The 33rd installment of “The Simpsons” annual 'Treehouse of Horror' series was an ambitious one. Animation director Rob Oliver managed to bring three ghostly classics into the Simpsonverse, turning “Westworld,” “The Babadook” and “Death Note” into Simpsonworld, the Pookadook and Death Tome. “It was taxing,” Oliver said, but the work paid off — the episode earned an Emmy nomination, making it the fourth Treehouse special to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
For Variety's "Making a Scene," presented by HBO, Oliver and “Simpsons's" consulting producer David Silverman broke down their process of creating this year's special.
For Variety's "Making a Scene," presented by HBO, Oliver and “Simpsons's" consulting producer David Silverman broke down their process of creating this year's special.
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00:00 gonna give him a very dignified and humane murder.
00:03 The most peaceful way to go.
00:08 - I was extremely nervous.
00:10 People had wanted it for so long
00:12 that it could have easily been a swing and a miss.
00:16 - Oops.
00:16 - We got an animation studio that worked on
00:20 the original Death Note to do all the animation,
00:23 all the design for that story, and it was fantastic.
00:26 - Whatever notes we had, they were pretty minor
00:29 because it was just a really delightful take on it
00:31 and just really great looking.
00:33 (upbeat music)
00:35 Hi there, this is David Silverman.
00:45 I am consulting producer on The Simpsons.
00:48 For quite some time, I've been on The Simpsons
00:50 wearing various hats, recording this from Burning Man
00:54 here in Black Rock City.
00:56 - My name is Rob Oliver,
00:57 and I'm a long time animation director and character artist.
01:01 And this is Varieties Making a Scene.
01:03 I've always loved the Treehouse of Horror episodes.
01:08 They give us a chance to see this show in a different light.
01:11 It allows us to tell really spooky, dramatic stories
01:16 rather than just having to hit the comedy all the time.
01:19 - Ooh, slideys.
01:20 (gasps)
01:23 Where am I?
01:24 - What made this Treehouse of Horror so special?
01:27 I think it's two things.
01:29 One is the Westworld style story, Simpsons World.
01:34 - I'll do a hard reset.
01:35 - I'm king of the world.
01:38 - The second reason that this Treehouse of Horror
01:41 was so big was the anime.
01:43 I mean, Death Tome, based on Death Note.
01:46 (upbeat music)
01:48 - We were all very excited to do something like this.
01:54 And then it was really, I think, a very smart idea
01:57 to engage a studio in Korea that actually worked
02:01 on the very thing we were parodying.
02:04 - Any person whose name is written in this Death Tome
02:10 will meet their death.
02:11 - It was really great to see all the characters
02:14 designed in anime.
02:15 I mean, we had Jailbird in there, Mr. Burns,
02:17 Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Kent Brockman,
02:22 so many characters.
02:23 And a lot of them in the background
02:25 as Lisa's just walking through the city.
02:27 - I loved it, man.
02:29 I thought they were beautiful and they were so perfect.
02:32 Like, yeah, that's how I'd wanna see them
02:34 as animated characters.
02:35 No question about it.
02:36 - The script was fantastic.
02:38 Every joke was so good.
02:39 And then Hankazaria doing the Shinigami's voice
02:42 was fantastic too.
02:43 (laughing)
02:44 - Wait, your name is Steve?
02:46 - Well, when I was born, eons ago,
02:49 Steve was a very exotic name.
02:51 - I was excited and nervous
02:53 because what if people didn't like it?
02:56 What if we didn't like it?
02:58 People had wanted it for so long
03:00 that it could have easily been a swing and a miss.
03:03 But I think it really, really worked on so many levels.
03:08 It really rang true to the original Death Note.
03:11 And it was done by the artists
03:13 that are fully capable of doing that.
03:16 We would have botched it.
03:18 But, so I'm glad they took it from us.
03:20 (laughing)
03:21 - Do I even exist?
03:23 What is consciousness?
03:25 Okay, I can handle being a machine.
03:29 - Simpsons World, that gave us
03:32 so many great little fan nuggets.
03:35 - You know, one of the things I'm very proud of
03:37 that I've done is Homer skipping in the Land of Chocolate.
03:40 So it was sort of nice to see that.
03:41 - A million things in the backgrounds
03:43 or foregrounds of every scene.
03:45 We just loaded it up with references.
03:48 A little taste of each and every joke
03:51 that they've loved throughout the years.
03:53 - And that starts off with a classic monorail scene.
