A lot has happened since the review of The Amazing Digital Circus. Since its debut in October 13, 2023 it has reached over 100 million views in less than a month. Pulling off what pilots for other series such as Hazbin Hotel and Lackadaisy has only done in a much longer time span. The Show’s creator has confirmed there will be more of The Amazing Digital Circus, the fandom for this series is still going strong with countless amounts of fan art, theories, and fan animations being spread around across various social media platforms.
In that time, Comics Beat has been reached out to by the lead animator behind the pilot, Kevin Temmer and was given the opportunity to set up an interview about the technical and Behind The Scenes workings of what went into the creation of the massively successful pilot.
Question: Tell us about yourself and how you have gone from doing your own 3D animations on YouTube to becoming the Lead animator for The Amazing Digital Circus. Is there any story behind that?
Kevin Temmer: I’ve been a professional animator in the industry for about 8 years now, and after gaining a lot of experience and losing a lot of hair, all I can say is that it’s been quite a ride. I’ve worked on all sorts of projects like feature films at Blue Sky Studios, console games at Sony Interactive Entertainment, and even an animated ecard with dancing elves over at JibJab. I’ve been so lucky to have such amazing opportunities, but throughout my career I always had the itch to create my own projects on the side. This led me to start a Youtube channel where I could post songs, 3D animations, and any other strange concoctions I wanted to unleash onto the unsuspecting public.
Over time, my audience began to grow, and one day I received a message from another Kevin. This Kevin happened to be Kevin Lerdwichugal, the CEO of Glitch Productions, had an opportunity for me to animate a teaser trailer for his studio’s upcoming show. When I saw that it involved clowns and a guy with teeth for a head, I knew that I couldn’t say no. While I was working on the teaser, Kevin asked me to hop in a video call, which honestly terrified me because I thought they were going to fire me before I even finished it, but to my surprise he asked me to join their team full time as the lead animator.
Kevin Temmer Tunes
Q: What was your reaction when you saw just how quickly this pilot blew up on the internet with over 20 Million views in the first week alone?
Kevin: When I started working on this project, I knew it was something special, but nothing could have prepared us for how massively huge it got in such a short amount of time. I’m so touched that people love these characters as much as we do.
Q: How is it like to be the lead animator for The Amazing Digital Circus working alongside and managing your team of animators?
Kevin: I feel so lucky to be working with such amazingly talented people. As the lead, I did my best to inspire the animators, but then they all turned around and inspired me back. I tried to set up a fun wacky style with each character, and the animators not only replicated it but also ended up pushing it further than I ever could have imagined. Each animator offered their own unique creative contributions to the project, and I love how you can see each artist’s creative voice come out through their shots.
Q: Do you recall what was the very first scene to be animated for The Amazing Digital Circus, or at least the first scene to be completed?
Kevin: I believe the very first scene to be completed in the pilot was actually the opening scene with the musical number. This was a very exciting moment for me because I saw how the animators were more than able to pull off the cartoony style of the show.
Q: To get the character movements so fluid and expressive, how many bones, controllers, and shape keys were created for each character model. Which character is the most complex to animate due to their overall mesh and rigging?
Kevin: Since our characters have to be sent to Unreal Engine to be rendered, we have a limit on how many joints they can have. Marc and the rest of the rigging team did miracles with the rigs, giving them a bunch of flexibility while still working within the joint limit. For animation, each character came with their own unique perks and challenges. Ragatha and Pomni were tricky to animate because they are more humanoid than the other characters, and Ragatha’s stop-motion style mouth came with its own challenge. Gangle was also a challenge because of all the ribbons. I had a shot where she gets pulled down into a hole by Kinger, and I basically had to animate a lot of that frame by frame as she slowly unraveled.
Q: I saw in the credits mention of the Unreal Engine, specifically UE5. Was the entire pilot rendered in that engine? Was it easy or complex to work with during the production of the pilot?
Kevin: Using Unreal Engine definitely comes with challenges, but the result it delivers is pretty incredible. Animators are responsible for exporting and importing their shots into Unreal and sometimes it wouldn’t look the way we expected, which led to a bit of troubleshooting. However, it was always very rewarding when the scene came together and everything looked the way it was supposed to.
Q: What was the animation workflow like to animate the pilot? Was other software such as Blender, 3DS MAX, or Autodesk Maya used?
Kevin: The animators (including myself) were assigned a few shots every two weeks. As the animators worked, they would submit their progress for Gooseworx and me to critique, and that process would continue until we approved the shots. We use Autodesk Maya for animating, though I believe Gooseworx used Blender for some preliminary modeling and RnD.
Q: When animating what FPS are you and your fellow animators working in? Does it vary depending on how smooth the movement is desired to be?
Kevin: We usually animate at 30 FPS to accomodate for Unreal. For most of my career I animated at 24 FPS, but I quickly got used to this new frame rate and actually really enjoyed it. I find it’s better for creating super smooth movements.
