Ad content continues below
Is it common for you to watch the show with an audience reacting?
But yeah, getting to hear in a theatre, that rarely ever happens.
So its good to see that, to see the reaction.
How long does it take to produce an episode?
I think a year is probably safe to say.
And how does a year break down, roughly?
It starts with writing.
So the writing process, theres a lot of aspects to it.
Once it goes through that it goes into storyboards.
So storyboard artists have about five weeks to work on one board.
After they finish it goes into animatic.
Im giving you a very succinct version but theres a lot of different steps involved.
Once all of those aspects are put together it gets shipped overseas to Korea.
They animate almost every show in America right now.
That takes maybe five months to fully animate.
Some stuff we fix in America, some we send back to Korea.
Then from there we do the post production, the music and the sound effects and stuff like that.
I might be missing some stuff, but in a nutshell thats kind of the production pipeline.
Youve never had one five months in where youre like It doesnt work!?
We had one big blow up.
It was the biggest one we had and we just scrapped the whole episode.
I think we just wrote it wrong.
It was really about Chloe.
The poor story artists were just redrawing it, redrawing it, redrawing it.
You dont care about whats going on because theres no reason for Panda to be there.
The story might not have been written very well.
But weve never gotten as far as animating it and bailing out.
So for something to get that far in and then bail out would be catastrophic, I think.
Do you guys have a formal season model or are you just working and they get grouped?
Yeah, the studio picks up in usually about 13 episode increments.
A 13 episode increment is like 26 stories because one episode is like two stories, two 11s.
So we usually do 26 11s per order, I guess is what they call it.
(laughs)
But thats kind of how it works.
Do you have a lifespan in mind forWe Bare Bears?
Umm, I know that I probably cant do this for much longer.
If we make it that long.
Like I said, we could get cancelled any time and then I wont have a choice to stop.
But right now Im not thinking that far ahead.
It would make me uncomfortable.
I mean, its scary.
I would hate for that to happen.
I dont think I would hand it over if I didnt feel strongly about the person taking it over.
So whats an average day for you onWe Bare Bears?
Its a bit crazy.
If thats not working I dont think the show is going to succeed.
So I put most of my attention of those departments.
And I spend a lot of time in edit too.
How long was your development period from signing on with Cartoon internet to having a broadcast episode?
Maybe a year and a half?
But theres a lot of dead time in the development process.
I dont think anyone does that full time in animation, most people who have pilots work other jobs.
I think thats one of the hardest things to manage.
I basically could show them what it should be.
So for the pilot I did that all myself, storyboarding wise.
And its a lot of trial and error.
Sometimes I have to learn it too, what feels right.
Now Im gonna ask you about baby bears.
Were they always part of the plan?
It was in my original pitch when selling the show, it was in the web comic.
I had done two baby bear comics early on.
It gives us some moves, I guess.
But its definitely taken on a bigger role on the show than I ever imagined it would.
That kind of came as the show was being made and from working with the writers.
I absolutely cant control any of that.
I absolutely cant control programming.
In America in particular theyll mix up the episodes.
So we have to be very careful about that.
Thats kind of what I had originally wanted anyway, I didnt want something that was completely serialised.
So thats something thats appealing to you?
Its still gonna be really hard to do, but I would love to do it.
Id really love to.
Do you have an idea of a path that might lead you to a feature?
Probably the best way to get one is we have to be more popular (laughter).
I think the only thing that will allow it is an audience that will want it.
I dont know if were there yet.
How formal is the balance?
We treat them like theyre humans, you know?
We think of them as real people.
We just venture to make them as relatable as possible.
Even figuring out when do they walk on fours, when do they walk on twos.
(laughs)
No, they didnt.
I guess thats the bear aspect of them.
But then even as humans, they dont have jobs or anything.
None of us liked it!
Yeah, thats true.
But its a kids show, so how conscious are you of hitting a balance?
I would say that, more than anything it needs to be a comedy.
And to me that just comes as we write and I think we just take it as it comes.
To me its important that each episode has a heart to it.
My favourite episode isChloe & Ice Bear.
I love that episode too.
Its not a combination of characters I would have thought of.
It kind of happened naturally.
So that came from real life.
I think that just naturally happened because we knew the two of them were friends.
The two of them somehow became an interesting pair that weve exploited a lot.
And then Grizz and NomNom became an interesting pairing too.
Picking up on the people youve mentioned there, your voice cast is crazy.
Whats your process for bringing these people in?
We gave them the offer and they said yes.
We love stand-up comedians and weve hired a lot of comedians for our show.
Were just looking for the right voice for the character.
We just reach out to them; some reject, we get rejected a lot too.
But were very lucky that weve got the cast we have.
And they all are awesome.
Oh, I know!
Eric (Edelstein) said that when his mom saw that it was devastating.
I really like your Twitter account (@threebarebears) because you post up all thisinsane merchandise.
Do you have a favouriteWe Bare Bearsthing?
The womans make-up was pretty crazy, I got to see that first hand when I went to China.
I dont think I ever expected that to happen.
The most recent one that blew my mind was the baseball team in Korea.
Weve been lucky, especially how its been embraced internationally.
We get a lot of nutty stuff.
On the subject of international fans, where are you most popular?
I have a feeling in Asia were doing pretty well.
And China, even.
The funny thing about China is, it got big because of pirating.
Yeah yeah, its legit!
(laughter)
But its been amazing.
Definitely Asia has embraced it a lot.
I think Europe, also, its doing quite well.
So, we ask everyone we interview their favourite Jason Statham film.
But I figure of the Bears, Grizz would probably be a Jason Statham fan too.
I mean,Snatchis an amazing film.
I love that film.
I know thats not modern day Statham.
Its a popular answer.
And maybe its a boring answer butSnatchis probably the best Statham film.
For Grizz… he definitely would love a modern day Statham film.
I wonder, because hes a franchise guy, if hed be aTransporterguy.
Yeah,Transporters pretty good.
So thats a good answer.
Daniel Chong, thank you very much!
Brand newWe Bare Bearsepisodes start on Cartoon internet at 4.30pm from 1st November.
