When The Simpsons lead animator Chance Raspberry isn’t drawing spiky hair and overbites, he’s busy developing Little Billy, a friendship-fueled 80s nostalgia cartoon celebrating neurodiversity. Think Classic Looney Tunes meets 80s heart: it’s fun, outrageous and has an important message.
Inspired by Chance’s own childhood growing up with Tourette Syndrome, Little Billy aims to showcase how one child with a significant neurological uniqueness can affect, help and heal the lives of others – simply by thinking and being different.
Launched on Indiegogo in October 2017, the cartoon recently hit its $10,000 funding goal for a new animated short – allowing Chance to unlock his first stretch goal: $12,500. This means that in addition to official, signed, crew-only Simpsons posters; original signed animation cels and production art from 80s cult-classic, One Crazy Summer; animation lessons from Chance; and the official Little Billy poster and T-shirts, Chance can now offer even more amazing perks. The best part? 10 per cent of all profits raised go to the Tourette Association of America.
We had an incredible chat with Chance – it's packed with pro advice and inspiration, and we're sharing it all with you here. Think of it as seven interviews in one: you can either read through it chronologically, or jump straight to one of the following sections:
- Developing Billy's Character
- How to Create a Retro VHS Track Effect
- Get your free textures from Chance Raspberry
- How to get a job on The Simpsons
- Behind the scenes on the animation process
- The advantages of a traditional workflow
- How to support Little Billy
Here, the Emmy Award-winning animator talks Simpsons, character design, and successful crowd-funding campaigns…
Billy is a universal symbol for neurodiversity. That’s a lot of responsibility! How did you go about developing his character?
I’ve based this character, his story, and life on what I went through growing up with Tourette Syndrome in 1980s America – the Dark Age of special needs awareness. To make my IP bulletproof, I invented and gave Billy a fictitious neurodiversity condition called UHS, or Ultra Hyper Sensitivity. UHS combines many of the Tourette, ADHD, and OCD quirks and attributes I've experienced in my own life and family.
One of the true facts about Tourette Syndrome is that it’s often accompanied by other neurological conditions like ADD, ADHD, OCD, and so on. Think of Cable TV - I call Tourettes the Premium Package because you get a little bit of everything.
So on one hand, Billy's condition is merely a realistic symbol of a neurodiversity that anyone with any condition can relate to, without feeling singled out or misrepresented. On the other, it’s based on and includes the real-life attributes of many existing neurodiverisities, which makes him even more relatable.
These elements create a perfect storm: because Billy is just a carefree, innocent, oblivious four-year-old who loves his 80s childhood, he boldly, purely, and shamelessly embodies a mindset and lifestyle that doesn’t depend on what others think.
He's a free thinker and a free spirit. His wild, fearless, untamed energy is presented as a gift, not a curse. This allows mistakes, calamities, or misunderstandings to be presented in a real, honest way, and learned from by everyone involved.
What's the overall theme of Little Billy?
At the core, the Little Billy series is not a show about life with special needs. It’s a show about life that just happens to be told through the eyes of a special needs child and his family.
This common theme and ground of unity and humanity throughout the series will hopefully inspire those with neurodiversities or differences to start viewing themselves in a more positive way, and encourage others to do the same. This approach to life is something I feel all people would benefit from, not just those with neurodiversities.
This was a very strong, prominent message during the 80s – especially in children’s/family media – that we don’t see much today. This is one of the main reasons I've set the show in the 80s and modeled its message, story, and style after those wonderful, timeless stories. There's a lot of strength and power in standing out and being unique. We're not broken, we're just different. And different is good!
If you had to pick one retro effect in Little Billy that you really love, what would it be?
My favorite effects in Little Billy are the film grain and VHS tracking effects that make the footage look like it was shot on actual vintage film stock, then transferred to home video without any restoration – just like many of the films we rented in the 80s when video stores were all the rage.
I also love those trademark textures and patterns that scream 80s aesthetic, like checkerboard, zebra/leopard print, neon glow, and old, faded paper that emulates worn magazine ads.
