The End of a Super Phun Time for now

Well, tonight marked the mid-season finale for South Park, and the end of my first run ever at South Park Studios! Overall it was very challenging and a bit stressful at times, but always fun and exciting with each new episode we got to work on. I was officially invited back for "season 12.5", so I'm of course very happy to be coming back this fall! I imagine this will be the last post regarding working at the studio for a while, so I thought I would show a tiny slice of what I get to do at the studio.

As a Technical Director, I create and rig lots of sets, characters, props and effects animation, which 99% of the time we're given specific approved guides from Art Department to follow. Yet, every once in a blue moon, a montage will happen that has a lot of mini-bgs within a larger bg, such as a location within a background that has been pre-designed, but needs a specific angle for a shot. Art Department has more important backgrounds to create than to spend time creating angles that aren't as critical, so this responsibility will pass directly to a Technical Director. Such a case occured for me on our mid-season finale "Super Fun Time" in the "Super Phun Thyme Montage" sequence. I was asked to create a POV within an arcade machine for a video game Butters and Cartman are playing, so I sketched this up at my desk quickly:

On the top is the initial layout, and then some variations simplified for our Animation Technical Supervisor to take a look at. Once it was approved, I went ahead and created / rigged the final setup, which ended up looking like this in the final show:

Hooray, I'm helping! This may seem super minor, but it still gives me great pleasure and excitement to see something I created displayed on network television, assembled with the rest of the fantastic work of my talented colleagues at the studio. Anyway, it's been a blast so far, and I look forward to busting out the remainder of Season 12 when new episodes are in October. Until then, it's time for some sleep, vacationing, and thesis work!