00:00:01 John Daub: Hello and greetings and welcome to D'Art Staggio. This guy needs no introduction. This is Peter.

00:00:07 Peter von Gomm: Nice to see you again.

00:00:08 John Daub: And we are about to see for the first time the actual animation. A lot of you have been joining us for over a year now looking at the progress of this animated opening for Only in Japan. Now we're at the stage that it's no longer brainstorming. It is an actual animation to it. And we're going to be seeing the movement in and the progress to almost — not too far away. Right? Not too far away. He's never seen it.

00:00:33 Peter von Gomm: Well, I've heard you talk about it all the time and I have not seen it yet. So I'm very, very genuinely excited to see this. But I haven't promised if I'm going to use my voice.

00:00:43 John Daub: Hey, hey. Of course we're going to get it — Only in Japan. I have that file. I can't just — I can't plug in. Oh, stop it. Joining us is Henry and Arthel. They've been working very hard on this. We're very excited. D'Art Staggio is where we are right now. They've done an amazing amount of work over the last couple of years as well, which has kept them extremely busy. You can see the posters around the office. We're going to introduce you to a little bit of that. I'm always so excited when I come here because being inside of an animation studio — this is where the magic happens.

00:01:18 Peter von Gomm: You guys worked on Tokyo Ghoul also?

00:01:20 Henry: Yeah, we did. We worked on Tokyo Ghoul, worked on One Piece. We're helping a lot of studios recently. Working on some pretty cool titles.

00:01:31 Arthel: Working on a movie production. Now we can't talk about which movie production, but — ah, top secret stuff.

00:01:34 John Daub: Top secret stuff. I like that. Top secret stuff is good. It's always very good.

00:01:41 Arthel: And then — yeah, so welcome back. And then — oh, actually, we have a new staff member.

00:01:45 Henry: Watch out, watch out. The stuff on her desk.

00:01:48 Arthel: That's right.

00:01:48 John Daub: Yeah, yeah.

00:01:49 Arthel: So you can't — you can't see what's on her desk.

00:01:51 John Daub: We did not expect that.

00:01:52 Arthel: Yeah, I totally forgot about that.

00:01:56 John Daub: There's a lot of top secret stuff. They're working on several projects, as am I. Things that you don't know about and we cannot show you.

00:02:04 Henry: Yeah, we cleared the route to our —

00:02:06 John Daub: We cleared the route. Stay on the route.

00:02:08 Arthel: Yeah, we can stay on the route.

00:02:09 John Daub: Peter knows the route. Except for the live stream coming in about 30 minutes from now.

00:02:17 Arthel: From this angle, you can say hello.

00:02:18 John Daub: Okay. From this angle, as long as you —

00:02:20 Arthel: Don't show what's on her desk. Keep — yeah, keep me loud here.

00:02:23 Peter von Gomm: What's your name?

00:02:30 Arthel: Okay, thank you. She's — she's our animation director. She's our animation director.

00:02:38 Henry: Really, really good. Unbelievable.

00:02:41 Arthel: So she — she goes, she adjusts everybody's work. She looks over, she says, this is not good. This is not good. I'm going to fix it. That's the person who —

00:02:52 Peter von Gomm: So how long — how long have you been animating English?

00:02:57 Arthel: She can speak English? Yeah.

00:02:58 John Daub: Okay. There's no mic on her, but — I've been here for about 10 months.

00:03:11 Arthel: Yes, he just started here and then — so she's new staff here, but she's been animating for some time. But she switched —

00:03:18 Henry: Yeah, animating for about a year, but before that —

00:03:22 John Daub: Yeah, about a year ago she switched —

00:03:24 Henry: But until then — manga.

00:03:26 Arthel: Because she's a manga —

00:03:27 John Daub: Okay. Manga artist. And now into animation. Cool.

00:03:32 Henry: Manga. Color animation.

00:03:36 John Daub: Yes. There's the answer. Okay, let's move on.

00:03:39 Arthel: Thank you.

00:03:40 John Daub: Thank you.

00:03:40 Peter von Gomm: Sorry I asked.

00:03:42 John Daub: No, there's no — there's no mic on her, so we can't hear anything that she's saying.

00:03:46 Arthel: And then next is — oh yeah, so — oh yeah, actually, before we get over to the Only in Japan, make sure you guys please check out Sound and Fury, the Netflix original animation that we've worked on. It's actually the biggest production we worked on last year. And we got to work with some really great producers and directors. The producer was Takuichi-san from Animatrix. And then we got everyone's — we got Kojimorimoto's actual signatures. Yeah, yeah. So it's actually everyone's signature, which was kind of — you know, that was a highlight for us just to be able to work with some of these masters, you know. So we got — who is all signed? Who's up there? I cannot read this. Cannot read their signs.

00:04:25 John Daub: Some big guys here.

00:04:26 Henry: Junpei — this is my guy, Mizusaki. Oh no, the —

00:04:30 Arthel: Yeah. Jimpei. And ninja director.

00:04:35 John Daub: Wow.

00:04:35 Arthel: Yeah. So some pretty cool —

00:04:37 Peter von Gomm: Just some heavy hitters.

00:04:38 Henry: We got the — the character design designer of — of Afro.

00:04:41 Arthel: Afro Samurai.

00:04:42 Henry: Or not just characters — on the original creator contributed massively. So we got to — we got to party with all these guys and go to the premieres of all these guys in both New York and in Tokyo. Awesome experience.

00:04:54 John Daub: I saw you had some pictures on your Instagram, right? When you're out there. That's pretty cool. Like — oh, the studio's made it. Look at that. They're out there. New York, Paris, all over the world. Globe trotting.

00:05:05 Henry: The highlight so far.

00:05:06 Arthel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So — yeah, that was fun.

00:05:08 Peter von Gomm: So when you hang out with other animators, what do you talk about?

00:05:12 Arthel: Software or talk about —

00:05:14 Henry: A lot of live action movies, I feel.

00:05:16 Arthel: Yeah, yeah.

00:05:17 Henry: To be honest.

