Unreleased Work

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As novice animators, almost all of us dreamt of our creations making it into the mainstream and being seen by millions of devoted fans. In our immortal youth, it was never a question of whether we would succeed, but where and how.

One possible idea for a new TV show.

As we got older and settled into the industry, our priorities shifted, along with our definition of success. Now we're just happy to know we can draw funny pictures all day and still feed our families - but the dream of reaching a wide audience never quite goes away.

On a handful of occasions, Flinch Studio has been fortunate enough to work on projects that made it into the public eye, if only for a short period of time. Usually the catalyst for this attention comes from being associated with celebrity (such as Sandler or Burton) or participating on an already popular property (The Critic, Family Guy), or simply having the good fortune to create content for display before a captive audience (The Mystery Mavs).

Tim Burton's Stainboy - 2000

Up late with Stewie & Brian - 2007

But not all of our hard work is seen by mass audiences - in some cases, it is seen by nobody at all. This is never due to a lack of quality (though we have produced some crap in the past) - it usually comes down to the purpose or the politics.

Often times, we are hired to produce pilots that are only intended for display to development executives... of course, it would be nice to see them go the distance and become shows, even if we are not producing the series.

But other obstacles stand in the way of mass release as well - sometimes clients experience a changing of the guard, a change of direction, a conflict of interests, or just may not have thought it through all the way before writing us a check (God bless them!).

Take Ottoland (2007) - what plan did an online car sales company have to leverage a mini-series about a group of teens stuck inside an amusement park into increased sales? I'm not really sure, but they funded the development and production of 6 decent episodes, and then shelved the whole thing as soon as it was done.

Ottoland Episode 1


They were an awesome client, and they paid up - they even gave me the green light to post the series on YouTube... but they basically paid a small crew to work for 18 weeks for something they would never use (repeat: God bless them!!).

What follows is a (very) brief excerpt from an undisclosed piece that was created a few years ago for an undisclosed client. We were under a very strict nondisclosure contract with this one - no displaying it or even talking about it until it was released. Well, it was never released. We were paid to create it, we were paid to make revisions, and then it was shelved. The following clip is all I can show you without giving away anything that could be considered "damaging".

Tom Cruise gets upset.

Any project that pays and gives you the satisfaction of having produced a funny, narrative piece is rewarding just for that... but there is something inherently frustrating about watching your work fade into obscurity - especially if it has potential.

In upcoming posts, I will present some more unreleased Flinch content, including pieces that were only partially completed before they got the axe. The content itself is often not as interesting as the story behind why it was shelved!

Stay Tooned,

T