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Piggybank12 — Trollface
Published: 2013-04-03 13:46:50 +0000 UTC; Views: 3838; Favourites: 55; Downloads: 18
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Description
Hey, YOU should go watch Double Rainboom sometime! ( [link] ) And if you've already seen it, you should probably go watch it again! Because, more likely than not, you probably missed a reference or three. And I also talk about spoilers in this description, so if you haven't watched it you'll spoil quite a few things for yourself if you continue to read this.
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Here's the FLA (in Flash CS5.5 format) for those that are just THAT curious about what makes everyone's favorite troll tick, or just want to slap him in a bunch of animated GIF's: [link]
Yes, that's right.
I got to animate the infamous Trollface in Double Rainboom.
Funny how things work out, huh?
When I joined the crew for Double Rainboom and sent in my thoughts of the script, one of the things I just never quite understood was why, of all things, the Trollface was there. Why not a generic evil face? Or a My Little Pony villain? Heck, after reading the script, why not even use a Cartoon Network character?
As I kept reading over the script though, I started to realize that all three of those options would never work here. A CN villain would spoil the plot twist too much. A MLP villain or a generic evil face would do very little to prepare the viewer for the plot twist later on. I kind of realized then, and after talking with the director later on, that the Trollface was there as the absolute sign that this was a fan-made episode, and that literally ANYTHING could happen now that fans ran the helm. It is probably the biggest sign (aside from the CN characters, of course) that the film isn't trying to be exactly like the show, but rather slowly become something different. And suddenly, all the CN characters showing up doesn't seem so out of the blue.
As for animating the Trollface, it was fun animating a character I personally despise and trying to give him some character and different expressions besides that same old grin he always has. My first attempt was mostly just because I was confused on what Zach wanted, but after talking it over with him and the crew we decided on giving him a slow Grinch-like evil grin. Overall, twas fun animating the guy, and animating a character I've seen way too many times personally was a wonderful exercise in doing your best on an assignment and trying to make it great, even if you don't personally like a specific character all that much.
Double Rainboom was directed by
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Comments: 12
kinda reminds me of the coachman from Pinocchio
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Very nice, and that first trollface look very evil creepy! O.o
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It's actually great to hear you talk about the production not being all that concerned with being rigid to the format of FIM the show. Most of the people I've seen criticize the short have given the excuse that "it's not like the show" and I don't really recall anyone on the crew ever saying it was supposed to be aside from the animation quality.
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Exactly. I don't recall anyone ever saying that either on the crew or in the promos; just a blind misunderstanding from some of the public, I guess.
Personally, I actually find the idea of making a fan episode that plays out exactly like how the show would to be a really boring idea, and even a little silly. There's already quite a few people hired by Hasbro that make the show and are paid and told to do exactly that, not to mention on a much larger scale with multiple seasons and episodes. We on the other hand got permission from both companies with very loose guidelines, and had a lot more flexibility with what we could make, yet could only make one episode and do it completely for free. Why not take advantage of the situation and at least try to do something that the actual show will probably never be able to do, yet still create something for all ages? That's pretty much the way I've always looked at the project.
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I enjoyed it for what it was personally. It reminded me of the crossover specials and ads CN used to air and the ones The Hub airs right now.
I do think the pacing was way off in some places, but that's another subject entirely.
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They claimed it would be faithful to the show at least.
And then they threw in a 25 second Derpy gag. :I
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Where exactly? All I recall the director specifically is saying it would strive for show accurate animation and contain fandom nods the show itself wouldn't/couldn't do. This belief that it was supposed to be an potentially "canon" episode of FIM seems to have come out of thin air.
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Unless someone said something somewhere that I'm either just not aware of or I forgot about (heck, maybe I said something earlier on that I shouldn't have), we never said it would be completely faithful to the show, just that it would feature "a full orchestral score, studio-quality sound effects, voice actresses for the ponies, and 100% show-accurate animation." Where people got the idea that we claimed that is beyond me, although I personally liked how it turned out regardless. However, I was just an animator on the crew, not a writer, so I could be wrong.
As for Derpy, the script was written over a year ago, back when Derpy was starting to show up in a bunch of season 2 episodes through cameos. This was pretty much supposed to be a bigger moment where we could see Derpy get to do a little more besides make cameos, but I can kind of see why people would find it silly today to include so much of her. I think overall the script could have had some more "future-proof" elements put into it as well, but inside jokes make up a lot of the episode, so I guess there was only so much one could do there. And again, I was just an animator, but I tried to get my voice heard on how a couple shots in the film played out, namely the Spike and Rarity gag and the first vortex Rainbow Dash entered.
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