David Barkley is Animating: 2009

I want to hand draw a one-minute sequence of a cartoon show. It will be called “Wannabes” and follows a hyperactive visionary with delusions of being crowned “King of Holllywood” and his mild-mannered roommate. Eric, the former, is struck by a limo, which is lost and searching for the highway. An angelic woman steps out of the back and looks down on the injured boy. The chauffer gruffly picks Eric up and returns to his phone call for directions. The chauffer hurries the angelic woman into the limo and drives away. MOV-STR; reads the license plate. The mild-mannered roommate, James, puts down a stack of boxes labeled “Eric Bed”, “Eric Kitchen”, “Eric etc.” Eric rolls in a wheel chair to the porch steps. He springs out of the chair onto the porch avoiding all the steps. James shows Eric his new room. Eric sees another door and James shows him that there is a spare room behind his room, which is only used for storage. James tells Eric “good night” and leaves him staring into the empty room. Night comes and goes and James wakes up and gets out of bed. He goes to the kitchen when a small boy wearing a black shirt and hat nearly bumps into him. Both seem surprised that the other is there. Eric bursts out of his bedroom. The boy gives Eric a cup of coffee and scurries off. James wants to know where the boy came from and Eric tells him that he has employed interns. “Why,” James responds, “Because I have built a movie studio in the back room and production will begin any day now,” Eric says. James looks into his friend’s dilated pupils and asks, “What are you thinking?” Eric’s POV is a melty, trippy, distortion of reality with several cameos by the Angelic woman cooing sweet encouragements. Eric becomes inexplicably angry and throws his coffee against the wall, which the intern promptly cleans up. Eric shows off the entire operation, which includes a nearly completed movie studio in the room, a pre-production office both staffed with more interns, and outside an “interns holding” pen and still more interns doing house and lawn chores. Back inside James attempts to halt the chaos and clear the house, but he is steamrolled by Eric describing their film; The Bachelor: Fayetteville. And who will be the lucky-lonely-single stud? James of course. Things will spiral downward even quicker now; including a casting session held at Wal-Mart, a Strong Man competition performed by the ladies, the first [and only] rose ceremony, and James’ final on-set meltdown which cancels the show and makes him a Youtube super-celebrity, which causes Eric to become even more persistent on doing the same thing next week.

Attached will be Character pencil tests and storyboards. This project will be created almost exclusively in After Effects. I do not have a functioning scanner and being Halloween I am a little pressed for time, so these attachments will be posted by tomorrow evening.