Please walk us through how you create this retro VHS tracking effect in your work...
I've compiled a library of these effects and usually overlay them as layers in Photoshop or After Effects on either the Multiply, Screen, Add, or Overlay setting. For the VHS tracking effect, I downloaded an app called VHS Cam, then adjusted the settings how I liked, put my phone up to the wall, and hit Record so the camera was blacked out and the VHS effect was just being captured over solid black video footage.
I then exported that video from my phone and imported it into my After Effects project on its own layer. I set the layer to Overlay, and then add a 1-3 FastBlur effect to the original footage beneath so it wasn't so sharp like HD. That's it!
You can download a lot of these VHS effects from YouTube or in plugin bundles, which I've also done, but this homemade method still looks and feels the most authentic to me. Multiply at 75-90% Opacity usually works best for that worn magazine ad look, and Overlay tends to work best for the film grain and VHS effects.
You really have to experiment to get that perfect balance, but less is more! If your effects are too spot lit, noticeable, or celebrated, they tend to draw too much attention to themselves and away from the footage or image itself.
You're giving us some free textures and effects to share with everyone – thank you!
Yes! I've included some of my favorite texture/effect files with this interview as a thank you for checking out and sharing/supporting Little Billy. And, you can get lots more by becoming a backer at Patreon at the $30/month level. Thank you guys!
Click here to download Chance's FREE pack of textures and other goodies
You spent your childhood drawing. How did you go from there to becoming a lead animator on The Simpsons?
As a child with Tourette Syndrome, my energy was always out of control. My parents were my biggest supporters and advocates - they helped me find the balance between taking responsibility for my actions, not letting my challenges become an excuse or crutch that would stand in my way, and never viewing myself as broken or inferior just because I was different.
All that said, my poor frazzled parents were constantly looking for ways to help me focus, channel, and burn all my extra energy - without me jumping off a cliff or diving into the deep end of a pool in the process!
When they saw how calm and focused I got while drawing, they sought out ways to inspire, nurture, and enhance it - which brings us back to those 80s video stores. Tons of cartoons my folks grew up loving were available in the 80s to rent on VHS, so they showed me all of it: Disney, Looney Tunes, Betty Boop, Popeye, Tom & Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, and everything in between!
This led to me pausing or stepping through the videos frame-by-frame to try and draw the exact characters...in their exact poses...as close to perfect as I could. The more I drew, the more I loved it, and the more harnessed my energy became because of it.
But the cartoons were what really inspired me because there's something irreplaceably magical about flat drawings that move in 3D space in a convincing, believable way. Being able to animate is like having the power to create or give life. No still-life, animal, landscape, or other art form has ever appealed to me in this way and with this much intensity. Even my music, which is my second passion.
So this led you to art school?
Yes – I drew my whole life and decided this was something I could and should pursue as a career. This led me to countless different art schools/classes and the animation internship program at CSUN (California State University Northridge).
Their internship is what landed me in The Simpsons studio to meet the crew, learn the ropes, and eventually take a Character Layout Test for animation. After spending about two-and-a-half months on the test – redoing it at least seven times – The Simpsons Movie started stealing artists from the series crew and for the first time in over a decade, the crew was short-staffed and needed new artists.
I jumped at this opportunity and because I was there, in the building, well-known by the staff, and I'd spent so much time fine-tuning my test already, I got hired. This is why I highly recommend internships!
What’s the most important skill you need for being a lead animator at The Simpsons?
01. Be able to take direction
We have some great software and tools at The Simpsons: we use the latest Mac Pros with Wacom Cintiqs to draw straight into Toon Boom Harmony 14/15 Premium. That said, the most important skill to have as an animator is to be able to take direction and not take critique or criticism personally.
02. Be a team player
Simply being able to draw, animate, or use software isn't enough. Obviously, you must possess all the skills and abilities required to do the full job – figure/life drawing, drawing fundamentals, animation fundamentals, draftsmanship, composition, perspective, acting, storytelling ability, and so on.
