#ax3001

BoJack Horseman was a show that really surprised me when I first watched it, I heard good things about it but they never really mentioned the dark places and heavy subject matter BoJack ends up touching upon. It made for an experience unlike any other adult animated show because typically they’re all made into comedies.

That’s not to say the series isn’t a comedy, it certainly appears like any old adult animation at first but with a world of human-animal hybrids. However, the dark subject matter touched upon in BoJack ends up hitting home and resonating with it’s viewers way more than any other adult animated properties at that time. We follow BoJack, a washed up former sitcom star of the show ‘Horsing Around’ and we learn about his dark past, regrets, feelings towards others and see how far he sometimes falls... Consequences in this show are permanent, if BoJack messes up big time, he can’t fix it. Here are just a small list of sillier elements of the show that are effected by the consequences of others.

Hollywoo

In Season 1, BoJack steals the D from the Hollywood sign as a romantic gesture for his ghost writer, Diane and for the rest of the series, Hollywood is referred to as Hollywoo by everyone.

Spaghetti Strainer Payoff

Another example for continuity was a joke made early in Season 3, where Mr Peanutbutter and Todd (initially BoJack’s best friend) ordered a bunch of Spaghetti Strainers in bulk because they planned to make a TV show with them. However, these two characters are rather foolish and quickly forgot whatever plans they had for them.

However, it pays off in the end with several other plot threads set up in Season 3 as the spaghetti strainers turn out to be extremely useful for a city-sized spaghetti disaster!

The F Word

The word “Fuck” is used sparingly within the series and typically it’s used to show when BoJack damages a relationship beyond repair. It’s saved for once a season which kind of makes these emotional moments even more tense, since as a fan that had to wait for the last few seasons, it became something to look out for and anticipate to see who BoJack will hurt. There’s a few cases where it was used to subvert audience expectations and those cases really work well too.

These are just examples of the continuity throughout the series, even rather simple things like these are consistent, but this even extends to the characters.

BoJack, the Star of the Show

BoJack is consistently plagued with a bunch of issues, going back to his childhood and up to present day. We’re shown he has a lot of negative opinions of himself, needing alcohol or drugs or sex to numb those feelings of inadequacy. 

Though those are only just his actions, an episode where we see into the mind of BoJack is “Stupid Piece of Shit”. An episode pretty revered and loved by the fanbase due to it’s relatability and fairly accurate depictions of overthinking and anxiety.

Stupid Piece of Shit

This is an episode I’ve looked to for inspiration several times with research and I think it’s probably because of how it hits home for me. Although, the visual style definitely has something to do with it too, since BoJack is typically animated with rigged characters, so when we get this rough cartoon style it stands out and stays with you much more.

Having it stand out immediately in your mind makes audiences remember it much better, I think the visuals alone would make this episode identifiable to any BoJack fan and the personal monologue of BoJack constantly putting himself down is the cherry on top of creating a very memorable episode.

BoJack finds nearly every excuse to start ridiculing himself, for breakfast he eats a bunch of cookies all the while criticising his choices and trying to mentally convince himself not to eat another cookie. Only to eat another cookie and be extremely disappointed in himself. Even in mundane circumstances, he will find a way to abuse himself. 

However, a rather interesting observation is that when he’s actively doing something shitty, such as throwing a baby doll over his balcony to spite his dementia-ridden mother, his inner monologue is pretty minimal. Obviously having two recordings of Will Arnett over one another wouldn’t sound good, but even when he pauses there’s no voice inside his head telling him to stop. The only one we hear is “Do it.”

And once everyone leaves him alone because of his actions, he’s back to the same old “You stupid piece of shit” routine. Admittedly, doing things that can hurt you in the long run is something I’ve dealt with before and while it might feel good at the time, when you have to deal with your lack of action before hand it can feel overwhelming and your opinions of yourself just plummet. Now, I’ve never done anything like torment an eldery woman by throwing a symbol of her child off of a balcony, but I’ve done things that immediately resulted in a “Why did I do that” reaction.

BoJack is a Very Flawed Person

As BoJack creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, once said, BoJack is not a character you want to be. He is a deeply flawed individual with a mindset that is simply too dangerous to himself. That doesn’t mean we can’t relate to BoJack and find humanity within his struggles because that’s really what he is. He’s a horse man, he goes through things celebrities have probably gone through and his rough childhood and low opinions of himself humanise him to such an extent that we disconnect the fact that he’s a celebrity with a big house, money and while not much of a legacy, still has people around him that care and want him there.

However, he tries his best...

At the very end of “Stupid Piece of Shit”, BoJack decides to sit outside with Hollyhock, a teenage girl that sought out BoJack in Season 4 believing he was her dad. Hollyhock asks what BoJack does all day when he leaves and never comes home, BoJack decides to be honest and tell her that it’s because he’s shitty. But, he makes sure to let Hollyhock know that it’s not because of her.

Hollyhock confides in BoJack, telling him about the voice she hears that tells her “Everyone hates you and they’re not wrong to feel that way” and she asks whether that voice goes away. BoJack says that it does and we see Hollyhock smile at hearing that, while once she looks away BoJack’s face clearly shows us and well the whole episode has shown us that it’s a lie. 