00:05:17 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:05:18 Arthel: About things that we like. Like, what movies have we watched recently?

00:05:21 Henry: Yeah, the Joker movie came up.

00:05:23 Arthel: Coffee. Okay.

00:05:25 John Daub: You guys did the Joker movie?

00:05:27 Henry: No, I was like — that's a real life — but I spoke about the Joker movie with the Animatrix producers and stuff.

00:05:36 Arthel: Yeah, I haven't —

00:05:37 John Daub: I haven't seen it yet. Did — see it. Yeah, I haven't seen it.

00:05:39 Arthel: I really liked it.

00:05:40 John Daub: You liked it?

00:05:42 Arthel: I thought it was good. I thought it was really good. It was interesting.

00:05:45 John Daub: Interesting. I like that. It's interesting.

00:05:47 Arthel: All right, and then — so now we get to what you guys have been waiting for — the show.

00:05:54 Henry: Everybody got any final stuff to say —

00:05:56 Arthel: Before you pass the mic?

00:05:57 John Daub: We're using these — these mics here —

00:06:01 Arthel: And actually, I don't have anything to say. Henry, take it away.

00:06:06 John Daub: The CEO of D'Art Staggio — and Henry is the second.

00:06:13 Henry: Right. I'm the Hand of the King.

00:06:16 John Daub: The Hand of the King. Right-hand man. So this is something we've been working on for over a year and I'm just so excited to see come starting to really come together. The characters are what I really love about this. We have like animated vending machines, animated toilets, animated takoyaki, animated — like every aspect of Japanese society — that was really cool. In the Only in Japan series, we gave them life. And that's as well as having the Shinkansen, because that's how you get around the country. So that's what I wanted to do with this stuff.

00:06:51 Henry: I can't show —

00:06:52 John Daub: Expectations are high, though.

00:06:53 Peter von Gomm: So did you give these guys your idea on characters or did you just tell them roughly what you wanted and they —

00:07:00 Henry: We had — episodes based on that. Yeah.

00:07:03 John Daub: Yeah. We had many meetings talking about this and I didn't know the process and they're very patient with me because I don't know how you even start at making an animation, but I'm going to be making a making-of this animation, which is going to be really cool. So you'll get a chance to look behind the scenes and how this was made, because I'm curious how — I got it on. Japanese animations are made. Sure. And this team knows how to do that. They have the experience.

00:07:28 Peter von Gomm: They can say it in English and —

00:07:29 John Daub: They can say it in English because they're — these are Japanese animation, but it's not made by Japanese, which is very interesting.

00:07:35 Henry: Yes, it is, though, because it's made by Okasan over there —

00:07:38 John Daub: Okay. Yes.

00:07:39 Henry: Met. And then a bunch of others.

00:07:40 John Daub: I can show the desk here.

00:07:42 Henry: So we're a very — I'd say, international studio. Right. I mean, we're a Japanese studio, to be honest, because we're located here and also licensed here and everything. But then, yeah, it's run by a couple Americans. But the staff is very international. Not just Japanese — Indonesian staff, et cetera, et cetera. Lots of international people work on this stuff. But everyone who works here has had some level of experience, at very least, working in the Japanese animation industry. So the process of creating animation the Japanese way is how everyone here approaches it. So that's what you get.

00:08:22 John Daub: Wow.

00:08:23 Peter von Gomm: So these are the characters.

00:08:24 Henry: Yeah. So last time we had one of these live streams, I think we already introduced these characters. So these should be no surprise to people who tune in regularly. But these are the final model sheets that we're all using to make the animation. So we got the takoyaki character, we got the kite, the Japanese toilet, and the — yeah. And then we got business, salaryman, sumo wrestler, etc, etc. These are the — this character design is the only one that's not quite finalized. But then you've got the main characters — John himself, and then the toon — boom. Animation characters in Japanese.

00:09:04 Peter von Gomm: Doesn't John have too much hair in that?

00:09:06 John Daub: Hey, hey, hey. We were deciding whether or not to put it with the hat or not with the hat.

00:09:13 Henry: And funny enough, that's the one thing I didn't really move forward with. I didn't move forward with cleanup of the John character because I wanted to ask you when we finally spoke, because this is the time — like, I got it. Before you leave today, you got to tell me — hat or no hat. And then we'll just go for it.

00:09:27 John Daub: I think — I think — oh, that's what it looks like with the hat. What do you guys think?

00:09:30 Peter von Gomm: I like the hat.

00:09:31 John Daub: The hat looks pretty — pretty nifty.

00:09:34 Peter von Gomm: And that's kind of your trademark now, isn't it?

00:09:36 John Daub: Oh, I go 50-50. I just don't want to comb my hair.

00:09:39 Henry: Well, I tell you what, I'll show you everything in the very end. We could think about that, because first — see how it's all moving and everything. And that might also make you rethink, like, should the hat be —

00:09:47 John Daub: But we have to tell you today, though.

00:09:50 Henry: Well, let's put it this way. We can't move forward with cleanup if we don't know whether that's happening.

00:09:56 John Daub: Yeah. Hat or no hat.

00:09:59 Henry: Final character? Final character? No, it's a Tengu character. And this is my favorite character of all of them. I thought this one came out really, really good. Cool. Our character designer, Rajan Dubois, made all these characters. Oh — oh, no, no. Sorry, sorry. He made the handful of main characters and the Tengu, and then Chi Sane was the illustrator of the others.

00:10:25 John Daub: Very pretty.

00:10:26 Henry: I really like how the Tengu came out. Very original. Tengu.

00:10:29 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, I like it.

00:10:31 Henry: So they both look good.

00:10:33 John Daub: I don't know. That's a hard one.

00:10:35 Henry: Okay, so Arthel is, for all intents and purposes, storyboarding and directing this, and then from that point on, I'm taking over as lead animator. That's for — I mean, for just a 12-second short, you don't need to break up roles into director, technical director, etc, etc, like you do an episode. But for all intents and purposes, that's how we broke this one up. So Arthel storyboarded this whole thing. And so this is the absolute first draft of Arthel's storyboards with a little additional work from our CG director who built kind of the train and the background in CG mixed in his storyboarding with it. And so this was like — utter first draft of like, is this the direction we want to go?

