The Big Pitcher

❤️Where did your love for animation come from?

I think it’s kind of a basic answer, but Disney. I used to get called Mickey Mouse as a kid just because I had a really squeaky voice and I was small. And so for some reason, that gave me a bond to him. I felt connected to this mouse. And so I ended up consuming 1930s/40s shorts of Mickey Mouse. They’ve got genuinely incredible animation, something about when it’s older and paired back, you can kind of feel it more. It feels more created. You can almost feel the animators behind the page. I think that’s what kind of drew me to it originally. That’s what made me fall in love with it. But I think really the fact that it’s just a medium you can do anything in is what I love about it. How limitless it is.

🧠What is your first memory of animation?

I think it was The Magic Roundabout movie. I think I saw that when I was two years old or something crazy. And I don’t know exactly how I felt about it. But I’ve heard that I loved it. I have no memory of originally watching it. But, I’ve been told that I was like a talkative child and it was the one time I stopped, and I just stared at the screen. It feels like a dream in my mind to think about that movie because it’s something I watched when I was so young. I probably thought it was just real things happening. I was like, well, that dog can fly.

✨Who is your favourite animated character?

I think I’ll say, oh, you know, I think it’s Homer Simpson. I think there’s something about him. I’ve been thinking about him recently. Everyone thinks about him as the normal anime dad. But he’s got some really odd traits thrown in there that make him so special. Like all the other anime dads, they are kind of grumpy. They’ve got a childlike innocence. But he’s got this strange, incomprehensible way of solving ideas that everyone talks around. Like there’s one bit in particular when Marge says “Your father can be surprisingly sensitive. Remember when I giggled at his Sherlock Holmes hat? He sulked for a week and then closed his detective agency.” The fact that a runaway line is just like, oh, I have a detective company and he would throw it away if someone made fun of his hat. It’s jokes like that that make him feel like no other character.

🎬What was your favourite moment at Animation Dingle (besides winning, of course)?

My favourite moment…I feel like it may be cheating to say this, but I got ice cream at one point. It was really good. I remember people came in who I kind of recognized. And then more people came in and we had like the whole ice cream store filled up with like 20 to 30 people who I kind of knew and then there was a bunch of people who I’d only met the day before and we were all talking. It was just really nice getting ice cream with everyone. Also because most of them let me try their ice cream flavors, so…

🌟Did you get to meet any industry heroes during the festival?

I did get to walk around the Aardman guy, Peter Lord. I didn’t get to speak to him, but I did walk around him and I spoke to someone who spoke to him. So if I can pretend enough, I can imagine I spoke to him. He seems really nice.

🎤How did you hear about The Big Pitcher?

Last year was my first year going to the festival. I hadn’t heard of it before. Originally, I had submitted a Sting with my three friends who made it and while we were working on it, I saw The Big Pitcher and I was like, okay, why not? I literally did it like two days before the deadline. I had the idea a couple of weeks before, but two days before I drew the characters and then the day of I drew the poster and wrote up the thing. And then everything else happened. 

🐾Can you tell us a little about your winning pitch, Ultra Cat & Mega Dog?

It’s about Ultra Cat, a cat with every power in the world, just the most super powerful, super egotistical, super full of themselves, hero. They’re kind of childish, kind of immature and they kind of don’t really know how to handle other people. All they know is how to fight crime because that’s all they’re determined to do. All they want to be is a superhero. Then their best friend and duo is Megadog. They make up for their super powers with the power of super kindness, which is all they have besides that they’re literally just a normal guy going against like flying robots and laser eyes. But in every episode, they end up winning because super kindness is the most powerful power of all. And that’s always the lesson to try and make kids more empathetic and more kind. That’s kind of the idea of the show. It kind of mixes like wacky out there, like almost Looney Tune style comedy with nice lessons about empathy and kindness. It’s kind of more focused on social lessons rather than the traditional TV show; of this is how you do a maths problem and this is how you talk to parents. It’s more about kids dealing with other kids and how they can kind of deal with it with as much empathy as possible, which I think is a learned skill and it’s a difficult one.

💡What was the biggest challenge you faced when preparing your pitch?

Oh, I think the hardest thing was when I was going through the pitch I would run through an episode to explain it. And getting that episode exactly right was hard, because it needed to be not just an episode, it needed to be the episode. The episode that showcases every character, every plot point, and I had to keep rewriting and rewriting it to show everything perfectly. Because eventually I’d write it and then be like, oh, I don’t need this character anymore, that means this character won’t be shown. I then would have to go back and make them necessary again. It was kind of a difficult thing to write an exact episode for, it took a couple of tries.

