In talking about the short animation Toilet Story, art director Jared Matsushige begins in a rather unexpected place. "(Our story guy Isaac Finkbeiner) had been watching an episode of Friends one night when one of the characters mentioned coming back in the next life as a toilet brush, after which Isaac thought a plunger would be worse... then toilet paper," he says. "The rest "flowed from there," as he put it..."

Completed over the course of just more than a year, Toilet Story required the work ten artists, all students in the New Media Arts program at Kapi`olani Community College. Between classes, the production team gathered, and slowly but surely built the world of one very existentially disenchanted toothbrush. "We've had our share of squabbles, render problems, program glitches, and other such issues, and also stuff like campus security kicking us out during our late-night, powered-by-Monster work marathons," Matsushige admits. "Overall, despite all the roadblocks and speed bumps the project went well, and, most importantly, we finished..."

Here, in an e-mail exchange, Matsushige fills in more creative blanks about the short, explaining the process, the character development and his own fascination with animation.

SM: How did this whole process go for you all? What were some of the inherent challenges throughout?

A big challenge was subject matter. With only a year to produce a film it would be a stretch to do anything more than a few characters and a couple of sets. We had several stories presented, but Toilet Story seemed like the best option, and the concept was awesome. Five characters and one set seemed like a happy medium.

Then there was the element of "how long." Originally, our animatic hovered somewhere around four minutes long, not including credits. There was a lot of material. (Instructor Sharon Sussman) brought in some of her friends from the industry who helped us cut away the unnecessary stuff to tighten the humor up and cut the content down to a minute-and-a-half.

However, the biggest challenge was probably that only a couple of us had any real production experience. Most of the team had only just learned Maya over the course of about three semesters prior to starting on this project. Only myself and our instructor, Sharon Sussman, had any real production experience, and mine was limited to game production, not animation production. Our schedule and organization started out a little rough and had a few bumps here and there, but by the second semester of the project we had pretty much figured out how the best way to manage things.

SM: Considering that they are all characteristically distinct, where did all of the characters come from?

The characters started out with Isaac's initial storyboards, after which myself and a small team of about three other artists went about playing with different ideas and styles. Originally we had another toothbrush sharing the spotlight, but he was ditched in favor of Floss. That toothbrush was actually designed to be the complainer, and the toothbrush we have now is actually the one who was supposed to be optimistic.

Plunger's personality was originally more of a New Yorker, then became a sort of drill sergeant, then eventually settled into a "Japanese kamikaze pilot" role after one of our animators, Anna Swope, came forward with the idea. Toilet Brush was pretty much Scottish from the start with very little variation.

Toilet Paper, on the other hand, went from having the largest amount of dialogue--or one of the largest amounts-- to having the least. We also drew the most design variations for him, moving his eyes around, playing with if he could have or should have a paper "tail," giving him multiple personalities... He was definitely the punchline, so he had to be as perfect as we could make him.

We did a great many sketches of him, and Toilet Paper's modeler, Ed Josef, went through a lot of revisions with the 3D model. We needed to make sure he looked like he'd been through a lot of stress without making him look used...We went through a lot of storyboarding, dialogue and designs for this guy. I'm sure we had at least three different scripts pitched for his part, and it was only after our instructor's good friend Kevin Johnson helped us decide to make it short and sweet. That was all that was needed to get the point across.

Animating TP took several takes and several different expressions before we got it right. Atsuki Tokuda, the man tasked with animating that particular section of animation, went through many different variations before it got the stamp of approval. Initially he had an angry look, but Atsuki decided to try going for a more scared or worried and stressed look which seemed to work so much better.

SM: What did you learn through the whole process of making the short, and where do you hope to see your work develop in future?

We learned a lot about the ups and downs of how 3D animation production works, what kind of effort needs to go into such productions, and how much time it really takes to do something of this caliber. Our animation was very short, yet it took us a year to produce. Professionals could probably do it in a much shorter timespan, but this project really put the work involved into perspective.

One important thing we learned is the value of team chemistry. We'd heard that some groups of students that came before us had some really bad vibes between each other, and no doubt their work suffered because of it. If a team can't talk with each other, discuss what needs to be done in a constructive, productive way, and give each other criticism without taking it personally, it doesn't do anyone any good, and the work will reflect that. We had an amazingly good chemistry in our team, and I feel Toilet Story turned out well largely because of that.

Hopefully all the team members will secure good jobs in the animation or games industries in the near future. We've been approached by a couple of individuals to do some work for them as a team, but without funding it's difficult to do. Some, like one of our directors, MyAnh Lu, are continuing their education in art. It would be great if some of us could work on another short film together, so I hope that's what's in our future.

SM: On that, how did you get into animation in the first place? Are there any memories or influences that prompted you in the decision to study New Media?

I became interested in animation around fourth grade or so, when I started really understanding the humor in Bugs Bunny shorts. Before then I didn't really understand it; they were just something to look forward to on Saturday mornings. I began drawing characters instead of spaceships, and relatives would say stuff like, "You should work for Disney one day!"

However, I had discovered video games before that, which is still my first love, and decided early on that I wanted to make video games, not animation. From that point on I began mixing video games and cartoon characters in my own designs (and some spaceships, as well), and left high school to pursue a degree in Liberal Arts. It was around then that I discovered Kapi`olani Community College's New Media Arts program.

I'd taken classes for the program for a few semesters before I got hired at a big game studio that had just opened during that time. I worked there as an artist for a couple years or so, then went back to school after things didn't work out. I hadn't considered animation production as a career before going back to KCC, especially since games were where my interest was. However, after Toilet Story I'm seriously considering it as a career path.

For more information visit www.theforeverproject.com.

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