Quibi and the ATTN: team are gearing up to debut the new “Your Daily Horoscope” daily animated series. Taye Shuayb, VP of Production at ATTN, and team, which includes designers, animators, compositors and editors, counts on Adobe to edit and deliver 12 minutes of animation everyday using a combination of Photoshop, Character Animator, After Effects, and Premiere Pro.
The show tracks the daily mishaps of twelve millennial zodiac characters who work at a technology start-up, Estrella. The characters have personalities that coincide with their astrological signs and each have a storyline that provides useful — albeit hilarious — astrological guidance. The series is now airing five days a week, with twelve personalized segments released each day.
PH: Can you talk a little about the premise of Your Daily Horoscope?
Taye Shuayb: Your Daily Horoscope is a daily animated horoscope show. The coolest thing about YDH is that it's real astrology, presented as an animated workplace comedy. Every week, twelve zodiac signs are brought to life as characters, featured in their own episodes that reveal their horoscopes for the day through funny workplace moments. It's a really cool way to take a break from a stressful day, check my sign, have a laugh, and maybe even share with my friends. I think it's the most unique, modern take on the horoscope out there.
PH: What did the pre-production process look like?
Taye Shuayb: Lots of preparation and planning! A great deal of time was devoted to designing the characters and understanding the guardrails of their actions and surrounding world, based on the astrology. Equally important was the time spent on prepping the characters to be rigged, creating props, and designing backgrounds. Pre-production planning was even more crucial considering how we had to unexpectedly pivot the entire show to work remotely because of the pandemic. This was an extensively collaborative effort between ATTN:'s writers, designers, compositors, animators, editors, production, IT department, and Quibi. Investing this time added both to the story, as well as to our ability to later move through the production process quickly.
PH: How cool is it to create for a new platform like Quibi?
Taye Shuayb: It's been really cool. Not only has the Quibi team been supportive, but the platform itself pushes the boundaries of storytelling with its ability to flip from vertical to horizontal seamlessly. This allowed our team to get really creative with details that reveal so much more about our character's personalities.
PH: What types of tools/equipment did you use?
Taye Shuayb: On the design side, Adobe Photoshop CC 2020 (v21.2.0) and Adobe Illustrator CC 2020 (v24.2). On the animation side, Adobe Character Animator (v3.3.1) and Adobe After Effects (v17.1.1). On the editorial side, Adobe Premiere (v14.0.4).
PH: How did you use Adobe for your animation process?
Taye Shuayb: This show would not be possible without the Adobe Creative Suite. Our characters, backgrounds, and props are all designed in Photoshop. Then we rigged and animated our characters using Character Animator, composited it together in After Effects, and then edited it together in Premiere. The flexibility and interconnectivity of Adobe's software allowed us to create this show at a pace that is unheard of in animation. There are many people who have poured so much into this show, especially our supervising director & head of animation, Tim Herrold; Jake Reeves, our art director & lead designer, and Lauren Stone our post supervisor. Our show is incredible thanks to the contributions of their leadership and their team's effort and hard work.
PH: What other projects are you looking forward to working on?
Taye Shuayb: ATTN: has a really unique programming slate: everything from a daily animated show on Quibi, that reaches young people looking for a lighter, lifestyle series, to more topical and issue oriented programming. Earlier this year, we released a scripted series called "Girls Room" with Lena Waithe, and I am really looking forward to continuing to develop scripted content that touches on the issues our audience cares about, the way "Girls Room" did with body positivity and the effects of social media on young women. We continue to push boundaries on IGTV, like with our series with Michelle Obama, and you can expect big things from ATTN: on that platform. I am also looking forward to working with our network and streaming partners on content and programming that will encourage voter participation in the 2020 election, something that is incredibly important to our company.
Comments
There are no comments on this blog post.