00:11:25 John Daub: So there's more than one draft that you're going to show us?

00:11:28 Henry: Well, I'm going to show you — we decided to go with it. This is what we want. And so I'll show you some production stages from here on out. Now, the thing's not done yet, by the way, for anyone thinking you're about to see finished animation. That's not true. But we're significantly, you know, moving forward in the overall process. So I'll show you a few process steps at this point. But this is the first one. This is what we're doing.

00:11:51 John Daub: This is the first one. Whoa. This is kind of a big deal. This is the full length — kind of a big deal. All right, click the like button if you guys want to see this. We got to get to 200 likes. It's up to you. I'm going to hold you hostage. We got to get 200 likes right now. Just do it. Click the like. It's exciting. Steven Tice — I vote hat. Steven, thank you. We're at 154 — 177. Come on. We're holding you hostage. Just click like. I want to see this. All right. That was fast. That was fast. Calm down, John. Calm down. All right, hold on. I'm going to — I'm going to put this —

00:12:21 Peter von Gomm: Do you have a countdown?

00:12:22 John Daub: All right, we get a countdown. Wait, wait. Okay, that sounds really cool, Peter. All right, hold on, hold on. Okay, here we go. All right, Peter, do your thing. Okay.

00:12:30 Peter von Gomm: Five, four, three, two, one.

00:12:40 Henry: So very simplistic. It's not meant to move nicely now. It's meant to just show — these are storyboard drawings, essentially rough scribbles on a page that were then scanned in just to give the overall gist of. Okay, so he's going to be riding this train. This is the general composition. He's going to swoosh in from left to right, you know, because anything can happen. You need to start at this basic stage to decide what direction you're headed. So this is the direction we're headed. He's going to be riding on this train with the toon boom characters. It swooshes around. They kind of leap off. These balls represent various characters. And then finally, we fade to — Only in Japan.

00:13:23 John Daub: I like that, because in India, we ride on top of the train sometimes. That's what we would call third or fourth class.

00:13:30 Peter von Gomm: But I love to see that on a bullet train — 300 km an hour on top.

00:13:35 John Daub: It's an anime. You could do anything. Okay.

00:13:36 Henry: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So then, ready for the next step?

00:13:40 John Daub: Oh, there's more. There's another step. All right, I'm really excited.

00:13:44 Henry: All right, so Arthel passed that to me, and then it's my responsibility. Okay, now set this up. Like, do rough animation for the whole thing. So now the next time you hit play, I want to see all the characters jumping out — exactly the timing of the characters and, you know, how long of a pan of a background we're going to need, etc, etc. I got to set it up now right from those rough ones. These are still not final drawings, so nothing needs to look pretty, but it's all got to move right now, and we got to see everyone that's going to pop out from here on out. There is no — oh, let's add more characters in the future. If we're going to add more characters, I got to do it now in this step. This is the step that decides what it kind of looks like.

00:14:25 Arthel: Right?

00:14:26 Henry: So you're ready.

00:14:28 John Daub: Are you going to count down again from 50?

00:14:31 Henry: No, no, no, no.

00:14:32 John Daub: Just do it. Do it from like three, then 40.

00:14:35 Arthel: All right.

00:14:36 Peter von Gomm: Five, four, three, two, one.

00:14:44 John Daub: Well, ninja jumped off. Oh, I saw those. Oh, there was a ramen guy. Oh, Tengu came out last second.

00:14:50 Henry: Exactly. But that's the point. Remember, in the previous ones — in the previous episodes we did, the topic of how short it is kept coming up, so we had a million suggestions. Oh, I think that so and so should start at this part of the train, and then they should get out of the train and da da da. The thing is, it's so short that to add all these characters — well, it works, right? We got it working, I think. But it's super — like, there's so many characters, I doubt you'd be able to catch all of them in one viewing. And that was kind of the point that the conclusion we came to in previous —

00:15:26 John Daub: Exactly right. Even though it's like 12 seconds, which seems so long, it feels like three seconds to me.

00:15:31 Henry: Yeah.

00:15:31 John Daub: I could watch — watch this a hundred times.

00:15:33 Henry: Well, there's so much to look at.

00:15:34 Arthel: Yeah, it's interesting because there's going to be even more characters in the final, because now the rest is in the background where — so all the rest of the characters everyone suggested on the channel, we're going to put all the other major things. So like Mount Fuji and like the temples and things like that that people suggested, those will be in the background. So you'll see them while the train is passing.

00:15:56 John Daub: Some people saying that that doesn't look like me.

00:16:00 Henry: Hold on, hold on.

00:16:03 John Daub: Wait a second.

00:16:03 Henry: So just maybe it's the hat.

00:16:05 John Daub: I don't know. They're going like —

00:16:06 Henry: Just to finish — just to finish what he was saying. So, yeah, I had to lay out all of the animation, right. Anything that's moving, anything that's on a cell layer — essentially needs to be laid out here. Now, that doesn't mention what's happening in the background there, right? In the background in the building.

00:16:26 John Daub: I saw sumo wrestler in the building —

00:16:28 Henry: But even these guys — even the sumo wrestler and the obachan. And there's a couple characters that swoosh by really quickly in the foreground. Those guys are still even on a cell layer — on an animation layer in the background. Because there was a lot of suggestions about temples and things like that and other characters that aren't appearing here, those guys can still be in the background, hidden in the background. So on top of all of these characters in the moving layers, when you watch the final, you'll also be able to be like — oh, in the background in the mountain, there's that guy and that guy in that area, right.

00:17:04 John Daub: That's what I wanted.

00:17:05 Henry: So there's Easter eggs. Like, so there's even more Easter eggs than the stuff we're looking at, right? Now — now, about if it looks like John. Let me show you the next step that we're working on and then if you still feel that way, we can talk about it. Yeah, but so this is just the rough animation.

00:17:21 John Daub: It's not finished.

00:17:22 Henry: Well, so similarly, this is — this doesn't really look like the toilet, right? It's super scribbly and rough.

