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Interview with The Vad Flaaten Brothers - Part 2

Posted by TheInterviewer - August 28th, 2012


Index Page | Special Theme | Official Thread ]


Interview No. 100

Interview By: @The-Great-One



[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]




Welcome to the 100th Interview Extravaganza! I highly suggest you go back and read Part 1 if you haven't already. There is a lot to go through here and you certainly don't want to miss a single word of the stories and creativity behind these two artists.




Q: The movie My New Grounds would be a parody version of the HP commercials going around at the time. You two would make your very own versions with MarcyVF's New Grounds coming out first, followed by TommyVF's New Grounds. Why did you wait an entire year before doing yours Tommy? Also did you both consider doing one together instead of separate?

A:


TommyVF: First of all, I didn't wait a year! We made them pretty much simultaneously! Markus submitted his late December 2007, and I submitted mine right after new year's. I waited for some days to have a chance of winning a better award, I think. Dunno. And no, we never considered making one for both. Maybe that would've been fun, but we didn't want to be like one mutant organism, I guess. :) You know, like we were in mom's stomach. Belly. I mean womb.


COREY HOLLAND did the voices for the movies, and I always thought Marcy's was coolest. Anyways, it wasn't really original, but I'd say it was a nice experience. Yep. Was that an interesting sentence?


MarcyVF: Oh man, another example I was really stupid at the time: I wasn't aware of, untill now, (YES NOW!) that the style was a parody of the HP commercials. I just literally copied Allen Awesome's layout, man I feel so bad right now. I didn't even record the voices, I got Corey Holland (best voice actor ever) to do it for me. That's a little embarrassing. I also remember Allen Awesome humorously saying to me something like "You bumped me off frontpage, haha!", and I learned a new expression and felt really cool. Looking at the movie now, and the reviews, I feel really bad for copying Allen Awesome's flash, and the movie provoked disgust as I watch my awkward and unconfident hand movements and my arrogant, wannabe script. Tommy seems more humble. Maybe?


Holy shoosh. It's so super very funny how unaware we were at the time of what was happening around us, and of the trends that were around and why we were doing what we did. We basically just copied and mimicked others and "jumped on bandwagons". This reminds me that a cetrain Newgrounds user even PMed me with a long blog post he was planning on posting about artists like me and Tommy who were just "jumping on bandwagons" to gain cheap fame. Luckily, we talked him out of it and figured we had some things in common. HOHOHO, I bet you wonder who this user may be.


Oh, and the reason we didn't do one for the both of us is because I was first and we're two people.




Q: When it comes to animation, I believe your best work absolutely has to be Snowmen. The animation and art in this is simply breathtaking, it is not only humorous, but at the same time heart-warming as well. What all can you tell us about the creation of this movie as well as winning the award it did?

A:


TommyVF: We disagree that Snowmen is our best animation, but thanks for believing so! Spend It Wisely, you see, was a much larger project with more planning and thinking. And the very animation work in Snowmen is a lot more messy. Snowmen was mostly made for the Christmas spirit, and we wanted to do some snowmen-killing stuff. When we did the animation, we were really excited about character movement and things that Nogfish was doing (again, check him out!), so we emphasized cartoonish human animation. I agree that it ended up as a fairly nice thing, though. Probably one of our best animations... Thank you. :) It was exciting to create the whole thing, too, and Markus started the whole thing. Because it was whole thing. Which was whole. The thing. He did the spying and the fighting, and I loved the wackiness and followed him. I did the ending and added more scenes, and we didn't always have much time. But it was awesome winning a prize, and I'm glad people liked it. I've also heard that the ending with that baby has made lots of boys and girls out there cry their livers up and down, so that's really touchy and cool. I appreciate your appreciation. Maybe Justin Bieber watched it, even.


We also made an extended version for a Norwegian cultural arrangement/competition. Where I did all the music because we wanted to make most of the sound ourselves. The song in the fighting sequence is not something I'm very proud of, by the way! I made it by mixing random loops etc I found in Logic, the music program. Really random loops, that I randomly picked out from the list. So it was kind of a joke song, but we used it because we didn't have anything better to use. (I'd say we had, but I was young.)


MarcyVF: First, thanks for the love! Appreciate it. I so think Tommy is exaggerating a little here, as animation-wise Snowman is simply a little more spectacular than Spend It Wisely. Anyways, what Tommy says here is mostly true.




Q: TripleBits has you two working with SimonG once again. You have stated it as "A bunch of unfinished projects from the northern trio." I remember submitting this into the Newgrounds Treasure Hunt one year, because despite it being unfinished it is still quite funny. Why were these unfinished and why were they just thrown together?

