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Award-winning children's book author-illustrator. Awesome Michigan School Visits & Webcasts. Michigan's Leading Expert on Visual Literacy. Animal-lover. Ultra-vegan. Super-nerdcore. Ker-pow!

Finley & Max “Back-to-School”

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Its that time of year again! And what better way to celebrate it than with an episode of “Finley & Max dedicated to BACK-TO-SCHOOL?

When we were creating mini-episodes, we tried to think of calendar events that we wanted to tie in, and as the summer of 2006 was wrapping up, the back-to-school ads were rampant. So we thought it would be a great focus. We shot a few “back-to-school teasers” as well as a full blown skit about going back to school based on the feeling of dread I ALWAYS felt as a kid as summer wound to a close.

So presenting here are two back-to-school shorts. Just as going back to the classroom is anticlimactic, you will notice that so is the ending of the second skit!

“Back-to-School” (promo) & “Back-to-School” Releasing August 31, 2012
Nobody likes going back to school. Especially otters.

Please leave a comment if you or someone you know can relate to Max in this one!

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Win an Original Painting by Ryan Hipp!

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*THIS CONTEST ENDED in 2012*

Win an original work of art by Ryan. Enter using the widget below. Enter many times by sharing in different ways for more chances to win:

 

Details: The painting will be a one-of-a-kind original of the Artist’s discretion; but the winner will have input of up to three (3) subjects that will appear in the work. After the winner is selected, allow the artist 90 days to complete the Work.

Good luck!

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Finley & Max (pilot episode, part 2)

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Finley and Max headshotsIn the second pilot episode of Finley & Max we were really able to clearly establish the characters’ two distinct personalities that would set up the basis for their dynamic and pave the way for how their interactions would go moving forward.

For the first week practicing with the puppet, I wasn’t sure how Max’s voice was going to be – then Max’s voice sort of just came to me one night, and then practicing it just sort of became second nature. In a very funny way, Kevin needed a lot of coaching to get Finley’s voice just right – sometimes he would just use his own voice during practice, which was a great basis, then I would try to demonstrate how I thought it should go and then he would mimic that and it worked great. In time, Kevin found the voice and stayed really consistent.

Kevin breathed a lot of life into Finley, but the interesting thing about both Max and Fin is that they are both two facets of MY personality – Finley represents my nerdy eccentric side obsessed with collecting things, etiquette, knowledge and obscure facts, (and vegetarianism) – where Max represents my endearing, child-like wonder, desire to do a lot at once, and proud title of a reckless funster. In “Trains”, I think we really hit home that Finley is a nerd and Max is a spaz-o-tron. As the episodes go forward, I hope you will pick up on Finley’s and Max’s traits as well.

For your viewing enjoyment, I now present to you “Trains”.

“Trains” (pilot episode) Releasing August 17, 2012
Finley is trying to read his library book, but Max is just too excited to discover the library has books on more than one subject.

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Finley & Max (pilot episode, part 1)

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So by now, I hope you have had a chance to read all about the creation of the children’s television programming endeavor that has been in cold storage since 2006. Today I am presenting the first of two pilot episodes – “Afraid”.

“Afraid” and “Trains” were written by Emily Tobin. When she sent me her first crack at scripts, I laughed out loud. Emily has my same sense of irony and comic timing, so I knew we would make a great writing team. The week before shooting, Kevin and I practiced our parts at my house, so that we would be showing up on recording day pretty much comfortable with our lines.

What I hadn’t planned for was the multiple cameras, the monitors, the teleprompters, keeping my head out of the shots…being a professional puppeteer takes time, not overnight. At the end of the day, Phil Lane, the director of the show said we did great. The camera operators and the lighting techs and just about everybody had to hold back their laughter on every take. We knew we were making something awesome.

These first episodes would be kind of a test for all of us to get our feet wet getting started with the show. The full set wasn’t built yet (more on that in later episode synopsis blog posts), but we had the starting of a cool clubhouse backdrop. You will see the background really come to life in later episodes. This was new territory for all of us, so we planned a full working day just to work on two 2-minute shorts. You would be amazed, but I equate making television like making maple syrup – 10 gallons of sap is boiled down to get one bottle of syrup. Getting 2 minutes of footage takes lots of takes, lots of shots, and lots of careful planning before we all begin. After this hard-yet-fulfilling day’s work, (I think we started at 7:30 and ended at 3:30), I knew that doing a full-blown half hour show was out of the question after that – at least until we all got more streamlined. I liked the simple format of doing 2-minute shorts for the time being. They were cute, funny, and punchy. And those kinds of short attention span jokes I respond to really well, so my hope was that the kids of Michigan (and you) would agree.

“Afraid” (pilot episode) Releasing August 12, 2012
Max is totally afraid of the dark. But Fin explains sometimes its okay to be afraid.

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About Ryan Hipp

Ryan Hipp is an author & illustrator of whimsical picture books from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He gives elementary school and library presentations, assemblies, workshops, and parent nights. Ryan was awarded the Gwen Frostic Award for his work inspiring literacy.

Welcome to the Website of Ryan Hipp

Award-winning children's book author-illustrator. Awesome Michigan School Visits & Webcasts. Michigan's Leading Expert on Visual Literacy. Animal-lover. Ultra-vegan. Super-nerdcore. Ker-pow!