00:17:27 John Daub: Yes.

00:17:28 Henry: So, okay, now we're in the final stages and timeline and — yeah, so this is the Toon Boom's Harmony software.

00:17:40 John Daub: Toon Boom's Harmony. Cool.

00:17:41 Henry: Yeah. And so I'm just going layer by layer and cleaning up every one of the characters. So, for example, we've got the takoyaki, right? Now, the rough takoyaki is this — you know, black and pink scribbly line that you see right here. That's what you just saw in the previous version. So on a layer above that, I do a cleaner rough in kind of blue, right. And then above that, even still, I'll just — I'll close all other layers other than the takoyaki layer. Then you really draw the actual really clean one with all the shadow layers. So when this gets colored, eventually there's going to be shadow layers and highlight layers and everything like that also. But this is the final. And now it's moving — smooth takoyaki layer, right. And you just take it layer by layer. I'm personally taking some of these characters. Other animators like Okasan, who you just met, are taking additional characters. And so now we're at that, you know, just work stage — you just got to sit and keep working and just one by one and character by character, just kind of just do it. Just kind of clean up and — and — and really just finish off all of the — [laughs] the robot here.

00:18:59 John Daub: I got to be honest, it was really hard to make the decisions — to that this is the way we want to get it — to get to that point is it's really hard work, but once you decide —

00:19:10 Arthel: The direction you want to go, because you had so many ideas.

00:19:12 John Daub: Yeah, well, I got some ideas. I still got more ideas.

00:19:14 Arthel: Your video covers a lot, but once you hone into exactly — you've made those decisions, it's just about just doing it. So.

00:19:21 Henry: Yeah, and my favorite character, as I mentioned, was the Tengu. I just — I love this thing. I love it. And so I wanted to kind of highlight the Tengu a little bit more than the other one. So the tengu is the absolute final one that kind of flips around and then flies out. So that's your final.

00:19:37 Peter von Gomm: So how much each of these characters has — how much screen time do they have? About one second.

00:19:44 Henry: I think it varies from character to character. The Tengu probably gets a little bit longer. The takoyaki is also holding longer. But for example, let's try to find this guy — that guy. Here we go. This guy kind of just swooshes in and out really quick, right? So it might not even be a full second. It's just like — whoops, I'm here and I'm flying away.

00:20:04 Peter von Gomm: Viewers are going to totally be pausing this.

00:20:07 John Daub: That's what I want.

00:20:10 Peter von Gomm: Easter eggs.

00:20:10 John Daub: The opening is an opening, right? But that doesn't mean these characters die because there's an opening. This is almost like an introduction to an entire new ecosystem. Yeah. You getting it? So I think that this is, for me, I just wanted to encompass what Only in Japan was — take the things, the elements from the show that has made it so popular and interesting to viewers and put that into an animated form. Because animation in itself is such a Japanese part of — important part of Japanese culture. To me. This is a massive —

00:20:43 Henry: So about John here is cleaned up now. It's still not colored with highlights. And, you know, the areas that are supposed to be black are not black yet, but — so this is a cleaned up version. So does it look like John? Does it not look like John? The thing is, though, we got these character models. So these were — these were the character models, right, that we're basing it on. So does this look like John?

00:21:09 John Daub: Does that look like me? What do you — what do you guys think? Does that look like me? It's —

00:21:14 Peter von Gomm: It's way more handsome.

00:21:18 Henry: If we follow John's animation — if we follow just John's animation, you can see that he's going to be first off, very small with the — was it kimono, I guess you're wearing? Yeah, just really kind of flapping in the wind there because you're, you know, you're on top of a Shinkansen. We swoosh around real, real quick. He's — he's pointing out different aspects. His face is kind of not the focus when we're looking at all these other characters coming out from behind him. And then when he does face the screen, it's not a still like it is now. The hair is all completely fluttering and it's completely moving. So question is — do we put a hat on him when — I don't know if a hat really would hold on a Shinkansen, but at the same time, it's an animation, so we can do whatever you want.

00:22:04 John Daub: The whole reason why I wear the hat is because my hair is impossible. It's just — it's a disaster. And I've actually worn the hat outside of train windows, and it's been fine. And cars. This hat is pretty on there.

00:22:20 Peter von Gomm: Well, you got to think about — is this hat going to be you going forward? It's been you for, like, the past two years, hasn't it?

00:22:27 John Daub: I don't know. I've been wearing this style since I was five.

00:22:33 Arthel: You wearing a hat?

00:22:34 John Daub: Well, this hat. This kind of —

00:22:36 Peter von Gomm: Not in your program.

00:22:37 John Daub: Kind of in the start. No, but — yeah, I just — I'm kind of just lazy with — yeah. It's hard to say, but it becomes —

00:22:46 Peter von Gomm: Kind of your persona for an animation like this, where people are going to expect you to be in that hat.

00:22:52 John Daub: No, they're not, are they?

00:22:54 Arthel: I think so, yeah.

00:22:57 John Daub: So you're saying, like, if you wore this — this windsock on your head in an animation — I don't know what it is. A beanie.

00:23:04 Peter von Gomm: What's the winds blowing from?

00:23:06 Henry: The southeast.

00:23:07 John Daub: Southeast wind, yes. If you wear this, then that becomes who you are.

00:23:12 Peter von Gomm: Animation — where you're being immortalized. And it's your opening of your channel. I would say you need to stick with what you bring.

00:23:20 John Daub: Some good points, Peter. Yes. I'm so thankful I invited you guys —

00:23:25 Henry: Would also agree, I think you can get away with some episodes of not wearing the hat — oh, he's not wearing the hat in this episode. But you can't — it's got to kind of be your default if you're going to put it in here. So is it your default? And the not-hat, your not default, or whatever — your default is is probably what you should be doing here.

00:23:46 Peter von Gomm: In which case, I would recommend without the hat. That way you can go with the hat on your shows or without. But if you're being immortalized in this awesome animation where every opening of all your programs — you have the hat on, people are going to assume that's and expect that's — what do I want to say here, John? You know what I'm trying to say? Can you give me the mic?