A:


TommyVF: Wow, thanks for submitting it to the treasure hunt! Yes, TripleBits was something we had wanted to do for quite a long time. But the project itself went fast. It was inspired by Yotam Perel's (very radically great guy!) TidBitz, which was "a couple of shorts that were too short to be submitted to Newgrounds alone." This idea came from Wonchop's Tidbits, which was the same thing. Wonchop was first. Yotam Perel was second. And we were third!


They were unfinished because we had too many ideas and not enough time. You know, life. They were just thrown together because that was the easiest thing to do. You know, time.


MarcyVF: Thanks for the love once again, appreciate it. I'm Markus Vad Flaaten, and I approve this message, what Tommy just said.




Q: Life in Portal: Madness gave you both the chance to work with Yotam Perel, a.k.a. LazyMuffin and Egoraptor as well as other big artists such as HappyHarry, eddsworld, and Appsro. How did it feel to work with these different artists on this one project?

A:


TommyVF: To be honest, I didn't do anything at all. Markus recorded his own voice plus my voice, and I don't even know why. So I don't really feel like I've worked with any of them, though we've collaborated with Yotam after that project. And he's still really amazing. Sorry!


MarcyVF: Haha, um. Yeah. It was more a collaboration between everyone and Appsro. I don't think anybody had much contact with people other than Appsro. Unless I've been left behind. It was, unfortunately, not such a spectacular experience, and I didn't feel close to any of the big names. It was fun to brag about though. So fun.




Q: One of the strangest collaborations I have ever seen has to be Spend It Wisely. The bizarre nature of these characters, the animation, the writing, everything. Where did this idea spawn from and what was the process of it coming together?

A:


TommyVF: Just to get this straight: Me and my brother agree that this is the project we are most happy with. If you wanna watch our best stuff as of now, then watch Spend It Wisely! Please. DO IT!!!!11


The origins of this tale is actually a one-page comic we made for fun. It was called "Caz & P", and had 12 square pictures. Markus filled the first square, and I did the second, he the third, and so on. The concept was to not plan anything. I didn't know what Markus wanted to happen, and he didn't know what I was going to draw. There were two main characters: A guy with a cassette (audio tape) for a head (Caz), and one with a pear for a head (P). The heads were as large as their bodies, and their bodies looked like kid bodies. They didn't have eyes or facial details. The first square had them both standing next to eachother, and then they were talking and one of them god kidnapped by a giant flower. Basically.


Anyways, this comic was hanging on our wall, and I thought the characters were so cool that we ought to make an animation with them. So I told Markus and we started to script. The story was mainly my idea, and most of the scenes and ideas spawned when we were about to sleep. We wrote down a lot of ideas, both random and specific, big and small. And then we chose the best ideas and wrote a script with lines for each character. 75% of our ideas never made it into the animation!, by the way! We also planned what kind of music we wanted, what kind of backgrounds, what kind of drawing style and stuff. The thing we decided last was the ending.


We then contacted the three best voice actors we knew: Yotam Perel, Corey Holland and Aras Afsaji, a childhood friend. The three of them really did a great job, and it took them many months of updating and redoing and fixing and tweaking to get it all done. Their result was really hilarious and contained a lot of improvisation and different voice versions to choose from. We animated the whole movie simultaneously while mailing back and forth. Once we got some voice files, we animated and lip-synced the parts we could.


These things happened quite simultaneously, by the way. Don't be tricked by the paragraphs.


We also contacted Simon, a bropal from our neighborhood, to make some backgrounds. We asked him because we wanted some help, and because we wanted him to be a part of it. I made most of the music in Logic by recording guitar and keyboards and mixing and tweaking loops. Markus made one song, I think, and daddy recorded some bluesy B3 organ stuff for us. Because we're not that skilled.


Then we composited it all in After Effects, adding text, transitions, explosions and shaking, as well as color corrections, fading and extra stuff. We also added the stop-motion sequences, and some random trippy footage for the experimental fairy part.


And then we submitted it to Newground and Vimeo and Youtube, and it's now our most viewed and commented animation with almost 300 000 views. Thanks, folks!


A very sad fun fact about this animation is that we tried to submit it to the Amandus Festival (a Norwegian national youth movie festival/awards thingy) twice. This year and 2011. But in 2011 we were one day late by sending it in, and this year the animation was too long. Relevant fact: In 2010 we won the Best Animation Award on the Amandus Festival with "Snowmen". So yeah. Do the math. Lol. :)


Fun fact #2: The three voicers, YOTAM, COREY and ARAS, kept working with us professionally and paid on some freelance cartoon work we got into last summer. So their free work paid off in the long run, kind of. They're all very talented, versatile, funny, creative and cooperative voice actors, by the way. Give 'em a call.


