Welcome to the Saturday Mourning Cartoons podcast, the weekly show for all things animation, including news, reviews, and interviews, from co-hosts Dave Trumbore and Sean Paul Ellis. On today’s show, Dave speaks with Brendan Bradley, creator of the animated short film, Baby X, a 2016 animated adaptation of the 1978 short story written by Lois Gould. Now, after the success of Baby X, Brendan has a new animated film that just arrived this week titled Baby S, featuring animation by Rodrigo Diaz Ricci (whose other work you can find here) and a voice cast that includes Yuri Lowenthal, Tara Platt, Ashley Clements, America Young, Kirsten Vangsness, Hunter Davis and Brendan himself. And though we focused more on the animation, cast, and story content than the sound of the films, both videos were composed by Elon Arbiture along with Erik Scott Smith as the team's sound engineer.

If you’re new to the podcast audience, Saturday Mourning Cartoons is a part of the Collider Factory podcast network under the curated Collider Weekly list. If you want to support the podcast, and help us to bring original animation into the world, you can do so at our Patreon page and by subscribing on YouTube. You can find all of our previous and continuing episodes on Podbean, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite iOS or Android app.

And if you have any animated movie or TV related questions for us, please drop us a line at saturdaymourningcartoons@gmail.com, suggest a title to review here, or even call us at the cartoon hotline: 202-681-4406. You can also contact us through Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or reach out directly @DrClawMD and @seanpaulellis.

Our chat with Brendan follows below, plus an update on the live-action/animation hybrid project, A Tale Told by an Idiot:

Watch Baby X and Baby S below, along with the Kickstarter teaser for A Tale Told by an Idiot: [EMBED_YT]https://youtu.be/oyYn9izT9gc[/EMBED_YT]
Share the Xtraordinary story of a child raise without gender. Adapted from the original short story by Lois Gould, published in 1978. http://www.JigsawEnsemble.com
[EMBED_YT]https://youtu.be/2NwbVHxGryg[/EMBED_YT]
A YOUNG GIRL LEARNS THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT COMES WITH OWNING A DANGEROUS PET.   After the unexpected success of my short film, BABY X, I wanted to explore another societal issue inspired by the lens of Lois Gould's fictional schoolyard of the 1970's. I met a fellow creator (and animator) https://twitter.com/RDRICCI and we shared story ideas and script drafts back and forth to bring Baby S to life.
[EMBED_TWITTER]https://twitter.com/RDRICCI/status/1169764826735923201[/EMBED_TWITTER]

A Tale Told by an Idiot

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ashleyclements/a-tale-told-by-an-idiot-finishing-funds

 Shakespeare meets Silicon Valley in this modern adaptation of Macbeth that brings a new spin, and new technology, to a classic tale of ambition and destiny. An indie VR game company lives and works together at the private residence (part incubator, part frat house) of Duncan. Mac’s the idea guy, Benny does all the art, Malcolm plays video games all day, and Beth and Donnie do all the work.

 

When the "in game" creatures begin predicting the future of the game company and an angel investor drops $2.5M on them, the ambitious engineer, Beth, sees a path to take control and escape the toxic "tech bro" culture.

 

A Tale Told By An Idiot will experiment with storytelling elements through live action, 3D animation, podcasting, messaging, and motion capture to explore the world inside and outside of the game and startup house.

 

Those familiar with our previous work know that we aim to push the boundaries of micro-content and independent filmmaking by putting every possible dollar on screen through scrappy, DIY hustle. During our previous SONAseries.com, we developed a Virtual Reality Escape Room to put audiences “inside” the escape pod set we build in Ashley’s dining room. From that experience, Brendan began experimenting with makeshift Motion Capture using an X-Box Kinect to track skeletal data and Unity freeware to map those movements onto 3D models. This “hack” offers an exciting opportunity to let our actors bring our “in-game” characters to life.

And for more of our previous episodes, be sure to take a look at the links below:

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