00:24:15 Arthel: Okay —

00:24:17 Peter von Gomm: I already said it. I've got nothing else to say.

00:24:24 John Daub: So people are saying in here — so wear the hat and it flies off, or have the Tengu put the hat on at the end just for a second.

00:24:31 Henry: Tengu flies too quick. See, that's the thing. We're dealing with such short time periods. We're already stuffing in 100 characters in those — you know, in that time period. You can't really do too much. You can show a lot. But you can't — the characters can't do too much because you literally just can't do much in a quick little swoosh. You know what I mean?

00:24:53 Arthel: It takes time to actually register motion, right?

00:24:56 Henry: Yeah.

00:24:58 John Daub: Register it. Yeah.

00:24:59 Arthel: To get the hat to even start flipping — you know, so that it actually flies off the right way like that by itself.

00:25:04 Henry: John gives the John character points at stuff as he swooshes in. And that was kind of the extent of additional character animation that I wanted to add in this. Because you're already looking at a train and you're looking at the background and then — whoa, there's a million characters. So to be honest, he could have just sat there the whole time and there's already way more than enough to see. You don't want him also doing all — you don't — you know, he's making gyoza. You'd never catch it.

00:25:28 Arthel: You'd never catch it.

00:25:29 Henry: But, you know, an additional little point — hey, look over there — okay, now I'm back at the screen. You can add something like that, but don't go crazy, right?

00:25:37 Peter von Gomm: I agree.

00:25:37 John Daub: Dear Way writes in, I need an animated version of Kanae. She's sort of in there — in the lady next to me. She's in sort of in there. Miraid's in. Very cool. Needs more hat. How about Shinkansen turning into a flying train and dragon hybrid?

00:25:54 Henry: See, right? Then, like, when — when — you know what I mean? Boom, boom, boom.

00:25:58 John Daub: It moves so fast.

00:25:59 Peter von Gomm: The animation is complete, as far as like storyline.

00:26:05 John Daub: Can't change the animation. Mobius5000 — Tengu, put the hat on your head as it flies by. It's moving too fast, I think.

00:26:10 Henry: Well, and also, keep in mind — so what I was going to kind of close with is — there's what remains. So what remains is we just keep powerhousing through all of these final layers, right? So it's like — all right, John's character's done. Okay. The cat character's done, okay? Etc, etc. Once all of that's done, then on the animator's end, we still need to one time go through it all again — highlights, shadows, and fill it with color, right? Because it's not colored, right? On the background end — paint the handful of backgrounds that are necessary, right? Just put in the hours that are necessary, just paint all those details. Then once those two factions — the animation faction and the background faction — is done, proper exports, proper compositing effects, et cetera, et cetera, right? Because there's some stuff you're probably not catching right now that the — the end version you'll see. So for example, Only in Japan doesn't just randomly pop on the screen like that — you know, there's a series of fades. So as the Tengu's coming around, the John character's naturally fading out so that when he flies away, there's already this nice open screen for then from nothing — the Only in Japan to fade in, right. So there's all these like layers of compositing fades and stuff that you're not getting the impact of right now. But of course we need to leave certain parts of the screen empty for those later on.

00:27:37 John Daub: What you see is not what you're going — what we're going to get. Once it starts putting in the colors and more of the details, you're going to see even more. And it's going to — my image of it was just like — it's like all madness, but there's so many little details inside of it that you'll pick it out. Somebody wrote in — you can't — John is spelled H-A-T from Gerson. Trekkers writes in. The ending should have John getting a McDonald's adult cream pie. That's — we're going there next. Yeah, just — we're going next. Another live stream after this. Top shelf. Thank you. Okay, so is this —

00:28:15 Henry: No, no. So this is the level that we've gotten to now. Most of the individual characters not riding the train — some aren't. So the toilet, for example, in my file, it's not done, but Okasan over there actually already has finished this in her file, so it's just a matter of fusing them later. So to be honest, a lot of the final line drawing is done for most of these characters. John and the cat are the two exceptions. And I didn't want to move forward with John until I get this hat question — well, because from now on I have to draw John a few hundred times, right. And so I don't want to then have to go back and erase out a chunk of the head or something like that.

00:28:57 John Daub: So it's not like having — it's — it's easy to do two versions of it. One in hat, one — this requires a ton of work on both sides. It's not something that you have to pick one or the other. The other thing, I think people don't realize how quickly this is moving. It just flashes through the screen. Just go through it. There's some people who've joined it. Just look how fast this goes through. And then imagine all the colors and even the backgrounds are going to be filled in. You see mountains there, but you also see other buildings in the background there. It's all moving quite quickly. I can't believe it's 12 seconds. That seems like three seconds to me.

00:29:29 Henry: That's good. I'm happy.

00:29:32 John Daub: You know, I think we're going to have to go without the hat though, because I don't know — I might maybe even go out without — without no hair. Because I don't know what I'm going to look like in five years. I have to be honest with you. It's not — what —

00:29:42 Henry: Well, bald would be easier to animate —

00:29:43 John Daub: But I have to be — I don't know what's going to happen in five years. So, you know, can we do maybe less hair? I don't know. Is that safer? I'm wearing D'Art Studio pin. I don't know.

00:29:55 Peter von Gomm: Like, like Henry was saying, animation is make believe and you are free to do whatever you want.

00:30:00 John Daub: You have hair as well.

00:30:02 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, but I — I don't know. Every time I've seen you in at least the past year, you've had the hat on.

00:30:10 Arthel: Okay. Every time I see, you always have the hat on.

00:30:13 John Daub: Right.

00:30:14 Henry: It is true.

00:30:15 Peter von Gomm: I would say go with the hat.

00:30:18 John Daub: Yeah.

00:30:18 Peter von Gomm: It also makes — for those who are thinking it doesn't look like you — having that style of hat on in the animation even makes you look more like you.

00:30:27 John Daub: And no one wears a style of hat.

00:30:29 Peter von Gomm: You do.

00:30:29 John Daub: That's true. That's true. I do.

