Peek Inside An Okay Place To Eat!

Friday, August 13, 2010

Below are some of our interior shots for An Okay Place To Eat, done by our awesome storyboard/background artist, Chris Paluszek, from Robot Chicken, Titan Maximum, among others! Q&A with Chris after the breaks!

1) You've been with Okay Place since the beginning, what are your thoughts on the show?
C: I'm excited. There's a real wealth of content just waiting to be mined in later episodes (fingers crossed!). I think the best thing is how distinct each character is- no two serve the same purpose and they all have such great personalities.

2) What approach did you take when it came to backgrounds?

C: To keep them simple and not too distracting. A 50s-type diner has a lot of opportunity to be filled with a lot of kitsch and flair, but if it pulls viewer attention away from the characters and animation
you're hurting the show.

3) We hear you're going to be animating a pivotal scene between Sergeant Cereal & Hector Spector. What about it are you most looking forward to?

C: Any line from Sergeant Cereal is gold, but it's his reactions to Spector's timidity that I can't wait to animate.

4)  If you were stranded on a desert island with the employees from An Okay Place to Eat, and you could save one person, who would it be and why?

C: Juke-A-Tron, because if I were to murder him and hollow him out, he'd make the most stable raft. Crash is a close second, though.

5) Who was your favorite food or beverage mascot as a child?

C: The Noid, because he make the least amount of sense. He's a man in a costume? He has ears? But he's really tiny, so is he a goblin, or maybe some sort of demon? All I know is he wants pizza, and I can
relate to that.

6) Did you draw on your personal experiences to tailor the look of An Okay Place To Eat? If so, what diner did you model it on?
C: Back home in Norfolk there's an incredible diner named "Doumar's" that's been around since the 30s, I think. It still operates as a drive-in so they'll serve you in your car. Definitely worth it if you're ever in the Virginia Tidewater area.

7) If you were forced to have sex with either Ruby Gold or Delilah, which one would you choose and why?
C: Ruby, mainly because I'm afraid of Delilah.

8) Would you eat at An Okay Place To Eat? If so, what's your favorite thing on the menu?

C: Every food establishment gets a shot from me, and if I were to order anything it would be whatever's the chef special. Although having drawn the kitchen background I know that includes "the brown lettuce,
yogurt, and spices," so maybe I'd just have some coffee or something.

9) You were also the storyboard artist. Tell us a little bit about what that was like.

C: It's like a sampler platter of every role on the show. There's a little bit of everything: backgrounds, animation, character design...it's incredible to be in control of all of that at once.

10) Give us an example of how of your creative storyboard ideas were incorporated.

C: When Hector steps in water in the beginning, the script called for a puddle but I thought it would be outrageous if it were actually a deep hole in the middle of the diner. That way it both underscores the
quality of OK Place and gives the "Jesus walking on water" gag a little more clarity. I pitched that to the director, Andrew Racho, and he loved it.

11) Where can we see some of your other work?

I have some clips of my previous work at chrispstuff.com, and I have a blog that I never update at painguage.blogspot.com