Laughing Orangutan Development

Ok, as its been a few months since Electric Company premiered, I figure its safe to do one post about the development of the spots. The direction I was given was a video clip of another gorilla cartoon and a wish that these spots "look like nothing else on television". Needless to say, there was a lot of back and forth with the designs and the trimming down the spots to stationary one-shots. But overall it was a fantastic experience- I hope I can work with Sesame again.

Here's the original idea I worked from work from:


And here are some sketches and color tests (I am rather partial to the wooden-looking ape at the bottom):





And here's the original storyboard for -INK:



And here's the animatic (with most of the close-ups trimmed out):


And here's the final spot!