00:30:32 Arthel: It's a good point. I agree. I think I should go with the hat too.

00:30:35 Henry: If it's got a hat, that's what that final face will look like.

00:30:39 John Daub: All right, it's up to you guys. It's got your vote.

00:30:43 Henry: Well, we'll decide afterwards for sure, but probably leaning towards hat.

00:30:49 John Daub: I'm thinking — wow, this is big. It's hard, it's stressful. It's like — do I get a caramel macchiato or do I get a latte? I can stand in Starbucks for hours just doing that. And they say, next, please. And everyone goes around me.

00:31:03 Henry: Right.

00:31:05 John Daub: It's like when the dam breaks, all the water goes around. It's fine. It's a very, very — yeah, well, we'll come up with a solution. I really do appreciate all the comments here in the live stream. Yeah. So this is great. So from — from this stage, first of all — is this going to be — is it HD or 4K or —

00:31:24 Henry: The size doesn't matter. It can be scaled up or down. That's a question I had luckily in the Toon Boom Harmony software, you can really easily change the resolution. It's all kind of done in vector. So we don't need to decide that at the moment. If you want it in 4K, we can get it to you. I think in 4K background might have — be a little tough, but — but doable. Yeah. So that's — that's kind of how — probably later on we can decide. Yeah.

00:31:54 Arthel: So with the background see that you have to kind of tell us in the beginning — this — not right now, but once we start painting the background — the — do you want this to be 4K?

00:32:02 John Daub: Probably, yeah. Because then it's future proof. Right. And I think that's the great thing with Harmony too — this using the digital software, it future proofs your work.

00:32:11 Arthel: The Harmony is amazing for that. You can print it out at any resolution.

00:32:15 John Daub: Yeah. So that's going to be a massive file. They're writing in — I don't know, 12 seconds, but I guess it's in your file. So it's going to be pretty big.

00:32:23 Henry: 4K anime is extremely rare. You'd think that the anime industry is prepping for the future. But anyone that actually knows Japanese anime production knows that they don't do that at all. And they still work on paper and they're, you know, old school. So it's very rare. It's not done often. There's really probably just a handful of anime that have been rendered at 4K. But if this 12-second short you want rendered in 4K, since we're using Harmony, I think that's going to be fine.

00:32:53 Arthel: Yeah.

00:32:53 Henry: If you were asking for a movie project in 4K, we'd need to rethink some things, but for this I think it's fine.

00:33:01 John Daub: Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, I don't — I don't really have any other questions. You've done such a masterful — thinking. I know that it's going to — when it starts, the color in the background gets filled in. It's — it's going to even be more than what I see here. More —

00:33:14 Henry: Yeah.

00:33:14 John Daub: Amazing. And the detail. Right. And that's already blowing me away. I can't even imagine what the next stage is going to look like. What's the timeline on that — diet like, would you —

00:33:25 Henry: Well, here's the thing. What had happened was —

00:33:31 Arthel: It's that we're working on so many productions.

00:33:33 Henry: Yeah. That's the thing. The reason this has taken so long is because it really is an in-between productions side project. Just being completely —

00:33:42 John Daub: Yeah, I understand that.

00:33:43 Henry: And so there was a couple weeks at the beginning of the year here where project was finished and there was, you know, a solid week or so open. And so we're like, let's move forward with this and clean it up as much as possible.

00:33:55 Peter von Gomm: Right.

00:33:57 Henry: And as of officially right now, we're starting a movie production. So I don't know realistically if in the next month or two there's going to be time to do all of those final things that we just mentioned. But that being said, there isn't that much work, to be honest, to still be done on it. If there was another solid week or two of work, I think that is all that realistically would be needed. It's the fitting it into production schedule that's the issue. Yeah, but it's — I mean, it's totally on its way. There's already layers where the entire line is finished.

00:34:34 John Daub: So Crossmith writes in — 2021.

00:34:38 Henry: No, not that — not that, not that. No, no, no. At some point in 2020, we're obviously going to be able to find a week and a half somewhere. You know what I mean? But I don't want to promise you anything. And then other schedules go crazy, and obviously that would need to take priority.

00:34:53 John Daub: The debate is raging. Me writes in — surprise us, hat or no hat? Megan writes in — team no hat.

00:35:01 Henry: So you got — you got to tell me.

00:35:03 John Daub: We have some people from all sides of it and we're — 580s writes in team hat. So there's a — there's a battle. Megan gave $10 and 580s gave $5. So that doesn't make any — I like — I think it's pretty interesting.

00:35:19 Arthel: Yeah.

00:35:19 John Daub: Do a poll. I will do a poll. Can you wait 24 hours or so?

00:35:23 Henry: I wait as long as you need wait.

00:35:24 John Daub: So if you wait, that means it moves the timeline back, right? We should decide this.

00:35:32 Arthel: I think you're polling in.

00:35:33 Henry: Do a poll. It's fine.

00:35:35 John Daub: We'll do a poll and quickly decide and let this — what? Let them decide what? They give the power to the people. What do you think — this is an election year? Give the power to the people. Can we trust the people to know what's in the best interest of moi? You can't trust. But they're the ones who have to — you have to watch me. You've been watching me for years. You don't have to put up with — I guess it would be fair. You're saying hat — I — it's okay. All right, hat there. But you said let the poll —

00:36:10 Henry: Do the poll. Do the poll.

00:36:11 John Daub: I did the poll.

00:36:12 Henry: All right, so — so the people decide the — you have to consider the creator in me. Like just thinking of ideas — probably would lean towards hat. Because I've seen you in the hat. Most of the time — the animator in me wants to say no hat. Because then I don't need to draw a hat. So I'm okay with either one. Both — one either would make me happy. Probably. No hat would make me more happy — work wise. But at the end of the day, you got to pick what's best for the D'Art Staggio Studios.

00:36:42 John Daub: Agrees with you. No hat. The insider visor. Half hat. No hat.

00:36:48 Peter von Gomm: There's got to be something that you've done to date.

00:36:51 Arthel: Yeah. It has to be the hat that you're wearing.

