CHARACTER RIGGER
| OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT SEASON 2 (SHOWTIME)
Our Cartoon President is an animated comedy show based on a recurring segment of Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that allowed real-time interaction with an animated caricature of one Donald J. Trump. Our Cartoon President is an expansion of this bit that lampoons Trump’s presidency and the personalities that surround him, including friends, enemies, and “objective” pundits alike. Regardless of one’s personal politics and sense of humor, the main draw of the program is it’s ability to leverage cutting-edge 2D motion capture technology, courtesy of Adode Character Animator, and in season 2, the production team needed more folks who were able to set up and test, and troubleshoot each and every digital puppet for the performers to flexibly improvise with, not unlike a virtual toy/action figure.
I was proud to be chosen among the lucky few hired to perform such a critical, yet understated component of the show’s success and ultimately be part of something revolutionary. Also, watching the puppets react to your body and facial movements in real time NEVER got old!
ADOBE CHARACTER ANIMATOR RIGGERS | Ian S. Foster, Susan Godfrey, Jin Lin, Richard Roses
TECH DIRECTOR | Nick Martinelli
DRAWN CHARACTER ANIMATION | OCP Animation Team (Season 2)
Challenge 1 - Trump and Stephen Miller share a sweet moment in bed together
Challenge 2 - Nancy Pelosi uses the microwave and talks with her hands
PUPPET GOVERNMENT
Given the topical nature of the show and improvisational talents of the actors who were often comedians themselves, Adobe Character Animator gave the team a lot of freedom to be quick with production while maintaining a certain level of high aesthetic quality. While the rigging team was responsible for innumerable rigs for different characters in multitudinous situations, facilitating interaction with props and/or other puppets while maintaining the show’s signature flexibility for improvisation was always the most challenging.
While much of the rigging process is proprietary (our team worked directly with the Adobe Character Animator folks) and the solutions demonstrated here are quite a bit too involved/technical to commit to the written word, I thought it would be fun to share some ostensibly simple short clips of scenes that required some creative puppet engineering on my (and our awesome technical director’s) behalf in order to get working, and showcases how far the performers can stretch the verisimilitude of the characters and the humor with the right tools.