Tuesday was Day 1 of production for the second season of The Venture Bros.:
It’s been long in coming, but we’re on our way. The design teams got their first script, made their first sketches, and everyone seems really up. Despite our lack of Wacom monitors (the distributors are a month behind in shipping them) and a suitable place to eat lunch (the “lunch room” has been co-opted as office space). Also turned the third script in today. A little yarn featuring the return of Molotov Cocktease and a little peek into Brock’s former life. Doc and I have both been firing on all cylinders creatively — we’ve both been writing two scripts at a time — which has made writing a blast. Somehow there’s less pressure this time around and we’re actually a little bit ahead of ourselves, which is nice because when you’re not banging your head against the wall wondering what the hell you’re going to write about with a deadline looming, you get to finesse your scripts a little more; to go back and tweak things just the way you like ‘em. It also helps production to know what’s coming for them in a few weeks, the better to delegate their work — like when an episode that takes place in twenty different locations follows a show where the Ventures sit around the compound for 22 minutes, they can spread their work out a bit. We’ve also been doing some preliminary “re-designing” over the past few weeks — honing the character designs to be a bit more iconic and animation-friendly, improving the style of the backgrounds and giving more thought to where our beloved characters live and work, etc. It’s been a lot of fun going back to all my original inspirations and re-researching architecture, art, movies, etc. the better to improve the overall look of our little television program.
