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Prehistoric Perfection The inimitable animation genius Genndy Tartakovksy discusses the second season of his acclaimed show, Primal.
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hen Genndy Tartakovsky’s fivetime Emmy-winning series Primal premiered on Adult Swim block in 2019, fans and critics alike were dazzled by its poetic beauty and stunningly powerful animation. The dialog-free show, which follows the engrossing and at times brutal adventures of a Neanderthal man and his Tyrannosaurus companion, has been universally lauded for its perfect storytelling, beautiful imagery and striking 2D animation. This summer, we have the pleasure of returning to the world of Spear and Fang as they meet new adversaries and face even more heartbreaking challenges. Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Hotel Transylvania), who recently signed an exclusive multi-year overall deal with Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. Animation, was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about the new season of Primal and more: Animation Magazine: So, first of all, congrats on delivering another magnificent season
of Primal. Can you take us back to when you started working on this second season? What were your goals? Genndy Tartakovsky: We started on the second season right after we were finishing the first one, around October of 2019. We continue to work with our overseas partner, Studio La Cachette [ Love, Death + Robots: Sucker of Souls, Mune: Guardian of the Moon]. I had always kind of planned out the story for our second season, but in the beginning it was more cliché. I didn’t think it was good, so we redid it and came up with a storyline that was much more exciting and different. I think it will catch everybody by surprise. One great thing about the new season is that we explore one giant narrative. What would you say were your biggest challenges as you set out to expand the world of Spear and Fang? Well, the scale was a lot bigger this season. Fortunately, since I’ve been doing it for over 30 years, I have a little more say about how
long the schedule should be, so they gave us more time to make the show and more freedom to deliver it at the right pace. We have our art director Scott Wills, designer Stephen DeStefano, character designer Erika Worthylake, producer Shareena Carlson, color stylist Roger Webb, background artist Christian Schellewald. I did most of the storyboards, along with David Krentz. And then, there’s the team at La Cachette in Paris. Which animation tools do you use at the studio? We use TVPaint. It really changed my life. When La Cachette sends up the layout, I can just open the file, make the corrections, label it and then send it right back. Before this, I used to have to get things xeroxed or get frame grabs. This way, animation is at my fingertips. We can really spend the time and make it all better along the way. So great not to have to deal with exposure sheets which were so time consuming! You can really fine-tune things and get more nuanced today.
www.animationmagazine.net 24
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august 22
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