03:56 - This is the snack holder where I can put my beverage,
03:59 or if you will, cupcake.
04:01 - There are so many iconically great scenes,
04:04 but A, it's an iconically great scene.
04:07 So you kind of like, most people know what you're referring to
04:11 and B, it's one of the more hilarious scenes
04:14 of that iconically great show and a great scene.
04:17 (upbeat music)
04:20 I call the big one bitey.
04:21 - We purposely made the monorail scenes
04:24 look like the original footage.
04:26 We traced all the original footage.
04:28 - This of course was done
04:29 in the pre-digitally composited style.
04:33 Well, like right now we're in the 16 by nine frame size.
04:36 Back then it was called four by three aspect ratio.
04:39 So we have to sort of take those images
04:41 and basically trace it to try to maintain that look.
04:45 - And then we deviated within scene and we added new poses
04:50 and then went from there.
04:51 So then we had to match all the old color
04:54 and then transition into the new color.
04:57 We chose colors to match the original colors.
05:00 Then we added filters to give a little haze over the line
05:05 and then add a little cell shadow behind
05:08 to make it look like it was still actually cells being used
05:11 instead of colored on computer.
05:14 - Homer, there's a family of possums in here.
05:17 - I call the big one bitey.
05:19 And then really once the two guys come in,
05:24 the two frat guys who then force Homer to chug a beer,
05:27 once that happens,
05:29 then that's the new animation that we added.
05:32 And so we then had nothing to trace over.
05:35 - Large versus the monorail
05:37 is experiencing technical difficulties,
05:39 but there are plenty of other classic "Simpsons" world
05:42 moments playing out right now.
05:45 - Oh, let's get high and shoot Mr. Burns.
05:47 - When Homer was looking around,
05:48 he woke up in the tech room.
05:51 He didn't know what was happening to himself.
05:53 And he looked around and we saw the sideshow Mel
05:56 coming up out of that liquid.
05:57 That was CG sideshow Mel rotating in that wheel.
06:02 It was just sort of a dummy in place.
06:05 And so then I had to draw him
06:08 and sort of map him on to his CG self.
06:11 And then we had effects go in
06:13 and we had a great effects artist
06:15 just match all that goo effects to sideshow Mel
06:19 in the wheel that turned out to really look
06:21 like something special.
06:23 - My cat's breath smells like cat food.
06:25 - That's nice Ralph, but we're sort of in a hurry.
06:28 - The "Simpsons" world segment really, really did.
06:33 It was taxing.
06:34 It was a lot of work for a lot of people.
06:36 - Anytime you have a crowd scene,
06:37 it's just labor intensive.
06:39 Pencil mileage, my friend, pencil mileage.
06:42 - And just so many Ralphs too,
06:44 being hit by the Canyon Arrow,
06:46 that alone took a lot.
06:48 - Get in.
06:52 - I am a fan.
06:55 I've always been a fan first
06:57 and then an artist and director.
06:59 So I loved hearing that Canyon Arrow song
07:02 and being able to draw it.
07:03 We had CG artist Brent Bowen help us a lot
07:07 with that Canyon Arrow.
07:08 And it was, I loved it.
07:10 And I loved that it was just plowing
07:11 through all those Ralphs.
07:13 They pulled down the Matt Groening statue,
07:15 broke through the dome to escape.
07:18 - Kang and Kodos are a component
07:20 of every Halloween episode.
07:21 We do our best to try to get them involved.
07:24 Sometimes there's an episode about them
07:25 or sometimes they come in for a very unceremonious cameo.
07:30 We often will hang a light on that as part of the gag.
07:34 We've often engaged stop motion.
07:36 We really like stop motion.
07:37 Just something we enjoy doing.
07:38 It's nice to throw in a different animation style
07:42 into the mix.
07:43 I think this adds more texture.
07:46 - Basically from script being done to air,
07:50 it is generally one year on those tree house episodes.
07:55 Typical episode, it is about nine months maybe.
07:59 - I tend to find that you learn a lot on those episodes
08:03 because even though we have a long time to do them per se,
08:06 they're certainly shorter than doing a feature.
08:08 You learn to be a little bit more nimble sometimes.
08:10 I think I follow my instinct
08:12 or learned how to follow my instinct better
08:14 doing these episodes.
08:16 - The day after this nominated Halloween episode aired,
08:20 I started working on next year's Halloween episode.
08:24 I saw my show air and then I had to go sit at my desk
08:27 the next day and just start directing the next one.
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