When Stephen Leonard launched his animated project Time Traveling Finger, his clever pitch video had all of my synapses firing at once. Time travel? Check. Ingenious absurdist humor? Check. Free episodes available online? Check. The only thing missing is more episodes! Stephen was kind enough to share a few thoughts with me about his project, indie animation, and giant pancakes. See what he had to say below. Support the project here.
You’re a self-taught animator. That’s seriously incredible—is there a story behind how you got into animation?
I used to work in live action production (real people) but wanted to try something different to get my work recognized and separate myself from other thousands of people making low-budget movies. I’m a life-long fan of cartoons, so I gave them a try and it stuck. I attempted my first cartoon in early 2006 called “Couch Goat,” so I’ve been at it for about 4 1/2 years.
Tell me where you got the idea for the Time Traveling Finger? Why not an elbow, a chin, or a foot?
I got the idea for Time Traveling Finger while on vacation in Massachusetts. I was at one of those colonial towns where everything is preserved as it was in the 1700s, and I thought, “What if it really was the 1700s and I went and knocked something over? Would it have any affect on the future?” I developed the rest of the idea from there, with a few actor friends in mind for the other lead roles. As for the finger, “Time Traveling Elbow” doesn’t sound as catchy, and “Time Traveling Foot” would be kind of weird. I mean, who goes around touching stuff with their foot? Maybe if the lead character was a monkey that would work… Hang on, I just got an idea for a new series…
Who influences you? Any animation greats/obscure unknowns who have had a major impact on your style or sense of humor?
If you watch anything I’ve made, you’ll notice a very clear influence from Garfield and Friends, and The Simpsons. Those are the cartoons I grew up on, and they’ve had a heavy impact on my sense of humor and artistic style.
Let’s talk about the indie animation scene. We’ve had a cluster of cool animation projects on Kickstarter recently. What are your thoughts on a platform like Kickstarter as a tool for promoting and launching indie animation projects?
I think indie animation is a great art form to invest in, and outlets like Kickstarter can be really helpful in finding an audience. I’ve noticed a huge spike in traffic to my own site (GiantPancake.com) since launching my Kickstarter fundraiser, and those are all page views I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten. Even if everyone who is watching my stuff isn’t donating, I’m still tapping into new fans, which is awesome, and is ultimately the goal of producing my own work. There is a lot of great indie stuff out there—animation, music, whatever—and Kickstarter is a great tool to have to try and get noticed.
Joe Murray recently funded his all-cartoon web channel KaboingTV.com with Kickstarter. Any chance we could see the Time Traveling Finger on a web channel in the near future?
Definitely. I try to put my work anywhere I can to get it seen, and Kaboing is a site that would cater to a specific demographic—people who like cartoons. I’ve used another site called Aniboom.com to get my work in front of a similar audience, and I’ve had great success with it. Sites that focus specifically on animation are potentially more valuable than a site like YouTube, because they filter out all the garbage and make it easy for people to find cartoons.
Last question! What’s your favorite food?
Macaroni and cheese. No question… You expected me to say pancakes, right?
Okay, last, last question. How giant is the giant pancake?
Pretty damn giant.
Secret Bonus Area: Here’s a few shots of Time Traveling Finger, before they were famous:
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