as Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, and Daffy Duck were on TV, our chores were on hold. We watched Bugs Bunny outsmart his opponents, Road Runner turn Wile E. Coyote’s traps around on him, and Daffy Duck’s crazy schemes fail.
I learned life lessons from those cartoons, but the best part was spending time with my dad on Saturday mornings. Last year we gave him a Golden Collection boxed set of cartoons for his birthday. That night we all sat down and watched a few episodes together, and laughed just like we were kids again.
Animated stories appeal to all of us, and are a great way to illustrate truth. We can learn good character traits from cars or bugs. Vegetables and children teach favorite Bible stories, and cartoon animals help us find the true meaning of friendship. Sit down with your kids this weekend and watch some cartoons, you’ll probably learn something new!
This week’s Featured Filmmakers are Tony Bancroft and Ben Chambers of Toonacious Studios, the creators of Lenny & Sid. Prior to Toonacious, Tony worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he co-directed of Disney’s “Mulan,” and was Supervising Animator for “The Lion King.”
From the screening room,
Angela Walker
ChristianMovieNews.com
Lenny & Sid Movie & Toy Collection
Get Lenny & Sid\'s first adventure on VHS and exclusive toy versions of these cartoon characters!
Lenny & Sid: Love Thy Neighbor - VHS
A shy, daydreaming rabbit and a powerhouse of a mouse meet for the first time in this animated debut from Toonacious Family Entertainment! Love thy Neighbor is the beginning of an unlikely friendship between two “opposites” who find that God is the only thing that they have in common. In an effort to blend in, Lenny avoids conflict and confrontation at all costs. That also means avoiding Sid, the new neighbor with an “in your face” approach who’s on a mission to make Lenny his new friend. Unfortunately, Sid’s good intentions land Lenny in the path of Hilda, the school bully who is anything but friendly!
It's the story of how two totally different personalities find true friendship because of their differences and in spite of driving each other nuts! Discover the fun and excitement when this endearing twosome produces hilarious results in Love Thy Neighbor.
From the co-director of Disney's Mulan
Plus, plush toy versions of your favorite rabbit and mouse!
Also available: Love Thy Neighbor and 'Tis The Reason on DVD and the Love Thy Neighbor 5-Pack - VHS!
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Featured Filmmakers: Tony Bancroft & Ben Chambers
by Angela Walker
Tony Bancroft, animator and director, and Ben Chambers, writer, are the creative team behind Toonacious Family Entertainment. They met each other and their business partner Bo Ferger at Emmanuel EV Free Church’s Berean Sunday School class.
Eventually, the three men formed an animation studio. They are capable of providing everything from artistic design and story treatment to full-scale animated production for direct-to-DVD or feature projects. Toonacious has a commitment to its audience to provide good, quality animated films that have morals, principles, and strong values.
Tony is married to Renee and they have 3 daughters: Caitlin (13), Savannah (11), and Sierra (8). Ben and his wife Leslie have 2 boys and 2 girls: Bennie II (14), Davin (10), Emma (7) and Acacia (2).
CC.com: How did the two of you become partners?
Tony: Ben (Chambers) and I knew each other first before Bo (Ferger), our business partner, got involved. We’d been friends for about 10 years. The first day my wife and I met them at church, we invited them to lunch, and spent about 4 hours at a restaurant just talking and getting to know each other. From the get-go, we struck up a really good friendship.
Ben: We were both in media, so we shared some horror stories.
Tony: I was fascinated by what Ben did in radio broadcasting. I think there’s a secret ham in me that wanted to be in front of the camera, on the radio, or a rock star! I had to pick his brain to see what that was like. I think he was interested in what I did. He came by the Disney studios, and I showed him around, explained what I did to make animated cartoons.
We had a mutual admiration society going and we discovered a real kinship. But it took time for God to really touch us about what we could accomplish if we worked together. It had to be his timing.
CC.com: You both have talked about sensing “a calling to pursue more.” What did that mean in your lives?
Tony: I was at the top of my game with my career at Disney, so to pursue more in the way of monetary gain or things of the world wasn’t an issue for me. It was more to pursue more for God’s glory in the way of family entertainment. I felt Disney and the media at the time were moving away from that. It was for things I felt were necessary for our families and our kids’ sake.
Ben: He was also exploring how God could use him in some channels beyond what Disney had to offer.
Tony: Absolutely. God had given me some great opportunities and some really fine gifts that I could use to his advantage and not just my own, in the way of monetary success. It was that that really struck me and I feel God put it on my heart while I was still with Disney. That motivated me to go to my friend Ben and talk with him about joining me in this crazy escapade.
