How'd THAT Happen?

Okay, let me make this quick.

When Mike and I talked through the two stories of the Hellboy Animated movies, we made them chock full of monsters, suspense, thrills, chills, spills and excitement.

Well.... evidently they weren't full enough. 
Our movies are/were about 20 - 25 minutes short!  Aieeee!  A normal animated "half hour" is 22 minutes long; the rest of the time is made up of titles, commercials, bumpers and credits.  How'd we miscalculate?

My fault.  I went against my better judgment when the movies were in script.  I break down the action of my scripts pretty thoroughly.  If not scene by scene, pretty darn close.  So for an episode of a show like Hellboy, a half hour would be about 33-35 pages long.  Therefore, a 75 minute feature in that style should be around 120 pages, maybe 130.  Except I was at a new studio and they had just had a couple of productions that were boarded much too long from scripts much shorter.  So when Matt Wayne turned our outline into a script, he was very nervous when it came out under 90 pages.  So was I, so we added an action sequence that featured not only Hellboy but Abe and Liz.  It was sort of a glimpse of their last adventure which made for a much stronger introduction of Hellboy (which had been very low key before that). 

Some production people warned us that we'd be overly long and that storyboard artists would be spending time working on sequences that would never make it in.  I thought I'd risk being long because the new material added so much.  Thank God I did because when the timing came back we were 20 plus minutes short!  As I said before - aieeee.  Meanwhile, we had kept the page count of the second movie short because we were worried about being long again.  Aieeee again.

So we've been working on the new material and shifting schedules to create the new material.  We're not done but the light at the end of the tunnel can be seen if you squint.

But the good news, and yes there was good news, the good news was that the studio didn't panic and the movies got better.  One, they're jam packed.  Two, in the first movie, Abe and Liz have an entire subplot that increases the scope of the film and puts more at stake.  Three, one of the guys on staff asked if the new material had been cut out of the script originally because it felt like it should have always been there.  That was the best thing.  Everybody can use a brown noser like that.  (Actually, he was being very sincere.) We had a neat story and just padding it out to fill time could have ruined it but the new stuff fit in and added different kinds of excitement.  We're trying something much more ambitious in the second film that I'm really jazzed about.  Can't talk about it for spoiler reasons but it's a story structure that I never would have thought of normally but will really add substance. 

I should've known better but the end result should make everyone happy, especially those who would've been disappointed in mere Liz and Abe cameos.  So that's why the blog's been behind.  I should get it back on track soon.   -- Tad

Comments

[Kim Larsen]

Hurray for miscalculations - Now we get more of Abe and Liz!!! :) Now ... how much you got to miscalculate to get Roger in this thing??? :)

[Miles]

If you get Roger into the second one then you will unto a God. A God of... Hellboy animation. Yes.

[Helen Chavez]

Huzza for more Abe and Liz!! Amazing how things that originally bite you in the bum can turn into a blessing in disguise. Does that mean Ron, Doug et al will have to come back in to record more dialogue? Oh ... wait ... maybe you can't say.

Still, it all sounds thoroughly scrumtious!

[Kirk]

Well, if your miscalculation had to have an upside THIS is a good one.
Glad it all worked out ok.

[Tad]

Funny how "making it quick" turns into such a long post. There's no way we'd sneak Roger into a story line just to make it longer. I might have said it before but the story of Roger would merit his own movie and he wouldn't automatically become part of a "team" that goes out on adventures. The comic is called "Hellboy" for a reason and I hope that some future stories will be the big guy going solo. Hmmn, maybe it's time to start planning a BPRD spin off ;)

[mattcrap]

You are extremely talented in giving SO much information, while at the same time not ruingin any story elements.

THAT'S the kind of "During Production News" that I can really get behind.

Kudos to you, sir

[Arref]

This is a great example of the alchemy of such productions when it comes to being flexible and yet planning everything out.

[WoD]

Anything that means more HB and crew has to be a good thing...

[Typhon24]

Great news. Keep it coming! :)