Today I’m working on the script and “scene listing” for a Grimm episode based on “The Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was”. So I thought I’d post a bit of artwork related to that episode. Here you see the light/dark version of a blacksmith worker from the opening scene of the episode. These guys get theirs when the happy metalworks they’re laboring in turns into something straight out of Mordor.

Internally, we refer to this episode as “BoyFear”. Other lengthy tale names also get shortened, “Cinder”, “NoHands”, “FishWife”, and “DevilHairs” being some fine examples.

For each episode we tackle there’s a tremendous amount of documentation generated. Adapted narrative drives episode design documents, VO scripts,  cinematic scene scripts, asset lists (NPCs, objects, terrain textures, sky boxes, particles, sound effects, etc), task lists, programming requests, AI updates, schedules, MS Project files, and so forth. We treat each new episode as a virtual stand-alone project, and separate creative, production, and tracking information as such.

Episodic production certainly has its interesting differences from traditional single-box-product development. One of these days, when I find time, I’ll get into some more detail on the differences.

At the start of the Grimm project I had the idea that we’d manage to record 99% of our voice over work in-studio. Our office has a dedicated sound guy, a beautiful sound recording room, and everything else necessary for the task – except one thing: voice talent.

The team tried a few times to capture the “voice of Grimm” as well as various NPC dialogs. What came out of our efforts was random one-liners for NPCs, stuff like “Ahhhhg!”, “Noooo!” and a distinct feeling that we wouldn’t be able to do this thing on our own.

Enter Roger Jackson. You may know him as the voice of Abraham Lincoln in “Sam & Max Season One: Episode 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die” (which, it turn out you can check out free on Gametap!), Mojo Jojo from Powerpuff Girls, or Dormouse, Jabberwock, and Cheshire Cat from “Alice”. His work is legendary and excellent.

Yesterday, we received the first batch of VO work from Roger.

Check it out here: Roger-Grimm-Jack

(Jack concept image from the “Jack and the Beanstalk episode of Grimm)

To say I am excited would be an understatement. What you are listening to is Roger acting the part of our main character Grimm, who is introducing the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. This is how each episode of Grimm will begin – an introduction to the light version of a fairytale. Grimm (aka Roger) presents the tale in puppet theater format, acting out all the voices in the story.

To hear Roger as Grimm doing the voices of Jack’s mom, the singing harp, the Giant, and others is pure joy. It’s great to have him on the project.