The newest director of 'Eddsworld: Beyond.' Matt Hargreaves was kind enough to let me have an interview (9/18/2020) on the newest production for Eddsworld.
Before I start here is a small tidbit about Eddsworld. Originally created by Edd Gould, the animation was an online flash series about a group of moronic boys attempting to do ordinary day things with unordinary occurrences. It gained a large following on the internet and is one of the many staples of Newgrounds.
However, in early 2012, Edd lost his battle to cancer. Tom Ridgewell (Tomska took over being Director) and Matt Hargreaves, fellow creators on the series helped continue Eddsworld Legacy in honor of Edd, as Matt had mentioned in the interview. Legacy had ended back in 2016 with 'The End prt 1 & prt 2, and the series had become quiet as Tom Ridgewell left the series. It wasn't until August 1, 2020 that Matt Hargreaves helped bring back Eddsworld with Christopher Bingham (Producer). The two hired on many talented artists to help create and bring back the classic style of Eddsworld in their latest animation; ' Fanservice 2'.
Eddsworld: Beyond involves a team of 8-10 people on the crew itself, 13 if the board members are included. The board members are family members of Edd Gould as they wanted the series to continue in their former loved one's honor. Matt listens to their words closely as he is trying to build a booklet of how to steadily run Eddworld for the board members incase he must take his lead, that they too can continue the series. Communication is very important for the team and board, it helps the team stay ontop of the animations and it helps keep the board in the know how. They have weekly meetings to make sure that things are still in order for promos and animations, since they consistently update with content. But unlike in the past, Eddsworld is more about brand than it is about the cartoons now. The board watches over closely on the ads, and merch and give Matt the thumbs up or thumbs down on whether his choices will benefit the brand or not. They have mood boards set in place, but most importantly they have a strict style-guide that is ever growing. They add items to the guide for their current and future artists so that they can continue to replicate Edd's style and feel for the series. "It needs a lot of annotations which is beneficial to new artists." The Style guide is to see what the limits are, what the fonts they use will be, their color schemes, while it can feel like setting limits, but they also know when and where they can break these limits. As Matt mentioned; "It can be tricky since you don't know something is wrong until someone does is, so the guide evolves and grows."
The New Goal for Eddsworld.
Matt has taken over Eddsworld in order to help reface it from just a webseries to a company that produces other products and series in the future.
Places they will be advertising are on basic Social Medias and Youtube, to create a more organic growth in Ads.
But they also run a Patreon which has given them more Freedom, where they can close shop whenever they need. With the following Eddsworld has, it does give them the freedom to do this with their dedicated fanbase. With Patreon is let's them use the pool of research to test out what the masses might want, and can make the adjustments if they think it necessary.
They have different tiers for more interactions from getting EW creator art, special Livestreams, and depending on how it goes chances for 2 min shorts that they can join.
However this is all up in the air at the moment because Matt does not like the idea of paywalls dividing them getting a chance to be a part of Eddsworld. So he and Bing are still making adjustments on that.
Eventually when they become an established company, Matt mentioned that he would like them to create full-pay scholarships or at least animation classes to teach to those around because he wants to encourage the love kids have for their art, and creations.
EW Method Like many other animations they have these steps they go through to create their animation.
Concept
BrainStorm
Script
Refine Script
Audio Record
Audio Lock
Scene Lock
Animatic
Keyframe
Assign Scene_Shots first run
final run (composite)
final clean up
final edit
credits
As director, Matt assigns his animators shots and roles that are good for their strengths. The first and last scenes he mentioned will be the most consistent and the middle changes a bit. With the future intention of shorts if it is just 2 mins long with the style guide he wants to have just two animators work on it and finish it. But they plan on overlapping Episodes and shorts to keep the content flowing. And for this Matt mentioned the style guide is allowed to break on shorts. But not episodes.
The Budgetting of Eddsworld comes down to the availability of animators, he makes sure they are paid in full. But their budget does have a limit so that they do not go broke. The EW team budgets by the minute and how much 5 mins would cost them. They do their best to get things done in bulk to avoid freelance rates and salary.
But with things are going, Matt is for the first time during the production taking an invoice for being the Director. As he has been doing this just to help the board, and his departed friend's series thrive.
It was a nice chat to see just how far the series had come, and I can honestly say I am excited to see where they take Eddsworld: Beyond.