00:36:53 Peter von Gomm: Introducing a new Dr. Seuss hat or something like that.

00:36:56 John Daub: That would be weird, right? All of a sudden they come in with —

00:36:58 Henry: Unless you were going to wear it from now on. Right?

00:37:01 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:37:02 John Daub: I have very little style, as you know. Peter. Peter's the stylish one.

00:37:08 Arthel: Yeah. Okay.

00:37:10 John Daub: Are you surprised that you yourself are — Rolling Stone.

00:37:13 Henry: Rolling Stones.

00:37:14 John Daub: He's a guy. He's a guy. What?

00:37:17 Arthel: Stereotypes matter sometimes. If it was a hip hop —

00:37:26 Henry: No, that's a lie. If it was hip hop — he doesn't know anything. He forgets every name.

00:37:31 Arthel: I can tell you.

00:37:32 John Daub: Jazz.

00:37:33 Arthel: I'm good with jazz and blues.

00:37:34 John Daub: I was going to say hip hop. I've never heard your name.

00:37:37 Arthel: I don't even think I listen to hip hop either. No, I do like hip hop, though.

00:37:39 John Daub: Okay.

00:37:40 Arthel: One of the others.

00:37:41 Peter von Gomm: You've had to heard this before. Rob Reiner. Have you gotten that comparison? You know Rob Reiner, the actor?

00:37:48 Henry: I've heard —

00:37:49 John Daub: Director.

00:37:49 Henry: Yeah. I would need to —

00:37:52 Peter von Gomm: Never heard that.

00:37:53 Henry: I've heard — for me, you look like him.

00:37:57 John Daub: New poll. Does Henry look like Rob Reiner? A young — a young, handsome Rob Reiner.

00:38:02 Arthel: Right?

00:38:04 Peter von Gomm: A young — he's an old, older guy now, but when he was young.

00:38:07 Henry: I need to Google it.

00:38:09 John Daub: Some people are saying they see that. They see that and you look like The Rock. People have been telling me you look like The Rock.

00:38:16 Peter von Gomm: With the hat on.

00:38:16 John Daub: With the off — with the hat off.

00:38:19 Henry: Exactly. Oh, my God. It's —

00:38:20 John Daub: They take the glasses off. Take the glasses off. So they say — one reason why I —

00:38:24 Peter von Gomm: I need like a — I need no neck. That's interesting.

00:38:27 Arthel: When the glasses off, it's weird.

00:38:29 Henry: Like, are you really going to say look —

00:38:33 John Daub: It's like that — totally looks like Rob Reiner. Yeah.

00:38:37 Arthel: When you did that gesture — so when — now when you're looking straight at — pack up by yourself.

00:38:42 John Daub: Oh, you are so rock — that's why the views are higher. When you're in the video, it's not because of you — it's because you look like The Rock.

00:38:48 Peter von Gomm: Now I'm just like no neck and a pencil neck.

00:38:53 John Daub: Rock or rock star maybe. Yeah — The Rock. Or a rock.

00:38:59 Henry: Before we — before this ends — I don't know when this is ending.

00:39:02 John Daub: It's ending soon.

00:39:03 Henry: Got to do some shameless self promotion — some D'Art.

00:39:06 John Daub: Go ahead.

00:39:06 Henry: Got to let you know what D'Art is up to. So on top of the Only in Japan project, as Arthel mentioned earlier, we do a lot of other productions — Netflix stuff, helping out other animation studios, One Piece, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Tokyo Ghoul, a whole bunch of stuff. Look us up — what we've worked on. Arthel and I just this year have started — it's nothing high quality like this, but we just started weekly little vlogs — vlogs, right, yeah — little, little podcast type of things. We're posting to all our social media accounts. Once a week we sit down and just chat in front of the camera for a little bit about really insider kind of Japanese animation industry. So that's interesting.

00:39:51 John Daub: I don't think there's a lot of people in English — probably almost no one in English doing this kind of stuff.

00:39:52 Henry: So you know, about like what we're — what processes. So like we just started — so there's a — like right now, I think we just did the introduction — we just did a couple introductions and we talked about what we like — why, why we're — why we came to this industry. But from here on we're going to keep building on that. Talk about processes — talk about even start bringing in some guests from, from all over Japan.

00:40:16 Arthel: Potentially. Potentially. But you gotta — we're not going to bring in, you know, anime director friend.

00:40:21 Henry: 10 followers per —

00:40:22 Arthel: Per 100 views. You know what I mean?

00:40:25 Henry: So as we — as we build up —

00:40:26 Arthel: Come on over, check out — you know, if you're interested in Japanese anime, these Only in Japan shorts or you know, live streams are showing off this. Everyone out there might not be an anime nerd, right. But if you are or interested in production process here in Japan, check out what we're going to be saying because we're go way more into depth in like, you know, nerdy stuff in those, in those segments.

00:40:49 Arthel: He'll go into nerdy stuff.

00:40:51 John Daub: Oh —

00:40:54 Henry: It depends on what the topic is. It depends on what the topic is.

00:40:57 Arthel: I'm a technical nerd.

00:41:00 Henry: He's the technical nerd. He'll go more into details about it.

00:41:09 John Daub: Yeah. Chase him down and give him a wedgie. That didn't happen to you — in high school, never really? You got the swirly. Is that where they take your shirt and they — they rip it off you by swirling you?

00:41:21 Peter von Gomm: No, no, no. It's when — I actually had hair as a young boy — picked upside down — dip your head into a toilet and then flush it so the water goes around and your hair does the same thing.

00:41:36 John Daub: You guys hear that?

00:41:37 Arthel: As tall as you are — I didn't — for that to be a giant.

00:41:40 John Daub: He doesn't have the mic. He doesn't have the mic. It's hard to hear, but I — I — when I was a kid, I got — that's all right. I'm close enough now. I got wedgied a few times. It happens, you know, and —

00:41:55 Peter von Gomm: We called it a brownie.

00:41:56 John Daub: A brownie.

00:41:57 Henry: I don't think — I don't think nerd is a — like — it means a bad thing anymore. I think people are super proud to be nerdy.

