Welcome To Eltingville: Movie Theater Sequence Designs

Some of the characters that are briefly seen in the pilot were going to have recurring roles in the proposed series. The two ushers that kick the Eltingville Club out for trying to sneak into another movie are named Mitch and Randall. Both are seniors at the high school the Eltingville Club members attend. They would have been the lead jock bullies who picked on them in school, and gave them a hard time at the theater.

Below in order: My penciled designs, studio clean-ups, color versions (color designs by Sarah Dyer). I think I did the slight revision to Randall on the cleaned up drawing.

The Cinemaximus Googleplex was based on an existing movie theater on Staten Island. I drove around taking photographs to use for some of the exterior location background drawings. I see some perspective problems in this drawing, I made sure everyone knew I wasn't Mr. Background Guy and I was told things would get fixed and cleaned up by the studio artists. I wouldn't get hired on a show to design backgrounds. The reason I did the initial designs was because I knew what things should look like, and we didn't have time to look at a ton of portfolios to find someone who could translate my ideas. The main thing was, I didn't want ugly-looking painted backgrounds. I chose to use line art with colors rather than painted scenery. Painted backgrounds are great well done well, and when they complement the show's overall look. The WB backgrounds on the superhero shows were terrific, for example. I thought my art style called for line art.

And here it is, fixed and cleaned up by a studio artist. Sarah did color designs to be used by the artists for the backgrounds as well as the character models.

Here's the front of the theater, where the Eltingville Club waited on line with some Eltingville citizens. I still like Beverly Hills RoboCop and Rashomonster. Major Violence was going to be featured in every episode as far as background references went, an omnipresent, over-merchandised superhero franchise (before that joke became reality). Ironjaw's tag and graffiti was going to be seen on backgrounds throughout the series. The "Little Jen" graffiti is a shout out to our friend Jen Gruenwald, formerly of Jim Hanley's Universe comic shop, now a seasoned veteran at Marvel Comics. Whenever possible I tried to throw some Will Elder-style "chicken fat" into the backgrounds, even though I knew little of it would be seen, between characters blocking it, or the scene playing out too fast for anyone to catch it. But some folks have freeze-framed a few scenes here and there and have commented on some of the jokes. Or in-jokes, like throwing my childhood characters into the toy aisle background. I'm amazed someone made the connection (the characters appeared in one panel in Dork #7!).

And the cleaned up version. That Space Ghost movie still has never come out. I guess it was kiboshed for a tax break.

Hope you enjoyed this dive into a small sequence of the pilot. More when I find time to scan some more stuff. I want to get all the D&D material done soon for a post, a lot of my favorite design work appeared there, and there's some goofy trivia, and a cut scene that was boareded but not animated.

Anyway, more soon, later. I've got to fold the laundry and get some drawing done.