🎯How did you approach the pitching process? Any tips or tricks you found helpful?

If it was today, when we’re actually looking at it as a show and not just demonstrating it, I don’t think it would be a good episode at all. The truth is you’re not making an episode, you’re making a showcase. I think it is almost like a trailer for the show. So you should think about how an episode would work, but for this one it should be more about showing each beat, show how episodes generally open, show how episodes generally get a call to action, show how episodes generally introduce their conflict, generally introduce a villain and generally resolve the conflict. You should show the general cases of each because you’re trying to give them like an introduction to it.

🎙️What was it like pitching in front of industry professionals? Any standout moments?

I think the best thing to do is to just pitch to the crowd, completely ignore the guys next to you. Pitch to the crowd, pitch to the audience, pitch to hopefully your friends in the audience, and then by the end, you’ll be like, oh, hey, some industry professionals were watching this. That’s crazy! I was actually rewatching the pitch like two days ago, and when I finished the last page of the episode, there was a huge laugh and a round of applause just for the ending gag. And I had a couple of few slides left, but I realized I’m not going to top this laugh, and I’m about five minutes in. So I just put the remote down and didn’t even get to a thank you slide. I just ended there. If you’ve got a big laugh, you have the big ending laugh. You don’t need anything else. No double dipping.

🏆Looking back, how did it feel to win The Big Pitcher at Animation Dingle 2024?

I think it’s kind of a thing where I was running on so much adrenaline, I barely even considered it. I was in the state of, I submitted this, I drew the poster in one day. I did not think I’d be getting this far. I’m already so far in over my head. I did not think I could win, I did not think I even had a chance. I was genuinely flabbergasted. I remember walking outside to get some fresh air because I was sweating so much. Because I was last and every project was better than the last. I was sitting there sweating, knowing that I had pretty much just finished coloring the slides the night before. And then, I was watching people who had clearly put months of effort and who had planned this out, and I was like, oh my god, I’m going to look like an idiot on stage. So it genuinely took me off guard. I only really considered what just happened afterwards.

🚀How has winning The Big Pitcher helped you in your animation career so far?

I mean, it’s given me a career. I went from jobless to having a job. I cannot stress how much of a change it is. I think it’s something where I can feel a lot more confident going into the industry because I realize it’s a lot more about just doing things and pitching them and trying to get people interested than I thought. it’s less about just getting a job and then being in it. It’s a lot more of a free flowing industry.

🛠️Could you describe what your internship at JAM was like?

I mean, it really felt like I was actually, I mean, okay, I’m saying felt like it was, I was working in the industry, which is just surreal to be able to do. I talked to editors, composers, animators, I conferred with designers, I even planned a theme song with a composer. And having to go back and do drafts of things and learn to write notes, I was doing the job. I was doing the job I wanted!

✍️What was it like to develop your series?

I mean, I think it’s so interesting how it changed a lot, visually, it’s completely different. In a lot of ways, it feels very different. But it really is the same show. Someone asked me what’s actually changed with it since the original and I was like objectively every single piece of the pitch is still there. It’s just the feeling changes so much when you’re working with it from the one you have in your mind. But the original idea of it’s about kindness, it’s about a super strong cat and a kind dog, it has not changed at all from that true line. Every single element is still there, but it just goes so much further than you can expect.

💭What would you say to students thinking about entering The Big Pitcher?

Go for it, just go for it. It’s worth the shot. And it’s one of those things where it costs you nothing to enter but you can exit with a lot. Either A, you create a piece of media you want to make. B, you get further and you’ve got more experience and you get feedback on your project. C, you pitch on stage, you’ve learned and you’ve developed this project and you get that experience of pitching to industry professionals, which is huge and so valuable. Or D, you get a job. And isn’t that what everyone’s fighting for in animation right now, a good old-fashioned job.

🎨What would you say to someone thinking of getting into animation?

I think the best thing to do is to watch movies, like not just animated movies because if you’re thinking about getting into animation, you love animated movies. But the truth is that all art is coming from the same source, the same ideas, the same cinematography exist, the same rules of creation. If you love animation, you’ll love everything else as well. And if you let yourself love it, you’ll understand that there’s a world of influences you can grab from as well. There’s so much to love and enjoy and try as much of it as you can. Read, watch, listen. You’ll find that anything can inspire you.

🔥Finally, describe The Big Pitcher experience in three words.

A Big Stage!