MarcyVF: I've corrected Tommy on some areas of his answers, otherwise it's all true. This was Tommy's baby. He pushed this project along and initiated the whole thing. We did some pretty cool scripting and had some fun happy times on the bus to school. We were trying our best not to make a Chowder copy as we were, and have always kind of been a little anxious about trying not to steal other people's styles as we tend to become very very inspired. Like in MarcyVF's New Grounds - Allan Awesome, TwinBits - Yotam Perel/Wonchop, Snowmen - Nogfish, and also because of the bandwagon-PM mentioned earlier. Don't get me wrong, I think I've got some relatively original work as well, like Comeback Campnorth, Skater V2, Please Don't Mute Me!, Sugar Rush (Hi guys) and The Murderer.




Q: Recently, Edd Gould a.k.a. eddsworld. You two have been known to work with him, what can you tell us about Edd that I might not have known or others?

A:


TommyVF: I'm sorry, but I don't think we ever talked to Edd. We've watched his animations regularly, and were big fans, and we hear from many people that he was a great guy. But, as I said, the Life In The Portal collaboration didn't bring us closer to the other voice actors there, including Edd. I'm really impressed by the way his friends handled his passing, and I wish the people who loved him the most the very best! Rest in peace, bro.


MarcyVF: Unfortunately, we never got to work with Edd before his passing, so I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about him that you don't know. We were big fans, and I remember he was one of the first to make me use that v-mouth (http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wBxDmjZxxL0/0.jpg) sometimes. I was inspired by his simple faces and characters. It was really depressing to hear about his departing, and it made me think of this whole internet animation community thing. Although I didn't know him, I sure bet he was a fine young bloke, and the whole Eddsworld Legacy is just pure awesomeness.




Q: What advice do you have to give to those looking to get into animation?

A:


TommyVF: It kind of depends on what kind of animation, and what you wanna do with it... But, hmm... First advice, maybe: You have to like it! If you don't really want to spend hours and hours drawing the same characters, new backgrounds or whatever you want, you shouldn't do it. Animation can be a pain in the buttox for some people, and it requires patience. At least for me, who use my hands to draw.


Second advice, maybe: It takes a lot of time to learn Flash and to find your own style. Buy a cheap Wacom Bamboo tablet and download Flash. We learned Flash mostly by ourselves, and it was not a fast process! So again, be patient...


How to download Flash? Lol I don't know. I use a Mac, I don't know computer stuff.


A third advice is to watch animations, cartoons, movies, read comics and maybe even books. And all kinds of art. Depending on what you want to do, this will inspire you and hopefully keep your ideas fresh. Listen to music and animate what comes to mind!


Fourth advice: You can always do better! When you watch your animations, think of things that could be done different or better. Never stop learning lessons from others and yourself, and take critique and feedback.


If you want to make a living out of it, though, you should create as many ambitious, original, freestyle animations as you can, as well as having profiles all over the net. Getting the first paid jobs can be really hard, though, as it often depends on personal relations rather than being on Twitter and stuff. Check out sites like Wooshii, or just make small animations for free for people you know. Like intros, ads, conference videos, entertainment for weddings, or just whatever you can. Or make a simple series on Youtube and get some hundred thousand views every month. And get a sponsor or something? Don't know how that works, lol!


MarcyVF: To get where me and my brother are now, based on our story and our experience?


Thing number one: Suck it in! MMH! Watch loads and loads of cartoons or animations you like. Whatever you find inspiring, touching, interesting or amusing, just suck it all in and let it become a part of you. Listen to music if you love music, talk to people if you love that. You know. Yeah. Um, just fill your head with inspiration from wherever.


Thing number two: Puke it all out again! If you wanna be good at it, you just need to stop working out, stop dating, and stop doing homework and eating or whatever you may come up with doing, and just animate or draw all day long. That was a joke. But time is needed. Oh gah, I'm so cliché it hurts my back. Man! But really, use your inspiration and try to make something new. Wow, who am I to give you this advice?


Thing number three: Copy. Then try to be original. My hard theory is that copying is learning, and the best way of learning. As we copy reality and learn from it and understand how reality work, only then can cartoonish exaggeration and juiciness like that commence. By bending the original copy. I loved Nogfish's style so much I copied it for a period, then I tried to bend it to my own. That was hard, though, but I think it's the way to go for most new learners who aren't contemporary artist who aim on creating a new art form every other day.


Thing number four: Get Flash or ToonBoom or something. I think ToonBoom is pretty rad, but never tried it.


Thing number five: I guess keep failing and stay hungry stay foolish and all that.




Q: With this redesign, there are many more options for collaboration than ever before. What advice can you give to those who are looking to start a collab or looking to join a collab?

