THE ART OF THE INTERSTITIAL
By Shannon Muir
Currently
exclusive to this site
***
Frankly, I’d
never heard the term “interstitial” before I took my current animated job. So when I was first told I would be a
production coordinator for 100 interstitials, I had no idea what I was getting
into; all my previous experience was on 11-minute stories like those on INVADER
ZIM or 22-minute episodes of shows like EXTREME GHOSTBUSTERS and JUMANJI.
Basically,
interstitials are short animated pieces, usually used as bridge pieces or
filler between longer pieces, but can also air separately depending on the
broadcast rules of a given country. Given that animation is generally a page and a half per minute of screen
time, scripts are just a few pages at most. Storyboards average between thirty and forty pages.
On the surface
this may sound very boring and tedious. I admit that tying to keep track of lots of little pieces, that aren’t
any real intense storylines, may not seem appealing at first. But bear in mind that each interstitial has
some sort of beginning, middle, and end – a “mini-story” if you will. And because they are shorter material, you potentially
get exposed to a wider variety of mini-plots, themes, and ideas. That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed most
about the job. For our production, the manageability
issue was overcome by treating the interstitials in groupings of ten two-minute
interstitials, equivalent to the length of one 22-minute episode each.
Also, because
they are just interstitials, we’ve had a smaller staff than I’m used to working
with. This has required me to fill some script coordinator and post coordinator
roles out of the necessity that we don’t have these positions, so they are part
of my job umbrella. Of course, then I
can put this knowledge on my resume to help me get jobs later on. This for me
has been another excellent reward of the project.
So if a job
comes your way to work on animated interstitials, don’t turn it down just because
it’s “not a show,” especially if you’re just starting out.
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