"Face's Music Party" is an indie-style kids variety show.

The face of Nickelodeon's iconic 1990s mascot is back at the Face Music party, a new hybrid variety show for kids that will debut at Nickelodeon today.

Each high-energy episode face music party is based on a comprehensive theme - robots, imagination, bugs, etc. - And it is divided into separate acts that can be viewed individually or enjoyed as part of a larger whole. 1. One of the main advantages of the variety format of the show is that Nickelodeon can post individual skits and songs on YouTube so that children can watch them at any time. But another important advantage from the creative side of the production is that the show's team reaches out and commissions work from independent artists and musicians from around the world.

The series has been produced by Jonas & Company, Inc.It is produced by Nickelodeon Animation in partnership with . David Kleiler is a showrunner and executive producer. Jonas & Company Jonas Morganstein and Hema Murchandani are also executive producers, directed by Kleiler and Morganstein. The two directors talked with Cartoon Brew about rethinking the Nick Icon.

The face debuted with Nick Jr. In 1994, he served as an animation host and mascot for Nickelodeon's kindergarten programming block for more than 10 years. The face treats Nick Jr.'s viewers to musical shorts, show intros, and bumpers during programming. The character combines funny voices, silly expressions, a wide palette of colors, as well as props to play dress up and engage with other characters on the screen. The face was a constant for Nick Jr.'s 10 years and eventually went off the air in 2004.

The new series has a core group of animators working remotely to create animated sequences of shows starring Faces, but each episode also features music numbers from independent animators around the world.

"We try to shine a light on talent, animators and designers who often don't have venues," Jonas Morganstein, who oversees the indie segment, said in a conversation with Cartoon Brew, "We're working really hard on some untested animation talent too." It will be. Some of the people who work with us have tons of experience, but some have almost nothing. We want them to express themselves. That's really the key."

Based on classic children's songs like "head, shoulders, knees, toes", "puff the magic dragon", or "ants march", each musical insertion is in the artist's personal style, whether it is 2d animation, cg, paper cut-out, or stop-motion. It will be interpreted. Animators involved in these segments include Angela Stempel, Hobo Devine, Monique Ray, Eleanor and Giovanni, Jordan Brunner and Lou Lou Joa.o, and Chris McDonnell, among many others.

"The easy thing is to get out and license videos of these songs on Youtube, which are already millions of hits, made by several online creators who have been doing this for 10 years," says David Kleiler. "But we can't drop and drag them into the show, there's no way we were going to do it."" So we want to reinvent these songs.

He continued, "There's a lot of music out there that if you're a parent, you don't like it. You don't want your child to hear it anymore because it's not something worth seeing and feels like a wind toy that repeats over and over. So we want to be the answer to it, the antidote to it."

Updating the character of the face to be able to host a full half-hour show was one of the first hurdles the production crew had to jump on. For the makeover, they turned to veteran character designer Joe Moshier (Character art director of Vivo, character designer of The Emperor's New Groove and How to Train Your Dragon2).

"He was a great character designer and had to solve some very subtle things that had been problematic by adapting the old design to our format, and keep the characters on screen for a longer period of time," Morganstein explained. "When you look at the old face, the eyes are very far away, and there is a huge empty space in the middle. So, at Joe's suggestion, we moved our eyes and made them big and warm to fill some of that empty space.

The face has a new look, but there are some old rules that showrunners also want to stick with. 1. One of such guidelines is that it should not be stretched occasionally and have human appendages on the face. That is, the animator of the character must always come up with other ways to create a charismatic host and narrator.

"We thought about the dynamic characters of Tex Avery or Stephen Hillenburg and how they sometimes change and become different," Morganstein said. "Our faces do something similar depending on the character's emotions at any given time, otherwise we always have two eyes and a mouth on the screen

"Bugs Bunny was a big factor," Cryler agreed. "Jonas and I are always talking about such influences.

In order for Face to serve as host of its own show, it took a lot of physical changes, but the character's personality is as attractive and interesting as its predecessor, with no defined gender, race or age, so there's plenty of space to play.

"Face's first job is obviously to showcase the segment, but we're always trying to balance those roles for the face, as characters travel with the audience and tell stories they can relate to."

"The face is eternal, but it has a maturity close to the children watching the show," Morgenstein elaborated. "The face is definitely not a teacher, not an authority figure, but an older cousin who has curiosity and wonder like the kids watching the show. The face is a flawed narrator that children can relate to.

Nickelodeon's production is directed by Eryk Casemiro, Executive vp of Nickelodeon Animation, Global Series Content. As an executive at Nickelodeon, Niki Williams is responsible for the production of the series. Veteran voice actor Cedric Williams is the voice of the face, and the animated director of the series is Celia Bullwinkel.

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