Ben: It was similar for me. I was at the top of my career in radio. I was doing mornings in Los Angeles, and it was a pretty heralded spot to be in. For me it was more of a spiritual issue. I thought I was becoming spiritually lazy and I knew that the career could go in a certain direction.
I had become more aware of the importance of my spiritual well-being, so it took me a while to come to terms with that. When you’ve attained a certain amount of success, you start to disguise God’s blessing as your right, as something you’ve earned. I had to get that into perspective. I think what helped me get that into perspective was when Tony asked me to take this leap with him to start this company. It was the furthest thing from my mind. I thought, “Good luck with that. I hope it works out for you.” I didn’t really give it a second thought.
But then I did pray about it and he came back to me with it. The more I thought about it, the more I thought, “Well, here’s a way God can use my talents and my specific skill set for his glory. I can be in something that’s specifically suited to impact the kingdom, and not just my pocketbook.” That was where my decision came from.
CC.com: Who did you find was your greatest source of support when you made this decision?
Tony: The Sunday School class we’d been in for about 10 years was probably the best source. We were one of the family there, and this company was born out of that group. Our church has always been exceptionally supportive of everything we’ve been doing with Toonacious, from our pastors on down.
We’ve gone through three different pastors in the time we’ve been doing Toonacious, and every single one of them has been supportive of what we’ve been doing. Here we are living in Burbank, CA, in the media center of the world, so I think they all felt the need for what we do in the way of quality Christian entertainment.
Ben: You’ve got to understand that we were both involved in the secular media industry, so you don’t find support there for leaving them to go work for “Christian” production. A lot of people didn’t understand that and thought it wasn’t the smartest move. But that was man’s understanding, and we didn’t base it on that. If we based what we did on man’s understanding, we would have stayed where we were.
But we believe that God specifically called us at this place in our lives to do this specific thing. And being successful or unsuccessful, we would come to find out that God was doing more than just impacting the world through Toonacious, which he has yet to do. It was more about impacting us as individuals for his own purposes. That’s been probably the most enlightening thing that we’ve learned.
CC.com: Once the company was formed, what was your creative inspiration for the first thing you did together?
Tony: We knew we wanted to do animation and we knew we wanted to be in the Christian marketplace with a direct to video series. So we started thinking about what would be that first project. I had done some sketches when I was on vacation from Disney with my kids. They were sketches of a rabbit and a mouse. At the time, I was thinking I might make a comic book or comic strip of those characters.
I brought them out and showed them to my kids when I was on vacation and they were attracted to them. They said, “Oh, cool. Tell me about these guys. What are their personalities, and what do they do?” and that sort of thing. So I felt like I might have something interesting there. I brought those out and showed them to Ben and Bo, and they reacted pretty positively to it.
From the get-go I knew they would be opposites, kind of an “Odd Couple” as kids. That was the spark of the idea, and the world of Lenny and Side grew from there.
Ben: I took them home and looked at the drawings. The way Tony and I work, I might be inspired by his drawings and have an idea, or I’ll have an idea and he’ll be inspired by it. In this case, I was inspired by his drawings, specifically Sid. His eyes and his thin body made me think, “Here’s a guy who’s driven by sugar and manic behavior.” I thought, “That’s what I was like as a kid – hyperactive, really talkative, and just over the top.”
I could infuse my characteristics into this mouse, and so naturally I’d need to infuse a lot of Tony’s characteristics into Lenny because they were characters he created. It was naturally born out of our relationship because we are polar opposites. Tony tends to be a little more introverted. As a kid, he was an artist, kind of off to himself. It would be just he and his brother drawing. That wasn’t the most popular thing unless you were really good at it. He gained some notoriety later because he did become good at it.
When you’re really introverted, you’re trying to figure out who you are, and you’re not really sure. That’s Lenny. He’s not found his footing in the world, he’s not sure who he is. Then you’ve got Sid. He’s got it all figured out, or so he thinks. So those two worlds collide, and Lenny and Sid were born.
CC.com: So which comes first, the drawing or the storyline?
Ben: It always starts with an idea. Tony will come in and say, “Hey, I was thinking…,” and I’ll go, “Yeah, and what if they do this and this?” We’ll start spit-balling ideas and bouncing things back and forth. If we feel like it really has merit and we can put some meat on the bone, I’ll start to flesh out a paragraph of what that may be about. If it has something we can sink our teeth into, then Tony will do a couple of sketches and we’ll start to bring it to life.
We had about 3 or 4 ideas when we started the company, and Lenny and Sid was the most developed. It usually starts with a spark of an idea that we’ve bounced back and forth and then put some pictures to it and take it a step together.
CC.com: Are you working in the same room developing things together?
