Heath, Jon, Nathan, and Thomas (aka The Affolter Brothers) are four siblings from Vancouver, Canada who equally share credits on every project that they work on together. Their production company’s unique stop-motion animation style caught the eye of the team over at Nickelodeon and they were selected to create a video for the Top Wing Stop-Motion Animation Project. We chatted with them recently and got to learn a bit about how they collaborate, their unique stop-motion style, and their passion for visual storytelling.
Ingrid Vining: It looks like this was your first ever pitch on Tongal and you got the green light! What drew you to this project?
The Affolter Brothers: Full disclosure, we'd actually pitched for a few Tongal projects in the past that we didn't end up getting, but for reasons that are too long and boring to get into right now, we ended up having to make a new Tongal profile when we submitted for this project, hence it seeming like it was our very first pitch. However, this project was definitely more up our alley than any other that we'd previously pitched for! We develop and produce our own animated projects, including both stop-motion and 2D animation, so when we saw that there was a chance to work with a company as prestigious as Nickelodeon and that it was specifically for stop-motion animation, we knew we had to apply!
IV: What's your experience with animation? How did you learn how to do what you do?
TAB: Our company, Foreshadow Films, consists of myself (Heath), and my three brothers (Jon, Nathan, and Thomas). Thomas and I are trained in live-action, and Jon and Nathan are trained in 2D animation, so we sort of fell into stop-motion because it was the perfect amalgamation of our two mediums. You still need all the skills you would usually use in animation, but you're using real cameras, lights, and sets, so you need that live-action skill set to make it all come together. Our first stop-motion experience was for a contest where teams had to make a stop-motion short, from conception to delivery, within 72 hours. We had way too much fun doing it, so we knew it was something we wanted to keep doing, and since then have done stop-motion web series', short films, and commercials. You learn something new every time you do it, so I definitely think our craft is going to keep improving the more we do.
IV: It's so cool that you're all siblings. How did you all start working together? Have you always been close? Who does what? Why do you think it works?
TAB: Thanks! Yeah, we've been "working" together since we were little kids, although back then it was never work, we just loved making little videos or animations and showing them to our family and friends! We've definitely always been close, but it wasn't until Nathan (the eldest - or as we like to refer to him, the "top of the pyramid") graduated high school and started going to the Vancouver Film School for animation that I think we realized that maybe this was something we could all do, and the fun times we had making projects together never needed to end!
We do each have different strengths and weaknesses, but we share the writer/director/producer credit on all of our projects because we work so closely together that the lines between those roles become completely blurred. It's just a true collaboration all the way through the process. I think it works because we like and respect each other, and have been working together for so long that we have complete trust with each other, so that if someone doesn't like something, they can say so without having to worry that they're hurting somebody's feelings. We don't take anything personally, we're all on the same page about just trying to make the best project possible, so we can challenge each other's ideas completely freely until we arrive at what we all feel is the best idea.
IV: Your video “Top Wing to the Rescue!” is just so dang cute! And you accomplish a lot without any dialogue. How did the concept come together?
TAB: Having no dialogue was one of the initial stipulations from Tongal/Nickelodeon, so we knew we had to lean into visual storytelling. The concept started with us watching some Top Wing episodes and getting a feel for the style, tone, and characters. From there we just started brainstorming ideas about what the general concept for the video would be (a friendly race turns into a rescue mission when Timmy the turtle gets into trouble!), and how we'd be able to stay true to the show's original dynamics while still being able to pull it off within the time and budget we had. In the end, we weren't 100% sure if it was something Nickelodeon was going to love, but we knew that we really liked it, and that's generally what we go for when coming up with ideas: If we think it's cool, there's a pretty good chance somebody else will too!
IV: The video uses a really unique stop-motion style. How would you describe your animation style and how did it come to be?
TAB: For this video, we used a technique that's a bit different from "traditional" stop-motion. We've been experimenting with it for awhile, and it involves shooting each asset (characters, props, sets) separately on their own against greenscreen, then compositing it all together in post to build the world. It's still stop-motion in that everything you see is real and has been shot with an actual camera, and the majority of the character animation is still happening on-set in front of the greenscreen (as opposed to something like The Lego Movie which looks like stop-motion but is actually mostly computer generated), but it allows us to move a lot of the heavy lifting to post-production, which cuts WAY down on the amount of time you have to spend in the studio, and therefore cuts WAY down on time and money (because production with lights and cameras and people in a sound stage will always cost a lot more than just one person working in their home in front of their computer). So it's faux stop-motion, or stop-fauxtion, as we like to call it (see what we did there?!?).
As far as describing our animation style in general, it definitely varies based on the story. We're "story first" type of people, meaning the medium we choose (whether that means live-action or animation, and if animation, what type) is always decided based on what will serve the story the best. Most of the time, the idea for the story comes first, then we decide if it should be animated, live-action, short, feature length, etc., and so we like to switch up the style of our animation depending on the project we're doing.
IV: What else are you guys working on? What's up next for The Affolter Brothers?
TAB: We've got several things in the works! One of our animated TV pitches is in development with a major broadcaster (but you didn't hear it from me -- shhhhhhhh!!!), we're developing a new stop-motion short, we've got a live-action documentary in the works, and of course we're doing all the service work we can, including working with Tongal as much as possible! So we've got lots in the works, and if you wanna keep in touch to see what's next, you can follow us on FB, IG, or Twitter at @ForeshadowFilms or just check out www.foreshadowfilms.com.
IV: What would your dream Tongal project be?
TAB: I think our dream Tongal project would be the reverse of what we just did with Top Wing - This time we're the client working with Tongal and Tongal is finding talented filmmakers to make a short based on our series. :)
