Mar 19, 2024

Michael Luocco takes us behind the scenes of his short "Sniff & Sniff", now available online.

Michael Ruocco's new short film, Snif & Snüf, debuted online over the weekend and is commendable.

Snif & Snüf is wonderfully engaging. Its vintage cartoon action and one-of-a-kind soundtrack make its about-quarter run time feel almost too short Two tremendously fun It's incredible what Ruocco can do with some simple shapes, two 2d characters, and a limited color palette.

Ruocco is a highly skilled artist who has worked on studio pricing and indie production as well. Last year, his Looney Tunes cartoon storyboard was nominated for an Annie Award. Other high-profile credits include popular series such as the Cuphead Show.Bo Jack Horseman, and most recently, Vivienne Medrano served as animation director for the hit indie series Helluva Boss.

We caught up with Ruocco, who told us about his development and production process, explained how he found time to make films while working in the studio, and praised those who were impossible without Snif & Snüf.

Cartoon Brew: We've worked on some of the most iconic animated traits to date, but this is a pair of completely original characters. Where did the idea for the short story come from-

Michael Ruocco: This was the idea I had to pitch to the Sesame workshop in college. I came up with a rough concept, but before I threw the idea at them, I found that the brokerage company was trying to own the rights. I kept the idea to myself because I wasn't going to be credited or paid. A few years later, while working on the Looney Tunes cartoon at the Wb, I decided to revive the idea when I wanted to make a short story again, after I hadn't made one in about eight or nine years.

What were some of your inspiration when developing a project-

The concept and character design were inspired by several different things like early Pink Panther cartoons (especially Pink Finks) and many of the early UPA works and commercials. But my biggest draw was from the works of Bruno Bozetto, Bill Littlejohn and the Zagreb films of the 1960s.I don't know why, but I love to draw characters with big noses, and my favorite shorts by these sources are also a lot by chance. Go to the figure.

Given the amount of work you've done in the studio in recent years, how did you find the time to put this together-

As I mentioned before, I started making this while boarding/writing the Looney Tunes cartoon. When I finish the board early, I put the time in my own short on the side. I wanted the movie to have a more graphic/stylized approach to animation, but many of my Looney Tunes sensibilities have unwittingly crept into my work, so it has a much looser and more fluid inbetweens than I originally wanted. But it worked either way. Also, I've always been intrigued by movies/short films all happen at once (i.e. on the edge of the earth of Konstantin Bronzit), and I've even done a few with Looney Tunes (wet cement, shoe shine-Anigan), so this is a good way for me to hurt that particular itch. It was another way. It was a learning experience because I had to find an economical and clever way to find a place to cut. In other shorts, at least the characters would go off-screen here and there, but in me, Snüf is on-screen for the full length of the cartoon, so I later animate

How long did the shorts work?-

The short, from 2019 to 2023, took about 5 years from start to finish, but much of that time was affected by external factors that slowed me down, such as my full-time work, the pandemic, and life/health stuff. So it's such a simple movie overall, so it took a lot longer than I wanted to put it all out in the first place.

You can talk a bit about your process - what was your workflow like -

The board didn't take much time at first, but my board file was corrupted along with all the backups, so I lost everything and started over. We had to do it. Fortunately, I took a phone record of what I had to show to a friend before it timed out, so I clicked on the board frame by frame

so I tend to make the storyboard of the show in the mindset as if I had to animate it myself. We try not to overcomplicate it. I try to go through the trouble of posing out complex actions/breakdowns accordingly to save the shot/layout or give the animator a lot of information (foot placement, proper hookups, etc.).). I knew I was just gonna do this solo, so my board was pretty close to the final animation key, so either the board to animation

I roughed it all up with TVPaint, but I re-thought about the cleanup process for the time (I'm not sure if it's a good idea). I was originally going to go for a sketchy Xerox look), but I knew that some of the tools out there would help me do it if I worked harmoniously for the cleanup (I have a very shaky hand). I also knew more people who had harmony and could potentially help me with cleaning later. I eventually ended up doing all the cleanup myself because I didn't have enough money to pay people, and I got people free to it but if anything, it helped me learn the process of harmony, which has been beneficial to me since then.

Music and sound are very important for a shorter and more demanding pacing than would have been required if you were working in dialogue.

The sound and music were all done by Yoav Landau, who had become my friend for many years, and a fairly successful musical career for himself as a living tombstone I told him passing that I was thinking that the music sounds like the music of a brass band from Moldova (specifically, video games). The group Fanfare Vagabontu, which did music for Rabbids Go Home, jumped at the idea that he wanted to be a part of it somehow in that way. He even offered to hire a live musician to play his music, which I thought was his amazing thing to offer. My only real direction was that I wanted each character to have a corresponding sound/instrument to represent them in the film "à la Peter and The Wolf", which Yoav did perfectly (Snif utters with woodwind instruments, snüf utters with brass).

As an experienced and amazing musician, Yoav has not much experience doing anything "like a score" before, and I certainly don't make it easy for him I've seen every action with no actual display or direction when it comes to beats other than most of the actions that are more or less timed to the 8s. The animation is time, so the tempo will fluctuate for a short time. But he found a way to get around my sloppy timing animations and really let it all flow well. He composed all the music himself in his own time while still doing all his major commitments for a living tombstone and other more important projects than himself. I then had different musicians from around the world record instruments separately and combine them for the final product (all the sound effects are also done by myself.). He went on and beyond. I know the experience was a bit stressful for him, but it certainly doesn't show that in the final job. He is a good man...I can't help but admit that all, if not all, of Short's success was supported by his contributions. Music is really like another character in a story, and that, I think, is the glue that holds it all together.

Is there anyone else who worked on the short you want to scream-

My fellow Chris Allison, who worked in the Looney Tunes comics as a fellow borderline, was also a great help to me. He was supportive of my short and that progress since I first talked to him about it, and he offered to help in the way he could, which ended up going beyond, in doing the final image editing and compositing on it. He found scanned old raw film footage that added "age" to the film. He put a fake cell shadow behind the character. He figured out how to put a slight line wiggle on every line art I've already animated. I still really appreciate him for this all he did it all out of passion and support for my own work, while he was working on multiple animation projects at the same time, doing his own cartoons for Toon Hall at the same time, and I am grateful to him for it. I have a little handwritten note of him that he wrote for me early in the production that I had hung on my visor all these years. It helped me to want to keep going when I felt like I couldn't do it anymore. It's real people like Chris, despite the state of the industry right now, making me want to continue to be a part of it in some way.