These are Simon storyboard drawings. He does them for every scene.
They're done traditionally drawn on paper.
So we have to scan them in.
I give it a bit of a clean up
and then we are ready to bring them into the animatic.
I bring them into TV paint. We add notes to each storyboard thumbnails so the team knows
what's happening it each shot.
This stage is really quite exciting because
you can really see Simon's drawings come to life and you can see the action that
will actually make it in to the film
So this is the animatic for one of the first scenes I'm working on, quite near the
beginning of the film. This scene is gonna be roughly about 40 seconds long
so it's quite a lot going on here. And there are three characters in it.
Yeah, I think it will be several weeks
working on this one.
So, we're working in a 2d animation program called TV paint.
And so we're just drawing straight into the computer with a stylus.
Every frame in this will actually be drawn by hand. Even all the inbetweens.
It's a really similar technique to traditional pencil and paper animation.
I started [at Simon's Cat] about four years ago. My first Simon's Cat film was 'Cat Chat'.
I've been drawing lots of cats in the meantime.
I just really like their movements.
I've always loved drawing animals and they sort of got their own language, with
the way their tails move. Their ears going back. They look around at things.
So um, in this scene, I've just... very roughly started sketching out key poses
based on the animatic.
[Animation Clean Up]
So I'm working as a cleanup artist on Simon's Cat 'Off to the Vet' film.
and this particular scene I'm doing at moment was animated by Laura,
which is quite rough.
My job would be to clean up the line work, so to finalize the line.
And so you've got the rough animation that's been done by Laura and that is on
a separate level, so all the characters are separated as well.
That makes it easier when it comes to cleaning up.
You make the fine line over the rough animation.
Okay, a steady hand is really important!
It's not just a case of just cleaning up one drawing
and then moving on to the next. You have to constantly
flick in between the drawings to check that the animation is smooth
and the lines aren't jumping. Also another important thing is actually getting the
characters on model.
You have model sheets so it's very important that you
stick to those as much as possible.
I'd previously worked on the
Simon's Cat film called 'Butterflies'.
By the time I'd got onto this film, I had become
accustomed to characters and also the clean up sort of conventions as well.
Yeah it's just been really great working with Simon's Cat.
It's a really lovely team. It's a really lovely studio environment.
Yeah I love my job!
I am Isobel and I am the art director on Simon's Cat 'Off to the Vet'.
I was given a fantastic challenge of trying to apply colour to Simon's Cat film for the first time.
So it's been a long development process.
We know how much the fans love the black and white Simon's Cat films,
So, we wanted to make sure that we stayed
very true to the charm that is contained within those films and that was really
Simon's key word throughout the development of the colour.
One of the starting point for the colour development was Simon's Cats Vs The World.
This was Simon's first book in colour so we knew that we already had a place to start.
Early on in the project we started to put together some pages of development work
so that we could understand how we were moving forward.
We started to put together thumbnails of each shot
and then as we progressed you can
you can see that there are different moods throughout the film.
For each scene, we drew a background.
And this, as you can see, is a kitchen.
And in this scene it allowed us to show
the early morning light.
And it sets the time of day up beautifully.
Simon really loves wildlife and so using colour gave us the chance to add
great detail to the birds in particular in the film.
As we started to use colour
we realised that there were so many exciting opportunities to tell
this story in a more dynamic way.
Using colour would allow us to greatly enhance the
atmosphere and a mood throughout the film as well.
We knew the adding colour to the film
was going to add a lot more work but, we also knew that it was going to be worth it.
[Sound Effects]
Well here I am. I've come to Mcasso sound studios
to record the voices for Off to the Vet.
Now that's something it's a little bit
different about Simon's Cat. I like to do all the animation first and then we
put the sound on after. Which normally happens the other way around.
People normally work to a soundtrack.
[Licking noises]
Did you get that?
[Simon making cat warbling noises!]
[Simon making small kitten meow noises]
[Simon purring]
Once we have a recording that we're all happy with, um, it's a case of
going into the edit suite and taking the best performances from each take and
marrying them up as best we can to the picture.
One of the special challenges relating to this scene is the number of characters that
we're having to deal with, simultaneously. And of course Simon is giving a vocal
performance for each of the characters.
[Bird squawking. / Man grumbling]
So we have to make sure that not only is each individual character have their own voice,
in their own place, and that they're different and varied enough to stand out
against one another.
Simon records all the character voices that you hear in the film
and we add all the other sounds to the picture.
Like any film you have your different categories
of sound you have your atmoss which is perhaps your background noises such as
birds tweeting outside. You have your Foley sound which is your characters
moving around set. Footsteps, body movements. Then you might also have
things like action sounds where perhaps a vase has been broken on someone's head or
you know forks and knives being thrown such as in Simon's Cat.
We get to break and smash things
and then really have fun with this.
Where the cat is pulling Simon's eyelid,
it's actually a balloon being stretched. You know we can get more
creative with how we make these sounds
And as these pieces start to come together and gel, they start to lock into place
and you get the final film.
[The Music]
[Piano playing]
I'm Stuart Hancock. I am the composer of the music for Mcasso on Simon's Cat 'Off to the Vet'.
I've been working on the theme tune and the incidental music for the whole film.
['Off to the Vet' theme music plays]
Music plays quite a big role in in the film.
It helps carry the pace of the film nicely along and where it needs to it
can create the tension
And it's just supporting what's already there really. Enhancing and exaggerating a little bit.
The playfulness of the kitten and the play fights they have
and the tension where the cat is fearing almost for his life that he's off to the vet.
So yes we've been working on themes an instruments for the characters.
The main cat himself has a bassoon, as his main sound.
Because it sort of has an eeky vibe.
But it's also a serious side and a mellow side
and we reckon that captured the cat very nicely.
Simon himself has a bit of bass clarinet. To fit his movements and his moods.
And we're working on possibly doing glockenspiel for the kitten.
Which will give him a cheeky edge,
and capture his spiky little movements on-screen.
With animation, particularly this one, there's an element of it being a silent film as well
because there's not a whole or dialogue there, so the music can can work a little harder.
and help you along with the story.
It's enormous fun to work on
an animation like this, and it's great to work with Simon for the first time.
I'm looking forward to the premiere!