Bento Box Entertainment on the mythical effort behind Krapopolis

What happens when a flawed family of humans, gods, and monsters come together to try to run one of the world’s first cities – without killing each other? Watch Krapopolis, an animated sitcom created by Dan Harmon, to find out. 

The series, set in a cocktail of Greek myth and antiquity, features an all-star cast of voices, including Emmy Award-Winner Hannah Waddingham. Krapopolis, owned by Fox Entertainment and produced by Fox’s Bento Box Entertainment, renewed for a fourth season this past summer. 

We interviewed Pete Michels (supervising director), Robert F. Hughes (retake director), and Hayden Patterson (assistant retake director) to learn more about the production of Krapopolis. They share how Bento Box got involved in the project, experience of working with Dan Harmon, and the role that a retakes team plays in the animation pipeline.

To begin, can one of you share some background about Bento Box Entertainment? 

Pete: Bento Box was founded in 2009 by Scott Greenberg, Joel Kuwahara and Mark McJimsey. Bento is a creator driven production company and since its acquisition in 2019, is part of FOX Entertainment.

Bento Box primarily focuses on prime-time shows, collaborating with renowned creators and actors. The studio operates out of North Hollywood, CA, as well as Atlanta, GA. While Krapopolis production is based in North Hollywood, Atlanta, Princess Bento in Australia and Boulder in Ireland assist with animation retakes and special title sequences and/ or marketing materials.

How did Bento Box get involved with Krapopolis? What sparked your interest in the project? 

Pete: Krapopolis was always a Bento Box project. Bento had wanted to do something with Dan Harmon, and this was the project they landed on.

I was brought on very early, as the 2nd hire. I had worked with Dan before on Rick and Morty, and so I was a natural addition to the team. At the time I had just finished a project with Netflix, and so when the recruiter reached out, the timing was right. 

Robert: I’m a big Dan Harmon fan, I love the show Community, and I’ve long been inspired by how he approaches the creative process. I was excited to be offered the opportunity to work on one of his shows.

Hayden: I was recruited as well. Let me tell you, when I got a contract that said “krap” on it, well, that was an interesting first impression. Jokes aside, I was shown samples and concept art for the series, which really captured my interest in the project.

With prime time, you notice a lot of shows tend to look the same, and have a similar premise. But Krapopolis had monsters, mythology, and an animation style that was unique. I was excited by it. 

Pete: Dan deserves credit for trusting us to bring team members on to the show. He was responsible for the writing, and let us worry about what the show would look like. Getting the full trust of Dan was huge, and he loved what we came up with.

What were some important considerations when work on Krapopolis started?

Pete: Coming onto the project, the team knew because it was Dan Harmon that Krapopolis would be compared to Rick and Morty. It was obvious right away that it would be important to make Krapopolis distinct. We didn't want people to think that it was just a Rick and Morty rip-off. The series needed to be unique to Fox and Dan Harmon’s universe. 

In the early days, we focused on creating the world of Krapopolis. We felt that it had to be believable even though it was made up. So, we did research on ancient Greece and archaeological sites, enabling us to create a lot of motifs and patterns from Crete and the Minoan civilization. That’s the artwork we were going for. I’m a big history fan so as soon as I saw that Krapopolis took place in Ancient Greece, I was into it. 

How closely does your team work with Dan Harmon? What is it like to work with him? 

Pete: In the first two seasons we worked directly with him, which was such a pleasure. The plan was to work closely for those seasons to build a process and pipeline, and then he could hand it off to the showrunner.

Dan is a writer’s writer, he’s very interested in the structure. In working with him we found that he’s always open to ideas and solutions. I appreciate that he is not afraid of taking things apart. He respects when you bring a solution or idea to the table, because that’s one less thing he has to do.

Robert: Yes, Dan is very open to implementing our ideas around how we can leverage animation for storytelling. For example, Dan sometimes notes that the voice actors aren’t emphasizing the right word in a sentence. Since our voice talent is based in the UK, we have to wait 2 weeks to have them record it again.