A:


TommyVF: Leading a collab? Remember that you don't have to accept all the crappy bits you may receive, as you're actually in charge. Don't be afraid to give critique. Participating in a collab? Make your part unique and complete, make it stand out. And I'm not saying all this because I'm good at it. I'm not.


When I cooperate with, say, Markus and Simon, we communicate personally all the time, so it's a different process. It's really important, though, that if you're a leader, you shouldn't let anyone mess with your vision or idea for the project or the final outcome. Be a dictator, because then it turns out the best. The more different opinions trying to fuse, the higher the chance for a not so polished, thorough and nice outcome. In my opinion.


MarcyVF: On the One Layer Collab, I was, as I've said, a stupid little boy. Anyways, my best advice is do your best and try to stick out. Don't make a collab entry that looks a bit like someone else's. :) Tommy's dictatorship theory of creative process is my choice too. If you have a good idea, don't let anyone hurt it, haha. If you believe in your idea, just go with that 100 % instead of some other idea 50 %. Now I'm being a little bit cocky maybe, but if you see the horizon (a stunning result being possible) nobody else can sail for that exact same horizon, cause it's all in your head. At least that's my experience: the best things are made when a product is built as close as possible to the polished main idea. Something like that.




Q: How has your time on Newgrounds affected you as a person and a creator?

A:


TommyVF: This was answered in part in the first question, but Newgrounds has been very important for us. It has probably shaped our humor and animation, storytelling and drawing style. The different artist and the multitude of series and ideas has fueled our creativity and motivated us in many ways. Until we got to work with animation professionally! Newgrounds has also given us a vast number of viewers, a whole lot of feedback, many great friends, and of course a nice place to hang out with other creative Flash nerds. Which is a positive description of Newgrounders.


MarcyVF: It has affected me greatly, of course, it was the first thing that showed to me that this animation thing I'd been doing was a global thing that people around the world could show interest in. As we dived into the Newgrounds community, and didn't know of or care to join any other communities like YouTube, DeviantArt, Vimeo or Dribbble (before Campnorth, haha), our humour, drawing and animation style, evry freaking thing, it changed according to our Newgrounds community. Our whole basis for developing a real skill within animation was formed in the community. We learned to be confident about our ideas, that somehow you could make money out of it, and that great people with pretty pretty voices and proficient proficient skills were right around the corner ready to collaborate! THANKS, NEWGROUNDS! We would like to kiss Newgrounds on the mouth for it helping us become what we are today. Giggle.




Q: What can we expect from the Vad Flaaten Bros. in the future?

A:


TommyVF: We're going to London in September to study! A Bachelor in Animation and Illustration at Kingston University. So we will probably produce a lot more, since it's what we learn at school. Right now we're kind of working on a secret, silly series with random stuff in it. Maybe an episode of that is around the corner? WHO KNOWS? Not this guy.


MarcyVF: My little brother is being weird again. Luckily this is the final question. YEAH UM we've been working a lot the past years, and trying out other things (check out our Dribbble/Vimeo), so sorry for that. The pressure I felt when I got my first encouraging review as a 13 year-old Newgrounder, I still kind of feel today. Which is funny. And also touching. I've tried 3D, design, motion graphics and filming, but stupid animation is still my passion. Anyways, we'd like to get back to silly stupid random characters, and we're even planning a silly stupid random series. Oh man. That's it for now, folks. If you read all this, I feel sorry for you.


TommyVF: Though I was being silly, we are actually taking a BA in Illustration & Animation at Kingston Uni starting september the 17th. And yeah, you shouldn't read all this. At least not this. This. This. This. THHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH




Patience is a virtue, this is very true seeing how this one interview took three months to do. Tommy and Markus are both very funny people and it shows in their answers. However they are serious about their works and have fun with it more than anything else. These two were simply a delight to interview and seeing as how they were requested a good bit I wanted to save them for the 100th and I am certainly glad I did. They're works range from bizarre to beautiful both at the same time. A set of twins, different mindsets, and overall artistic majesty and wonderful comedic timing.




So number 100. I was asked by some people if this is where I should call it an end. To be of no more. I myself wondered if I should either stop doing The Interviewer at this point or pass it down to someone else to run, and slowly yet surely drift away into the shadows. Yeah, yeah, I know, cut the melodramatic crap. Throughout this time of waiting for Tommy and Markus to respond to my questions, I slowly got the itch to start doing interviews again and I can't wait to keep going. I have a long list of suggestions and as long as I have my fuel source by my side I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. We've hit 100... so let's hit 100 more.




[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]


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Comments

I also thought I might add that Spend it Wisely is the greatest flash of 2011.

Congrats to the 100th interview!