Dancing Diablo Animation Studio Color Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Series
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK (Dec. 12, 2003) -- The devilishly talented team at the DUMBO-based Dancing Diablo animation studios have been working with 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (New York, NY), a global provider of children's entertainment and merchandise licensing and co-producer of the all-new “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” animated series, styling and providing the digital coloring for the weekly animated series which appears on the FOX-TV Saturday morning block programmed by 4Kids.
Dancing Diablo has collaborated with 4Kids on the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” television series since its premiere on FOX in February of 2003. They have styled and painted backgrounds for 26 episodes for Season One and are currently completing the last of 26 episodes for Season Two. In January they will begin work on 13 episodes for Season Three. [an error occurred while processing this directive]
Team Green was born when an accidentally irradiated, intelligently mutated rat, Master Splinter, took four similarly irradiated and mutated baby turtles under his protective wing. For fifteen years, Sensi Splinter trained his charges in the martial arts and the ninja path. The new ”Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” features the four beloved butt-kicking martial artists - Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello and Raphael - and contains the same irreverent contemporary humor and compelling action sequences that the Turtles are famous for, updated for the 21st century.
The series takes its inspiration from the storylines, the characterizations and the graphic look of the original comic books – not the earlier animated series.
Dancing Diablo’s founding Partner Beatriz Ramos explained the collaborative process. “My team works on the digital coloring of one show each week. We meet with the director at 4Kids to breakdown the board and discuss the color treatment for the show (the palette we use is moody with an emphasis on dramatic lighting), how we want the backgrounds to look, what colors the flashback scenes or the dream sequences are going to employ, what light treatments we are using for characters and props, etc. 4Kids supplies the designs which we scan and prepare for color. Then, in Photoshop, the Dancing Diablo artists digitally color the backgrounds, characters and props.” Once all the color models are completed and approved, Dancing Diablo prepares all the files to be shipped to Korea where the actual animation is done. “My team is amazingly talented and hard working and I am tremendously proud of the work they have produced for this series,” Ramos continued.
4Kids Entertainment Producer JoEllyn Marlow added, “Beatriz is one of the most talented and skilled artists that I have worked with in a very long time and I think that her sensibilities are perfect for this project. Without her touch the show would not have looked as good as it does. Because of Dancing Diablo’s contributions this show is taken to a higher level of quality than it would have been had anyone else done the ink and paint.”
The Dancing Diablo creative team included Founding Partner/Designer Beatriz Ramos, who is the stylist; Color Supervisor: Liz Artinian; Background Painter Reginald Butter; Prop/Character Colorist Pedro Ros; and Production Manager Francisco Hurtado.
Dancing Diablo worked closely with a 4Kids Entertainment team which included Supervising Producer Lloyd Goldfine, Supervising Director Roy Burdine, Executive in Charge of Production Carole Weitzman and Producer JoEllyn Marlow.
Dancing Diablo's keys are sent to Fun Animation (Seoul, Korea) which animates the series.
The original “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” were created in May 1984 when Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman published a 40-page, black-and-white comic book. The original “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” animated series debuted in 1987 and was the #1 children's television show throughout the late 1980's and early `90's.
About Dancing Diablo Studio:
Dancing Diablo Studio, Inc., founded in January 2002, is dedicated to the production of high quality and innovative animation. This intimate and independent studio is known for the fresh, bold and positively devilish ideas they conjure for their clients. The studio creates original animations and designs inspired by a spirit of creative exploration and innovation and is comprised of a small group of talented animators, illustrators and designers, each and every one masters of their craft.
Dancing Diablo excels at traditional animation, stop-motion, CGI and flash, and creates images for the advertising, broadcast, corporate and recording industries. Their client roster includes 4Kids Productions, Inc., Young & Rubicam (Bravo Group), Steve Madden, Millennial Arts Productions, Atlantic Records, Greenteam Advertising (Smithsonian Institution), MTV and Side Show/ABC Sports. In addition, individually, the partners have created projects for MTV, Cartoon Network, Disney, Grey Global Group Advertising, ING Barings, Prime Brokerage Services, Intel Corporation, Kellogg Company, Microsoft Corporation, Nickelodeon, Scholastic Inc., Cheseborough-Ponds USA Co., and New Line Productions, among others.
About 4Kids Entertainment:
Headquartered in New York City with international offices in London, 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: KDE) is a global provider of children's entertainment and merchandise licensing. 4Kids, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, provides domestic and international merchandise licensing and product development, television, film, music and home video production and distribution, media buying and planning and Web site development. For further information, please visit the company's Web site at www.4KidsEntertainment.com
Dancing Diablo Studio is headquartered in D.U.M.B.O. at 45 Main Street, Suite 524, Brooklyn, NY 11201; phone (718) 243-0103; Fax (718) 243-0118; Visit the DDS web site at http://dancingdiablo.com; For additional information or to see a reel contact Jackie Brown, Studio Manager, at email Diablo@dancingdiablo.com
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