But if you can't be a team player and use these skills how you're directed to, no one will want to work with you and you likely won't get called back.
03. Know the traditional drawing essentials
Everyone I've ever talked to in the industry agrees hands down that it's far better to be a strong artist who draws great, than a strong computer operator. All the artists who do both are the best and most in demand, and all the artists who can draw really well are always in more demand than the cats who just rock pixels and software.
Knowing the traditional drawing essentials is far more important than knowing the computer skills. This is still true today in the world of technology, because the entire craft and art form of animation are built and based on drawing and the skills required to bring still drawings to life.
04. Ability to convey emotion
Those digital skills can be learned much faster and easier (often on the job) than the drawing skills can, and the drawing ability is what makes you a stronger animator - that and acting. If you can convey realistic emotion through facial and posed expression, then your drawings are that much stronger, relatable, impactful, and more appealing. And believable!
05. Believable characters
The viewer must believe that the character is thinking and feeling so that they can connect with it. That connection is what completes the cycle of belief and makes the viewer care about your character and their story. But again, all of this comes second to those collaborative skills of being a team player and putting up the best quality you can for the greater good of the overall crew and production.
What's the one piece of advice you would give an artist for getting a job as an animator at somewhere like Fox?
The best advice I can give any artist is to learn life drawing, traditional drawing fundamentals, and be relentless. This means master your history, all your essential skills like those listed above, and never give up.
It takes 10,000 hours for the average human being to learn any action or skill to the point that it's second nature and natural to them. This means it takes about 10,000 hours of bad drawing before you start seeing good ones.
Don't give up before you get there and don't stop once you're there. Perfect practice makes perfect! You can only get better if you keep going. This even applies to jobs and applying for positions in studios.
The gatekeepers will forget you called or applied, so you have to be relentless and call once a week until you get an answer. You won't bother anyone! As long as you keep calling, they eventually will remember you.
Always be polite and professional, but let them know – with your actions and persistence – that you're not going away until you get an answer. It's better to be strongly remembered as the persistent go-getter who was so annoyingly driven and determined that they kept pushing until they got the job, or even a "no", than it is to be the kid who gave up after a few phone calls and isn't remembered at all.
Please could you explain your animation process – how do you go from script to screen?
Once I have a final working script with all the bugs worked out, along with my character designs/turns and background designs so I know what everything looks like up front, I storyboard the script using these elements. This is basically a comic book-style series of panels with actions, staging, dialog, and so on included.
01. Start storyboarding
The storyboard phase/process is usually accompanied by the voice recordings and some sound effects – music and final sound edits aren't needed for this phase and are added later.
02. Create a 'boardimatic'
Once the board drawings look good and possess good, strong, working flow, appeal, and solid continuity, I create a "boardimatic", where I sync up my storyboard to my recorded dialog track and lock down the rough timing of the whole production.
03. Layout
From there, I start the layout process, which is the first phase of actual animation production. This means drawing the key poses of acting/action/animation; tightening and fixing any issues with character-background registration, proportion, or perspective; locking down the background perspective and position so the BG artists can create the final background painting that will actually work with how the characters are moving; and composing/framing the scene shots and camera moves in a clear, fluid, appealing way. This is what I do on The Simpsons.
Layout is also where you get your final locked timing for the whole cartoon from, which is written out very methodically on exposure sheets ("X-Sheets"). All of these processes and terms are based on traditional animation when everything was hand-drawn on paper, painted on cel, and shot on film at 24-frames-per-second.
Despite all the advancements we've made in media and technology, the animation process and language haven't changed much at all since their conception in the early 1900s. The original way this art form was conceived and perfected is still the best – and in most cases, the only – way to do it.
04. Inbetweening
Once all of this is working right, it's time for the real laborious work: inbetweening and cleanup. For every one key pose of animation, there are usually three-ten inbetweens.
That sounds full on...
This is why it takes years and years to produce one finished animated feature about 80-90 minutes long – that equates to well over one million drawings, all of which have to be cleaned up with a final line (which was retraced to cel back in the day) and then colored digitally one at a time. Originally, the colors were hand-painted on the back of the cels.
