At an event in Los Angeles, creators Genndy Tartakovsky, Dan Harmon, and Joe Cappa shared their experiences with Emmy-nominated series. Michael Ouweleen, president of Adult Swim, made it clear that the network prioritizes unique visions over a homogeneous style. Tartakovsky presented the episode Feast of the Flesh from Primal, where Spear protects a grasshopper in a blend of emotion and visual horror.
Hand-drawn versus digital software in today's animation 🎨
Harmon joked that Tartakovsky was cheating by hand-drawing his series, while he and Cappa relied on digital software. Tartakovsky confessed that Primal is his purest and most sincere work, and he doubted whether the audience would have patience for a series without dialogue. However, he discovered that it manages to capture attention even in a culture of second screens, as when his team gathered to watch it during lunch.
When silence overcomes the infinite scroll of the mobile phone 📱
Tartakovsky feared that a wordless series would bore the modern audience, but in the end, it turned out that his colleagues put down their phones to watch Primal during their lunch break. While Harmon and Cappa sweated over their digital clicks, the hand-drawn artist took home the prize of full attention. Ironies of animation: less dialogue, more concentration.