00:42:05 Arthel: That was a problem.

00:42:06 John Daub: No, it's a big problem now.

00:42:08 Arthel: This is the era of the — of the — I don't know.

00:42:11 John Daub: You looked at the wrong — long way. Geek. Boom. So let's get him a wedgie.

00:42:16 Henry: Yeah, man, let's get him.

00:42:18 John Daub: That's why I run a lot. I was very fast. If they were going to wedgie me, they had to catch me, right? So I'm very, very elusive. I would hide behind trees. I could camouflage in the pine needles and stuff.

00:42:43 Arthel: I think — I think we all have our — especially if we're in this industry. I was a band nerd, right, because I was in the jazz band — the classic band. It was really skinny. But I think that's why nerds — we all get when we get bigger, right? We go to the gym.

00:42:47 John Daub: Secret vengeance. We animate ourselves. Yeah.

00:42:49 Arthel: Yeah.

00:42:49 John Daub: It's our world now.

00:42:50 Arthel: It's our world.

00:42:51 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, you prepare for the — the reunion.

00:42:54 Arthel: Yeah. Prepare for the reunion. All right. But — yeah, so sorry.

00:43:01 John Daub: Back — back to you. Go ahead.

00:43:02 Henry: No, I mean, that's — that's — no, that — I pretty much said my piece. Give us a follow. You know, I think we're involved in kind of these major productions. We're, like, crazy proud of ourselves, but to be quite honest, I don't think too many people still know about us. So come on over. Give us a — like, give us a share. It would really help us out.

00:43:22 John Daub: Yeah, you're going to see some big things.

00:43:24 Arthel: Click the bell. Is that what people say? Click the bell?

00:43:28 John Daub: Yeah. I'll get their information. Put it in the description below. So you can check this out — if you're — even if you're just a light fan of anime and you're getting into Japanese animation — these guys do it all in English. And I think they have a very unique point of view — coming from the outside into the Japanese world. And then — and they're actually — D'Art is pretty hot. You guys are on Netflix.

00:43:52 Arthel: Climbing.

00:43:53 John Daub: Climbing. Very highly. I think in a couple of years — knowing them at this stage, before the celebrity status happens.

00:44:00 Henry: Fingers crossed.

00:44:01 John Daub: Too late for this man now. But for these two, you have a shot — giving you wedgies live.

00:44:07 Peter von Gomm: Oh, no. Listen, I've had so many. I have a tolerance to it. You could wedgie me. Nothing even happens. I don't feel it. Trust me. The first episode of Only in Japan was a fundoshi wedgie. You know, when they put it —

00:44:20 Henry: Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:44:21 John Daub: I felt it then. But I've had so many fundoshi, I have no more pain. Seriously. It's built up a tolerance to wedgies. You can get the — the skin there just hardens.

00:44:29 Peter von Gomm: You just stopped wearing underwear.

00:44:31 John Daub: That's part of it. How do you know? Huh?

00:44:33 Henry: I talked to Kanae.

00:44:36 John Daub: That's true.

00:44:36 Arthel: What is that? No underwear. What do you call it? It's like a term — what — college — when people used to not wear underwear.

00:44:43 Peter von Gomm: Commando.

00:44:44 Arthel: Is that what it is? Go commando?

00:44:46 John Daub: Yeah.

00:44:47 Arthel: Free balling. We used to call it free balling.

00:44:50 Henry: Don't go there.

00:44:51 John Daub: All right — what I do and how I do it stays — stays in my universe — inside.

00:44:58 Arthel: All right. Sorry about that.

00:45:00 John Daub: It's all right. The poll —

00:45:01 Peter von Gomm: Hat or no hat?

00:45:03 John Daub: Yeah, the poll is — the poll is now available. I'll put it on Discord and then on Instagram Stories. But you guys decide hat or no hat today. And at the end of it, I'll tell Henry and then it's over.

00:45:14 Arthel: Yep. Yep.

00:45:15 John Daub: It's one of the other. There's no in between. I can't get like half a latte and half a caramel macchiato. You have to pick one or the other. Or just get a bentō size and then mix it up. Get two. No, no, I can't get two. I only have money for one. So there's —

00:45:28 Henry: There.

00:45:28 John Daub: There it is, guys. Thanks so much for D'Art Staggio. This is their pin here — I'm wearing right here. I'll put all the information in the description below. That's pretty cool. That's from an anime. They can see this online, right?

00:45:48 Arthel: Yeah. That's our logo.

00:45:48 John Daub: Right.

00:45:49 Arthel: The animation that — that is based off of the dog.

00:45:51 John Daub: Pretty sweet. It's kind of got like a Ghibli-ish feel to it — it's a D'Art Staggio feel. Let's put it like that. Yeah, yeah.

00:45:59 Henry: Thanks.

00:46:01 John Daub: Yeah. There you go. Shortcut. Thank you. This super chat is for PVG to get some shampoo.

00:46:08 Peter von Gomm: Okay.

00:46:10 John Daub: Wait — he's like —

00:46:12 Peter von Gomm: Okay.

00:46:13 John Daub: Thank you. We love Shortcut. We love Shortcut. All right, guys, thanks so much. We're going to — we're going to — and Cindy here — take this, but keep the hat. Cindy says — here — the D'Art Staggio — no hat. It rages on. We're going to go eat some McDonald's food, right?

00:46:31 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:46:31 John Daub: Their new pie.

00:46:32 Peter von Gomm: We are for that — that special just debuted. Pie for adults.

00:46:39 John Daub: I guess it's going to take us about 45 minutes to get there, so tune in about 40.

00:46:46 Peter von Gomm: All right.

00:46:46 John Daub: Yeah. 45 minutes from now, another live stream. I like the hat back there. Very nice hat.

00:46:52 Arthel: He's escaping.

00:46:53 John Daub: He's escaping right now. But Spider-Man — he's a nice hat. Thanks, guys. We'll give you more progress as we see more from D'Art Staggio. It's a very exciting project. Link in the description to see everything they're doing. See you in the next live stream very soon. Bye.