While it’s not a good thing to lie just to make someone happy, it brought Hollyhock peace and that’s all BoJack wanted. There’s glimmers of hope within his character and while may not want to be him or are anything like him, we want to see him succeed and become a better person. That’s the whole appeal of BoJack as a character.

In Conclusion

BoJack Horseman, in my opinion, is one of the best animated shows out there with such a morally wrong but compelling character in the centre spotlight is quite a risk and BoJack executed it amazingly.

A lot of people have related to BoJack, not because of all the things he’s done or his lifestyle, but simply because of his state of mind. During the show’s run, on places such as Facebook or Reddit, communities would gather on posts discussing the whole episode and “Stupid Piece of Shit” describe BoJack’s state of mind and inner voice extremely relatable. Even a silly scene like him eating the cookies, people found a bit of themselves represented in this episode.

Mental health depiction is something that is becoming more common within media I feel and BoJack Horseman is a great observation on how to do it. With me creating my film, it’s helped me realise that not all depressing stories have to be depressing. BoJack knows where to put the laughs and where to make sure the emotional scenes lands and I definitely feel more equipped to go this route with this film having watched this amazing show.

On the Tv series project and what I have so far with my animation for games project.

Oracle Cat: I started off determined, full of ideas and had a game plan, and I believe things would have gone much better if not for mental health issues. However, once I picked myself back up again I was able to continue where I had left off despite not having looked at the material for months.

My animation for this project is not my best and I know it can be better, however I am beyond shelling out passion for this project and I had no intention of improving the animation further. I do think that for this animation I had some of the best linework and backgrounds I had ever done due to the research, tutorials watched and books studied ('Figure Drawing For All It's Worth' has incredibly detailed sections on framing, vanishing points, perspective and much more. 'Setting Up Your Shots' was also a nice visual guide about perspective, framing and camera movements). This time I used much more reference images during my sketching stage, as usually I either forget or am too stubborn to. I think this aided with improving the believability of my backgrounds.

My revised character sheets show great improvement in my skill and understanding of basic artistic concepts such as lighting, shading and line weight. Previously I would never have attempted such 'complex' techniques as I had very low confidence in my drawings.

What could be improved?

Time management for sure, as always it has been my greatest weakness. I did have a work plan, calendar, and all the likes but I have a bad habit of never sticking to, well, habits.

Since I am still puzzling together which work and study methods work best for me I can't make promises about having no time management issues at all next time, though I do believe that by being given second chances (multiple) to complete this project I have inched closer to the answer as to how I can tame my wayward focus (I can now sit and work for 3 hours at a time rather than my previous 20 minutes! Yes it was a struggle!).

Communication with my tutors. Put simply I am terrible at it due to my own stubbornness and reluctance to ask for help. I would disappear for weeks at a time, only skulking back online to submit the current deadline before becoming a whisper on the wind once more. This past week I have gotten my rear back into gear and have been communicating with my tutors almost daily, attending classes and 1-1's and working on feedback. This has helped me overcome roadblocks with me work and has been a considerable benefit to me, all thanks to the patience and kindness of my tutors, I am back on track and will continue to communicate in the future.

Animal Boy:

Another project that I was raring to sink my teeth into but that turned into a dumpster fire due to mental health reasons.

The sharp learning curve for 3D animation didn't scare me off, in fact I was glad I now had no way to avoid learning it, and the first few days of it went well as I gained quite a knack for it.

My tutor, an expert on 3D animation, was very helpful when it came to teaching me shortcuts, skills, tips and tricks for navigating the 3D world and for making my 3D experience as painless as possible. He showed me how to apply textures and gave me a general rundown of what stages I should go through as I work on my animation.

All I can really say is that I believe I would've done much better on this project if it hadn't been for personal mental health issues standing in my way. At the very least I do think I am doing a little better on that front. If I can't take a degree away with me from university I can at the very least take improved mental health back home with me!

What could be improved?

Character sheets are one of my most hated parts of a project (action poses are fun, turnarounds are NOT) and I would draw several versions of a character over and over only to use none of them, all of them ending up in the bin. I was stuck on how to remedy this issue until I was able to use my traditionally drawn sketches as a base for my digitally drawn character sheets. This improved my enjoyment of the dreaded turnaround greatly as it was easier to remove mistakes and sort of 'posh' up a drawing by simply giving it steady looking lines thanks to the magic of many brush strokes and a very fine eraser.

I have stumbled across a storyboard/animatic from the South Park game, ‘The fractured but whole’.  

From this I can see that on storyboards they hold their shots for quite a while as the dialogue runs through. This is interesting, as you don’t need to cram detail in the art, you just need to have the refined timings, and once you have those you can really start adding the detail.

You can still tell by looking at the shots that it’s South Park, but it’s just more roughed out. 

This has really opened up my eyes on something I really struggle on. I don’t need masses of detail, I just need clear direction.

The comics which I am more familiar with are the beano comics, including Dennis the menace. There has been an animated series based of the comic series.

I have already posted about the Wolf Among Us but I really do enjoy the colors it shows, I also found these images which show patterns in the background which just looks really appealing to me, could be interesting to have a go at using in my short film Apparition!