Smiling Friends: The Last Resort - (Full Length Fan Animatic)

Please watch and support the Smiling Friends Pilot prior to watching: The Smiling Friends tackle a new case, but can Charlie succeed without Pim’s usual demeanor? Plus, Glep helps Alan stay awake. EDIT (1/15/22): I’ve seen a lot of comments saying things like “why didn’t they make this a real episode?“. The idea behind the creation of this animatic was NEVER to try and get my episode officially made. Rather, it was made as a showcase of my storyboarding capabilities. Having writers look at fanfiction is generally forbidden from what I understand, and could be considered an “unsolicited screenplay submission“. I wouldn’t want anyone to get in trouble. 😵‍💫 Q&A: 1. What is this? This animatic is a fan-made sequel to the Smiling Friends pilot. It was created to demonstrate my storyboarding chops to creators Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack in hopes of networking with them. I’m graduating from CSUN this May, so I wanted to see if networking with them could lead to some sort of work down the line, either with them or with their many connections. Zach and I both live in Burbank, so I wanted to use this project to reach out to him specifically. 2. How did you make this? In May 2020, about a month after the Smiling Friends pilot aired, I got the idea for this project. From May all the way through December, I developed a 19-page script, created character model sheets, storyboarded it, recorded the dialogue, added sound effects/music, sound mixed it, and finally put it all together. I had started it as an outside project, but one of my professors let me work on it as a class assignment, which gave me a deadline of December. I was able to get the rough cut done in time and I spent some sporadic days after Winter Break cleaning it up for this release. I was going to create an elaborate behind-the-scenes video, but my school schedule is too busy. 3. What software did you use? I used Toon Boom Storyboard Pro for the boards, Photoshop for the character turnarounds, Adobe Audition for the sound recording/mixing, and Adobe Premiere to do the final assembly. Trenchbroom, software used for creating Quake Levels, was used for the 3D backgrounds. 4. Why did you do special voices for everyone, but not do one for Charlie? The dialogue was one of the trickiest parts of the project for me. I was super self-conscious about all the dialogue while recording it. Zach has a truly one-of-a-kind voice and hearing me impersonating it would have been extremely cringy. Trust me. 5. Why do you pronounce Glep as Gleb? I totally thought it was spelled Gleb, but it wasn’t until after I finished the audio mix that I saw that people online were calling him “Glep”. According to the closed captions on the Adult Swim website, it’s pronounced “Fleb”, but there’s no way that’s correct. 6. How do you feel now that it’s done? Regardless of the outcome of all this, this project was created as a labor of love. Even if Zach and Michael never even see it, I’m super proud of what I’ve achieved, and I hope my fellow Smiling Friends fans enjoy it as well. If anyone’s interested, my portfolio and resume can be found at Instagram: Twitter: EDIT 2024: A few folks have expressed interest in doing fan-dubs of this project, so I’ve put some helpful files into a downloadable folder. Enjoy! #CO9wT3qSNuIC7JPnel7xN0KaNY3kwQVA8UTKcJsmgdI