As an Art Student who wants to do concept artwork for animation, something has been bugging me in regards to getting an animated TV show on a network: Why do the final designs of shows look and feel so different from their Pilots?
A few years ago, when I heard that Nickelodeon's gaming property, Tak, was getting his own CGI television show, I was quick to research what to expect. I managed to see some very short clips from people who worked on it. It looked something like this:
After that, I was ecstatic to see the premiere if it meant more of the expressive animation and these characters. But what I saw on the TV was... VERY different. It looked like this:
It was strange how vast the differences were in both these images alone. At first, I was confused but someone pointed out to me that what I saw online was the Pilot. I've never seen the Pilot in it's entirety (I would like to though. :)), but to me, those few small clips were more enjoyable than the full-length TV show. What made them change so much?
I'm positive Tak isn't the first example of this for I've seen it in Fanboy and Chum Chum, but the only changes made on that show compared to the Pilot were a few costume changes and how fluid the animation was. (As well as a few voice changes) But both were still entertaining and it looked marvelous!
Seeing these got me worried about something: If I worked on a Pilot for a show that soon got green-lit, how much would they tell me and others to change before it's slightly to almost completely different from the original? Wouldn't that endanger the show to the point that it gets canceled quickly, thus putting me and others out of the job again? I'd hate to waste my time and effort on something that forgets what got them through the door in the first place.
I do not know for certain but I think this is a pipe line issue. There is also the possibility that the art work was different because it was done by a different art group. The game art is in-house and the series is farmed out to one or more studios.
Heh. Welcome to a reality in the animation business. Pilots are done to sell the series--so there tends to be more lavish work done on them, in terms of design and animation. If the pilot sells and the series gets the green-light--then its a set order of episodes that are going to be produced. The usual number these days is a half-season order of 13 episodes, or a full season order of 26.
The reason for a half season tends to be if the show leans towards being more expensive to produce, the network will commit to 13 eps to see if the ratings justify continuing. Usually they have a good idea if the response is there for a show by about the 6-7th episode--the halfway point of that order. If the show performs soft then they can nix it then and not lose anything more. If the show performs well, then they can order a second batch of 13 and complete a full first season--often with a small gap/hiatus between them.
To be frank.....if you are "concerned" about the quality of a animated series dropping during production, and whether its worth working on as a result, then don't get into the animation business.
You will very likely have no say in, and therefore no control over the scripts, storyboards, animation direction, timing, sound/music, colour values etc.
All you can do is do your job to the best of your ability and hope that everyone else in the production pipeline brings the same to theirs.
Most of the time the pilot is rarely seen by a public audience, so they are unaware of it and how it looks. If they like the show, its because of whatever merits the series itself may have. In the case of the example you provided, the pilot may well have been done by one studio and the series episodes done by another one. The incongruities with the CGI rigs can simply be the pilot studio using the rigs differently than the production studio, and that the environment artists for one are better than the other. The pilot may have had more time allowed to produce its material and the production episodes pare down that time--this can lead to the work looking anything from bland to craptastic.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Some additional thoughts:
Back in around 1996, I did storyboards for Wing Commander Academy, a Universal animation series. They sent my studio samples of the kind of material they wanted done--copies of Macross Plus. They specifically said they wanted the material to look like that.
Ssooooo, that is what we set out to give them, and they were delighted by the 'boards we did. Originally, they were reluctant to give us even one show to do....and we ended up doing about.......oh, I think about 6 whole shows. That was a sign they were happy.
And then they gave most of the shows to some gawdawful South Korean-hack shop to layout and animate. I mean, whatever they did over there they utterly butchered this thing into shit. The "talent " over there would not push drawings or expressions, they'd kill dramatic poses, their animation timing was amateurish at best ( NEVER a tapering action) and they could not wrap their brains around many of the layouts. In fact, they'd change a camera angle in a shot just to avoid drawing a dramatic angle---lazy fuckers.
Incredibly stupid mistakes and just horrid animation and ..........., it was awful. Thankfully, a handful of episodes also went over to Madhouse in Japan to be animated and those guys were on their game. Noticeably nicer work done.
But that is the nature of it. I remember putting a lot of heartfelt work into the storyboards, really trying to make some production values pop in the thing. Obviously, something.......a LOT of things got lost in the translation.
It taught me a valuable lesson that once it leaves your hands, it leaves your control. And often you have little to no control regardless.
Jump forward to last year, I was working on a Speed Racer cartoon. I made the "mistake" of looking up some of the first season episodes and was appalled by how bad this thing looked. It was student film animation mixed with some very cheap looking CGI. Heartbreaking stuff.
Now, face with this revelation, one could just hack out the work for a paycheque and walk away from it when its done. I could have done that, but i didn't. I had an itch that I wanted to explore a bit and took time when i could to put something into the storyboards I was doing.
I knew what the end product would look like........I did this for me.
The last episode I did, I had some extended time to work on because of a work slow-down taking place. So I got to sit back and think about a sequence in the climax of the story, and then was able to take the time to draw out what I had in mind. The director was very pleased with it, I'm told.
But regardless of what the end-product looks like......I did this for my own satisfaction. It'll matter to no-one else.....it'll probably be butchered seven ways to Sunday, and then some. It doesn't matter to me. I got what I wanted out of it, I put what I wanted into it, and at least at that stage it was appreciated. That is really about as much as anyone could ask for, I think.
So, the moral of the story is, don't worry about if its crap. It probably is crap, and it'll probably end up being crap despite the best work you do. Do it for yourself, do a good job and then move on to the next thing.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
It would not hurt to make a good name for your self by producing your own short and showing them around. From what I have read, you can only do that in-between jobs. (you are tweening your personal work between jobs...)