Q: What is your favorite character from the pilot you had the most fun animating?
Kevin: Even though they were a challenge, I had a lot of fun animating Ragatha and Pomni. As I mentioned earlier, they have the most complexity to their movements and acting since they are both more humanoid than the rest of the characters. It was fun trying to add ragdoll like movements to Ragatha and twitchy nervous movements to Pomni. I found myself relating to them the most and that made it a lot easier to get inside their heads while animating them.
Q: Any funny behind the scenes stories that happened while you or your team was animating the pilot?
Kevin: We like to joke about Jax being a troublemaker both in the show and behind the scenes. It took a few versions to get his rig working correctly, and we were starting to wonder if we’d be able to pull off Jax’s iconic smile that Gooseworx had envisioned, but our lead rigging artist Marc Humphreys was persistent and eventually got the rig working beautifully.
Q: When animating the characters and props in The Amazing Digital Circus, I have noticed some animation gags and the way certain characters shake and move resemble those from Source Filmmaker and Garry’s Mod Machinimas. was that intentional?
Kevin: I’m pretty sure the glitching, shaking, and clipping of props was inspired by things like Source Filmmaker and Garry’s Mod Machinimas. Basically inspired by digital glitching in general, so those along with video game bugs. Glitch Productions has already used that humor quite a lot in SMG4 videos.
The great thing about working on a show that takes place in the digital world is that if we ever make any mistakes in the animation, we can just claim it’s because the characters are in a computer game.
As we near the end of the Interview we also have some user submitted questions which have been approved by Glitch Productions for the Interview.
Valkyries733 asked: Is the layout of the digital circus model consistent or does it change depending on the scene? For example is the hallway they walk down attached to the rest of the circus or is it just a separate scene entirely that’s made to look like it’s attached.
Kevin: The layout of the circus was split into a few different separate environments, including things like the main circus lobby, the outside, the hallway, the Gloink Queen cave, etc. This made loading scenes faster in both Maya and Unreal.
PostGradPeanut asked: What’s it like to work on a series versus doing your own animations? Do you find yourself having to adjust constantly to other peoples styles, demands, and workflows, or is it pretty much the same?
Kevin: Working on a series teaches you so much about collaboration. You begin to see how everyone can contribute great ideas and help each other. At Glitch people are very open minded to weird new ideas, and I feel like I have a lot of creative freedom. However, there definitely is a difference between working by yourself and working on a team, and you do have to learn to collaborate and make compromises.
For a while in my life, I believed that I preferred to work alone, but I think becoming a lead and working at a place like Glitch taught me how fun it can be to work with others.
Q: Finally, to round it off any tips to aspiring folks who would like to get into 3D animation and the Indie Animation scene?
Kevin: My one tip for aspiring animators would be to create often and share often. If you enjoy creating things, find time to do it, and don’t be afraid of sharing those things with the world because you never know who might see it.
Q: Anyone you would wish to shout out or thank? Any team members you wish to bring the spotlight to?
Kevin: I’d like to give a lengthy shoutout to Gooseworx for trusting me with her characters and being a great showrunner. Kevin, Luke, and Jasmine for bringing me into Glitch Productions. Marc Humphreys and the rest of the talented rigging team for making these cartoony characters work. Jarrad Rumble for being an incredible shot manager, animator, and layout artist. Jacopo Poto, Mikaylah Haddon, Joe Marshall, Alex Hoyle, and Rafael Capricho for being such an amazing team of animators. Robin French and Neda Lay for the wonderfully expressive storyboards to go off of. Pepe Pelaez for the incredible layout that made my job a lot easier, and everyone else at Glitch Productions.
I could honestly continue naming people because this pilot wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions of each and every person at the company. We have incredibly talented voice actors, storyboard artists, texture artists, comp artists, environment artists, fx artists, 3D modelers, rigging artists, animators, marketing, production, rendering, IT, the list goes on and on.
Every company involves collaboration, but when you’re at a small indie studio, you can truly feel the influence of each person on a project. I implore everyone to look at the credits of the pilot because everyone’s name deserves a spotlight for making this happen.
And that wraps up this amazing interview with Kevin Temmer, the lead 3D animator from Glitch productions behind The Amazing Digital Circus and Murder Drones. It is a pleasure to be given the opportunity to interview him and I am sure for those interested in the creation of the show, that you learned a lot reading this!
You can watch the Pilot for The Amazing Digital Circus on the official Glitch Productions YouTube channel now! They also released the official soundtrack for the pilot which is also available on YouTube and Spotify!
While you’re at it, give Kevin Temmer’s YouTube channel a visit where he creates his own Animations and songs. He also has a Spotify where his songs are available to listen to.
Catch up on The Beat’s review of The Amazing Digital Circus Pilot by clicking here!
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