NOTE: I have changed the timezone for this site, so all are L.A. dates/times now.

WELCOME to Los Angeles… At about 10pm last night, we both heard a series of loud, deep thumps in our apartment and the place shook. Eddie turned to me – “What was that?!” I said it must’ve been something heavy being moved upstairs but Eddie swore it came from below us. This morning, we learnt that we had just experienced our first L.A. earthquake!

Well, we have a rental-car at last. Tomorrow we are going to the Jim Tyer screening in Hollywood, and doing a drive-around.

We were talking to Christy Hui today about our “Show Creator” experiences at Warner Bros. (We three are the first bunch of people that WB has optioned new animated properties from). There’s nothing like having to defend and fight for a vision you are passionate about. It’s a tough ride – but at times, exciting. We are learning so much each day being in this town, and everything you hear about working in Hollywood is SO TRUE …

Eddie

We got our “security cards” today – (so we can enter and leave the building anytime we want – mwa ha ha ha ha! )

It’s a pity they left the WB logo off our cards (everyone else has this) so they ain’t really worth showing off. Our cards read “Client” but do not be fooled by the lofty title. We’re really in there 9-7 working like any other employee.

Industry Gossip: The ML storyboards this season are looking GREAT. The direction is fantastic. The team is, to quote higher powers, “tight”.

A Who’s who on the ML Team:

• Ken Kessel (Oh Yeah cartoons) - Creative Producer/Director
• Joel Kuwahara (Simpsons, Icebox) – Associate Producer
• Tim Yoon – Production Manager
• Garth House, Eric Waldman – Production Assistants
• Dave Cunningham (Simpsons), Gabe Swarr(Spumco), Ricky Garduno, Brian Tribble, Tina Kugler, Ben Jones – Storyboard Artists
• Jorge Gutierrez(El Macho) and us – Character Designers
• Roman Laney, Katrien Verbiest – BG Designers. *These guys are amazing !!!
• Peter Hastings (Animaniacs) - Story Editor
• Tony Mora (Spumco), Pam Palma – Flash Animators

Tomorrow evening we are meeting up with Christy Hui who has just had her show- Xiaolin Showdown - optioned by WBA. The show’s Creative Producer is Eric Radomski (Batman) and Matt Danner is designing the characters.

It appears that the Disney Network is very very open to new shows right now. We know THREE people who are developing shows with Disney. Ciro has a high-powered action cyber-monkey show in development as a series. Gabe has his mad cartoon adapted from a comicbook character he created, and Jorge and Sandra are currently producing an awesome pilot … OK, shouldn’t be giving away too much info away here…

It’s Friday tomorrow. We are hiring a car. It will be Eddie’s first time driving on the “wrong” side of the road. I will be trying to figure the roadmap out. Can’t wait to get out of Sherman Oaks.

Above – me at my desk getting acquainted with the new version of Flash (MX) and a very slow computer. I bet there’s only 64MB of RAM on this one.

Tim took us to Giant Robot store at lunchtime today (in Sawtelle, Little Tokyo). He called it micro-Tokyo, because it’s really just one street. Bought some Super Milk-Chan figurines, a Japanese fashion illustration book, and 2 Monsterism figures. There’s so much cute stuff in there I think we’ll have to go back.

On the top floor of WBA – three BIG mascaritas! Will take a better picture tomorrow.

How’s this for a festival?

Update on the ¡Mucha Lucha! DVD: It is due out in August this year and will consist of the first 6 x 11 minute episodes, and will feature bonus “making of” footage (they shot all this today) and some games. Can’t wait to see it…

What you see above is the ML department. Exciting isn’t it? … A series of cubicles housing some supertalented storyboard artists & BG artists. Below is the office of Eddie Mort and Lili Chin.

…Jorge in his El Santo mask. We were all going to put lucha masks on for the DVD shoot but that didn’t really happen. Below is a pic of Matt Danner, Tony Mora (Flash animator) and Ricky Garduno(storyboard artist) being zany artists.

One surreal thing about being at WB Animation is that you get invited to parties like this one:

Mr. Barbera will be ninety-two this year…and he is STILL creating and pitching cartoons! WOW. Good on him!

Well today was a big day. We started working at WB Animation: writing story premises, checking storyboards, designing characters… pretty much what we would normally do in Sydney; the significant difference being that it is so GREAT to meet the in-house crew and be able to talk face-to-face. Beats sending long rambling emails anytime.

Tomorrow is going to be a bigger day. We have a network pitch meeting in the morning, and then the ML DVD people are going to film/interview us and the crew. We have dinner tomorrow night with the producers and execs. Funny how everytime we go to LA we get taken to a Mexican restaurant. Not that we’re complaining. Mexican food in Sydney just doesn’t cut it.

Still haven’t hired a car; (well, we can walk to and from work) but we’re already itching to get out of Sherman Oaks and explore the rest of L.A….

Pic above: The entrance to Warner Bros Animation. That reflected building on the right is where we are staying.

Will take more pics tomorrow

SUNDAY MIDNIGHT – Sherman Oaks

Tonite we hanged out with Jorge and Sandra at their home in Culver City to watch The Oscars. Then four of us went and saw Willard. Let’s just say it is a very very RATTY movie. Don’t go see it if you have a problem with rodents.

Eddie: I liked it, although It could have been even MORE schlocky. 

At last! We have an internet connection here at the apartment thanks to Budget Dialup (prepaid account). It sure is strange using a 56K modem when you’re spoilt on ADSL.

This above pic is from “Viva Jalisco…mi tierra” a 1950′s mariachi-meets-rock ‘n roll musical which was on TV yesterday afternoon. Very groovy movie with lots of cheesy song and dance numbers and a bullfighter.

Below is a streetsign guy on the corner of Ventura and Willis here in Sherman Oaks.

This guy has the all the moves AND attitude: okay – he has to hold this sign up every day as his job, but damn it, he’s gonna take the opportunity to work on his dance steps, and give us ALL a show!  Inspired!

Tonite, we returned to our apartment building to find this note outside every door:

Dear Residents,

In the wake of recent world events and the FBI’s newest warnings regarding aparment communities as potential targets, The Grand management team needs your help…

…”There are indications that discussions were held about the possibility of terrorists renting apartment units in various areas of the United States and rigging them with explosives. The FBI has no information indicating that this subject advanced beyond the discussion stage”. … etc etc

Well, let’s hope nothing drastic happens… Must go to bed soon. Big day tomorrow …

Here we are in Sherman Oaks! Sitting in an internet cafe on Ventura Blvd (Sherman Oaks Village), trying to find a cheap car-rental place around here, without much success so far… It’s Sunday, after all.

Surprisingly LAX was quiet yesterday. We thought we would see armed guards everywhere but no. Well, our apartment building is right NEXT DOOR to the WB Animation studio. It would take literally 1 minute to walk to work every morning.

Need to get an internet connection happening in our apartment. (We’ll have computers and broadband at WB during the week, but it wouldn’t be cool to do our “other work”/private stuff on location)

Not much to report… Still feeling a little jetlagged.

Songs in the Key of FWAK! - a new CD mix just posted of more stuff we listen to here at the studio.  Still happy to trade but not till we get back from o’seas.

There will be some very light blogging over the next few days as we prepare for our big trip.

I would LURVE to post a Super Porky design we both worked on this week (for ML Season 2) but I am not allowed to, for copyright reasons…

Anyway, here’s a webpage with some funny Super Porky photos.