05. Composited in After Effects or shot on film
The above just gets you your finished artwork. Then it has to be composited in software like After Effects, or shot on film with a frame-by-frame camera – an equally meticulous and daunting task.
06. Final edits
Once you have everything shot in perfect time and working just right, the final edits can be added and made with sound effects, musical score, color correction, editing, rendering, and printing to film – if it's a traditional work.
One reward on your Little Billy Patreon page is access to masterclass tutorial videos on the how-tos of traditional animation in a digital world. What’s the biggest advantage of a traditional workflow?
The biggest advantage of a traditional workflow is control. You create every frame of your film by hand, from scratch, so it's always exactly what you intended it to be – as long as your ambition and intent don't outweigh your ability and skill!
The big drawback is there are very few shortcuts working this way. If a fix is called for, it has to be created from scratch. There's no library to pull from, or button you can push to simplify or speed up that process.
This is why animation is the great equalizer and ultimate test in 'separating the men from the boys'. It's the greatest, most challenging art form because it takes all other art forms and combines them to communicate immeasurable amounts of information, emotion, and story in the most ideal, timely, effective, and unparalleled way.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what about a million pictures moving in perfect living timing and harmony? That very fluid, living, masterpiece level of quality we see in animation like the classic Disney features – Snow White, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty – is what I'm referring to. This traditional 'from scratch' approach to animation and drawing is the only way to achieve that look and feel.
The Simpsons used Adobe Character Animator to create a live episode back in 2016. What key skills will animators need in the age of AI and machine learning?
All of the above skills. There will never be a comparable substitute to the human brain. Even if technology supersedes human ability, it will still be different, mechanized, and artificial. Sometimes, less is more, and subtle decision or emotion-based response will always reign supreme – especially in storytelling and connecting with other people. This is why computer animation still can't touch traditional hand-drawn animation.
Even with all the mind-blowingly gorgeous textures, effects, and depictions of CG (and the emotional storytelling abilities of the masters like Pixar, which are definitely the closest and best in terms of CG), there's still something cold and artificial about it. You're only seeing the 'hand' of the machine: not the hand of the living, breathing artist behind the machine powering the machine, story, and art.
It has a lot to do with human perception. CG is based in the reality of 3D elements and textures. We go into a CG film subconsciously expecting reality. Therefore, when CG tries to show us magic or something that would be impossible in reality, our minds automatically spot the impossibility of this and it appears fake or cold.
On the other hand, with traditional hand-drawn animation, the art form itself is a window into a magical living painting or storybook world come-to-life. We go along with anything we are shown or told, as long as it's well done and familiarly portrayed, because our minds went in expecting the magical and impossible.
Thanks for talking to us Chance! How can we support this project?
All of the info touched on in this interview was pioneered in the 1930s-50s – the first Golden Age of animation – but was driven home and perfected during the 80s, the second Golden Age of animation. This is one of the main reasons I've set Little Billy in the 80s, and why I'm writing these historical breakthroughs and Golden Age elements of life – and the animation industry – into the series theme and story.
To watch the first short cartoon be made behind the scenes, learn more about all of the above first-hand, or to watch these processes in action (and even work alongside me with them via exercises and workshops), please pledge to and follow Little Billy on IndieGoGo or subscribe to Little Billy's Patreon.
The monthly Patreon backers will get the most exclusive content by having access to all behind-the-scenes videos, tutorials, and files. However, a select few of these will be made available to one-time backers on IndieGoGo, who also get the one-time pledge perks the Patreon backers might not get. The best way to get it all is pledge to and follow both.
Thank you guys so much for your interest and support of Little Billy, and its animation journey, process, and style. I hope you've enjoyed this interview as much as I have. God bless, and I hope to see you at one or both of the links above. You guys rock! Keep creating!
Little Billy's Indiegogo is now 'InDemand', which means the campaign is still live and running deadline-free, and pledge contributions are being accepted indefinitely at http://igg.me/at/littlebilly (
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