Animation and comedy

By Sebastian Bance (feature image by https://www.gregdaviesartanddesign.com/)

My experiences.

Me: “We want you to draw a snakebike.” (Long pause)
Jack: “What?”
Me: “Snakebike. A snake which can shape-shift into a bike. Can you draw that?”
Jack: “Yeah, when do you need it by?”

This sort of conversation is why I love animation. An absurd idea of a shape-shifting bike luring a boy to his death that had only existed in my writing partner’s mind a few weeks before, is about to be brought to life by an artist called Jack (he’s good, see below).

I’ve always loved animation and comedy. Growing up I was hooked on The Simpsons and that style of anything can happen comedy is what has drawn me to animation. If you can think it, someone can draw it. A lot of our ideas at Gas Tank Productions start out with Adam, Greg and I coming up with ridiculous scenarios to make each other laugh and then gradually building in more and more plot points and ridiculous characters. Adam and I, then write a script and Greg draws some amazing artwork (like the snake wrapped around the boy above). We then send it to Oliver, our exec, for final checks.

We seem to have found a niche in the market with comedy first storytelling for kids. There are lots of fantastic artists out there, but not a lot of people with storytelling or comedy backgrounds. Our experience of working in comedy our entire careers really gives us a leg up on that front. Plus, it means we know lots of amazingly talented writers and comedians who we can collaborate on projects with.

Our first experience of the animation industry was when we had a 3-minute trailer animated a few years ago. The trailer was a good investment, it taught our team a lot about the world of animation and improved us as writers and artists. The trailer gave us a product to show the industry when we first went to the Children’s Media Conference and a frame of reference to streamline the development of our next shows.

We now focus on developing our concepts and making animatics (moving storyboards, with sound) to accompany those concepts. Animatics are relatively cheap to make, they don’t take a lot of time – 1 month versus 1 year – and they provide a very good idea of what the final product might look like for the people we are pitching to.

Gas Tank Productions recently won a government grant to go to Kidscreen, a huge animation festival in Miami, and will be part of the trade delegation being sent by The Children’s Media Conference and the Department for international Trade.

For more information on Gas Tank Productions or to send us an idea for a show please email Sebastian@gastankproductions.com