MAKE Originals, the in-house development and production unit of multi-discipline studio MAKE, has launched new episodes of its animated micro-short series Dead Moon Walking. Originally released with five episodes in 2012, the nine-part series is set in the hostile depths of space.
“With the launch of MAKE Originals, we decided to re-release the original episodes and follow them up with a handful of new episodes,” explained Creative Director Danny Robashkin.
Dead Moon Walking follows two astronauts, Orion and Leo, as they experience hapless misadventures, space oddities and miscarriages in lunar judgment — or maybe they are just unlucky. The series was all traditionally animated by hand. From early animatics to finished designs.
“All ideations were taken into consideration for balancing the cute and genuine optimism of Orion and Leo, with their morbidly unlucky incompetence and the gruesome realities of space travel,” added Robashkin.
“We pieced Dead Moon together under the notion of wanting to create animated pieces that felt like comic strips. We started to pitch stories that fit in a bite sized 15 second format. Chang Dai (lead designer) first pitched ‘Comet’ and had the whole team rolling on the floor. After that, we picked the ideas that made us laugh the hardest,” said Alec Soelle, Lead Designer.
“As we developed the series, we realized that this was about two characters, facing death and personal injury while doing mundane and simple things in space,” he continued. “The Darwin Awards were popular at this time; where people get awarded for the dumbest ways to die and take their own stupidity out of the gene pool. Also, a popular video called Dumb Ways to Die came out. While these weren’t a direct influence, this kind of thing was prevalent across the internet at the time we were in production.”
Known primarily for their commercial work, MAKE announced earlier this year their six-project slate of animated short series through MAKE Originals. The first will be Mechsplorers, led by Aaron Dabelow and Andrew Chesworth (Oscar nominated short One Small Step), which follows The Robotsons family — the most scientific scientists on Earth who are sent to explore a verdant Earth-like planet for new technologies, and unravel the mysterious origins of the so-called “Mechs.”
