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Interview With Brian LeMay PAGE THREE
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Editor's Note:
Please keep in mind this Interview is (C) 1999-2008 Teddy Ruxpin Online.
Please do not publish it elsewhere without permission of either this
website or Mr. LeMay. Thank you.
This interview is rather
large and I split it up into a couple of different pages.... when you get
to the bottom
of this page you'll see a link to the next... and so
on. Happy Viewing!
Here's
More of our interview with Brian! Keep reading... it's worth every minute!
Links to the next section are at the bottom of the page.... on the left of
the interview you'll see some poses Brian was kind enough to share with us
from his time on the show.  These are
property of Brian LeMay and are used here with his permission... they
shouldn't be copied for use elsewhere.
 3) What scenes,
characters and episodes did you
enjoy working on the
most?
I can't
pick out any specific scenes or episodes
although I recall an episode
where they played a game
of baseball. I remember key animating a
huge number
of the scenes of the game.
I
enjoyed drawing Tweeg and L.B. the most. They were
the easiest to
draw. Teddy was really tough to get on
model because he had a
really weird head shape. I
remember being really frustrated with
the scenes
involving him. The Fobs were also really
easy.
Gimmick was a little tough. Getting a scene with
Quellor
was rare but fun when you got it.
Josh:
I thought it was great you mentioned you did
much of
the work on "Win One for the Twipper" where they
play
grungeball. That's a great episode. Tweeg in
particular looks great in
"Win One For the Twipper" and the episodes
thereafter,
he had kind of a "pear" look to him in the first
few
episodes.
From
what I can recall that was about when all our
revamping in the layout
department really kicked in.
I remember breaking that storyboard down
and deciding
to take all the ballgame scenes for myself because
it
was such a neat sequence.
I
usually broke up the show into locations or
sequences then handed them
out to specific layout
artists based on their particular
abilities. Some
people were really good with the Gimmick
interior
scenes, so I'd make sure they got those ones.
Some
people had troubles drawing the girls so I'd give them
to
someone who could handle them. I don't think the
shows were
handed out that way before I took over the
department.
Josh:
Someone emailed me a long time ago and had told
me
about the passing of Patrick McCourt... I think they
mentioned he
passed away while production was
happening.
Brian:
Pat was a really nice guy. He actually died
while
we were working on the Meerkats show. I always have
a
hard time talking about it as Pat was my assistant
animator at
that time and I've always felt guilty that
I wasn't able to recognize
any warning signs or do
something to help him. He was a very
quiet person.
I
remember the night he died, a bunch of the guys were
playing ice hockey
and I was on the bench yelling at
some of the guys as they went by and
for some reason,
I called out his name. After I said it I
thought,
that's weird, Pat isn't even here tonight.
The next
morning John Williamson told me as I came
into work and everything at
the studio stopped. They
pretty much closed down for the day as
everyone was in
shock. I've always felt terrible about his
passing.
Josh:
Also another quick question, Chris Schouten is
of
course credited as being the Director of the project.
Was he over
just one particular area, say voices, or
was he in general the show
runner?
Brian:
Chris was a really nice guy. He was right in
the
trenches with us. Of course he delegated
responsibility to
the different supervisors but he was
definitely overseeing the whole
production.
Chris
was also the Director on Meerkats.
I don't
know what happened to him after I left the
studio. I think a lot
of the people ended up going
over to Lacewood Studio which then became
Amberwood
and then Driftwood (just joking on the last one)
They
kept changing their name depending on which street
they moved
the studio to.
Josh:
|
Mr. Lemay was
kind enough to share some drawings from his time on the production
with us. These are property of Mr. Lemay, (C) AlchemyII... please
don't use elsewhere without Mr. Lemay's permission.
| Were there ever any times
when the producers
wanted things changed mid stream with the
characters?
Don never liked Teddy's name or how he looked and
often
would want Alchemy to change things. Wondered if
this ever happened to
you all, too.
Brian:
That would have been a major disaster to the
overall
work flow. Once the designs are approved, it's
full
steam ahead.
Josh:
How were the non-original characters dreamed up?
Such
as Elroy, Tweeg's dad, Burl, Teddy's dad, King
Nogburt
and his wife, etc.
Brian:
They would probably be created initially by
the
writers. Then the character designers would be
responsible
for coming up with the design. A model
sheet would be created and
then approved by the
director or executive producer.
Josh:
Did you guys ever do off the
wall drawings of the characters
or anything fun like
that?
Brian:
Every so often, we'd do the odd joke drawing. At
one
point towards the end of the series the production
manager asked
everyone to come in over the weekend to
do extra work to get one of the
shows finished. He
offered to give each person a hotdog and pop
if we
came in, no extra pay, just a hotdog and can of pop!!
Well,
the joke drawings just started flying. I did
one of Gimmick and
Grubby handing out hot dogs and
pops at a barbeque with a banner
overhead that said,
"Come in Saturday to finish off the show and get
the
weenie".
That one
didn't go over too well with the production
manager. Needless to
say, no one showed up on the
Saturday and he was fuming on Monday and
gave a really
lame speech on teamwork. It was hard to keep
from laughing.
Josh:
Working on Inspector Gadget did you ever get to meet Don
Adams?
Brian:
Nope, never got to meet him. However, I did
get to
meet Mr. T a couple of times. The first time was
at
Nelvana. I was working really late one night on Care
Bears
and I heard this guy ranting and he sounded just
like Mr. T. I
walked out into the hallway and there
was Mr. T himself. He was a
really nice guy. We
talked for a few minutes and then he
left. He's
actually very short (maybe it's because I'm 6'
3",
everyone seems shorter).
Josh:
Were the Animation and Voice
Recordings with the Voice Actors done during the same time period or later
on?
Brian:
I'm guessing here a bit, but based on my
experience
with other productions, the voices are done as
the
scripts are approved. Since the whole production is
just
one big series of overlaps, (as an example) when
the show 5 script was
approved, the storyboard for
show 4 would just be beginning, show 3
might be in
layout, show 2 in posing and show 1 would be in
Korea
being animated. The voices could be in the middle
of
recording on show 3 and 4 possibly at the same time.
Each voice
actor would be recorded separately
depending on their individual
personal
schedules
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