Tony: We tend to shuffle the work around really. I might do a drawing and then it spends a little time on his desk while he adds ideas and some comments, maybe do some writing. Or vice versa; he gives me an idea and I’ll mull it over. We do quite a bit of brainstorming where we come up with some ideas together, or improving ideas.
Ben: Sometimes it’s best that we’re not in the same room because remember we’re opposites and approach things very differently. Tony approaches it from a very visual standpoint, and I approach it more from a verbal standpoint because of my radio background. But we come into each other’s worlds and try to make those skill sets complement each other. They don’t always.
But that’s the beauty of our relationship. It has a very wide-range dynamic to it. But it gives way to some very creative stuff when it’s working. When it’s not, we just go our separate ways and say, “Let’s give this a day. Shelve it for now.”
CC.com: How long on average is it from the idea stage to where it’s ready for voicing?
Ben: From a script concept, it varies depending on whether it’s direct to DVD or a feature film. In this case, with Lenny and Sid, from the time it became Lenny and Sid to the time we had the script ready, it was about 4 or 5 months. Of course, you have to do a couple of different versions of the script. You go over it once, then again, then a third time. Then you put fresh eyes on it by giving it to someone else to read and they give their thoughts. By the time you have a script you’re comfortable with, you’re probably on about your fifth version of it. That’s where you really feel like you have something.
CC.com: Are you animating while the script is being written, or does it wait on the script?
Tony: The script provides the foundation and roadmap we follow. From that we create storyboards, which show the breakdown of the script, including cuts and scenes. From there, we’ll create character designs of all of the characters, so we have a visual understanding of what they look like, what style they’re drawn.
Ben: Their personalities.
Tony: We have to create their environment: What does Lenny’s house look like vs. Sid’s house? What do those locations say about those characters? From there it goes into recording and animation and color, etc. Animation is very much an assembly-line process.
Ben: Contrary to what most people think, the voices are recorded prior to animation. We do that first. The whole idea is to get the most out of your actors with the script. The story has to come to life with the actors, and that’s what inspires the animation. The way the actors are delivering a line, and their intonation. All those things are informing the animation.
CC.com: Do the actors see the characters they’re voicing so they have an idea what it looks like?
Tony: Yes. We’ve already designed the characters by the time the actors are voicing the script. We might change the design subtly based on what we’re hearing in the voice, but usually we have some pretty solid designs by the time we’re recording.
Ben: It really helps the actors get into character, so to speak.
CC.com: Ben, are you the casting director for the videos?
Ben: We hire a casting director, and Tony and I sit in on the auditions. We have the final say on what the voices should sound like based on what I’ve written and Tony has designed. That’s really cool, because we have a kind of joint sense on what those things should sound like. We rarely disagree on those things, but when we do, I usually concede because Tony’s the director, and it’s his vision that ultimately has to come out on the screen.
When it comes time to direct the voice talent, Tony and I will sit together. Tony will direct and I will give my input as to what I was thinking when I wrote the script. Tony will say, “Let’s do this read so we can get a feel for it,” and then we’ll have the story a couple of different ways.
CC.com: How much time do you spend doing the voice recording, and is it all done at the same time?
Tony: If we had all the voices we could do them all in about a week or a week and a half, but it tends to take about a month or so with the scheduling of the cast.
Ben: That’s editing and everything, including having the lines cut.
Tony: For one character, we’ll have a 3-4 hour session. For example, with Ben doing the voice of Sid (for which he doesn’t have ANY say when I’m directing!) it could take about 3 – 4 hours.
All of the voices are recorded separately. That’s where the actors’ and director’s skills are really shown. We create the performances really by editing it together. The back and forth is created in the editing room. If the back and forth and timing works, then we’ve done our job well.
Ben: On the technical side of that, you really do want to isolate the voices so you can have a better sense of editing. If you have two voices coming together, it really limits your ability to edit the lines. Tony and I are there in the process all the way from the beginning to end, right down to the music.
CC.com: At what point is the music done?
Ben: That’s done in concert with the storyboard. We do what’s called a “temp score,” or a temporary score, which is done to the storyboards to help establish the timing and mood of the different scenes. Once that temp score is done, the timing is locked in. Once animation begins, the music will be scored in parallel with the animation. By the time we get the first cut of animation, we’ll hear the score as it’s been completed.
The temp score is done with synthesizers, and when we do the permanent score, we bring in live instruments.
CC.com: On average, how many people are involved in the complete production?
Tony: On one of our Lenny and Sid animated projects, there would be about 40 – 50 people from start to finish. Everybody is specialized and does a unique job in putting that together. Once their job is over, they’re job is completed on the show, and it’s moved into the next department.
Read the rest of their exclusive interview here.
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