We presented Dan with an animator’s solution, which is to use animation to emphasize the word instead. For example, we could animate a gesture to emphasize the word. Dan was happy to test this solution, and ultimately, we went with it. 

Hayden: Dan is a master of story, but he doesn’t necessarily think in the same way that we do as animators. So we are often able to provide ideas for using animation to correct the dialogue, instead of re-recording it, which wouldn't be as natural a solution for him as it is for us. Being able to work with a writer that trusts his animation team’s expertise and ideas is really fun, and makes the project feel very collaborative.

What is the role of a retake team, and how common is this type of team in the animation pipeline? What is the path to this kind of role in animation?

Hayden: The retakes team are the final sets of hands in post-production. This team generally has their fingers and toes in everything. There are shots that we’ll redo from scratch, for example, and so we have to have the technical knowledge to do it. How to repose, make strong acting choices, create effects, understand composition, and so on. It takes a very well rounded creative mind.

Pete: When I started on The Simpsons, the director of the episode had to do their own retakes. More and more of the director's time was taken up by retakes. So on The Simpsons they decided to have a separate retakes team. The first time I had a retakes team of animators in-house was on Rick and Morty. It saves so much time when things are in-house. These days, a retakes team is common, especially on larger productions. 

Robert: I wouldn’t say there's a linear or clear path to becoming a retakes director. Throughout my career I’ve done layouts, character design, storyboarding, directing, animating, and I’ve assisted cameras. I think this broad experience has led me to retakes because I have a lot of experience across the pipeline. I know the process well and can spot mistakes and issues.

The main role of the retakes team is to address the director’s notes and represent those notes in the show. The retakes team is an important bridge between pre- and post-production. 

Are there any unique aspects about the pipeline, team structure, or approach to producing Krapopolis that you can share?

Pete: Something interesting we can share about making Krapopolis is that episode one isn’t always the first one we work on. Sometimes we start with episode two, and in some cases the whole season is made out of order. This is because of how scripts are distributed. We have 4 directors who rotate, so each director will get a heavy script, medium script, and light script. Instead of one director getting all the heavy scripts, the scripts are distributed in a balanced way, so that no one ends up burnt out. 

Robert: We care a lot about balancing workloads on Krapopolis. Of course, production has a schedule they need to keep, but things can change on the fly. We work hard to make sure our artists are following a schedule, while also reminding production that we can’t spring things on them.

What is the different experience of working on prime time shows versus smaller or indie productions? For those looking to start working on prime time shows, what are some things they can do to start preparing themselves for that shift?

Pete: I’ve been working in prime time basically since the start of my career. I was fortunate enough that between Simpsons seasons I was able to work on Rugrats, or Nickelodeon. I’ve always been at the right place at the right time. 

That said, I’ve worked on smaller productions too, like late night shows on Adult Swim with low budgets and a small crew. The main difference I find in working on smaller productions is that as a director, you have to pick your battles. You can’t just call everything, because there aren’t enough resources.

Many artists want to work at big studios like Nickelodeon, Disney, and DreamWorks, but remember that there are a lot of other smaller studios and independent studios where you can get your foot in the door and gain a lot of valuable knowledge. And often, those smaller studios do overflow work for the larger studios. 

Robert: There’s a direct relationship between the amount of money you’re going to make, and the amount of creative freedom that you have when working on a production. Prime time is big money, and production needs to keep track of everything and every level, and that includes the writing. You answer to more people. 

On smaller projects, you tend to have more creative freedom. You can also work in a variety of capacities, for example, you may need to know how to storyboard and also do designs. But like Pete said, smaller budgets mean some limitations. You won’t be able to call every retake on a smaller production.

One word of advice would be that if you want to work on prime time series, you need to be happy to get in with whatever job is offered to you. If this is a goal you’re working toward, I recommend using Toon Boom and Storyboard Pro to produce your own stuff. Create your own animatics, for example, and show them around. 

Hayden: I spent the first part of my career working at a lot of small studios, often on commercials. In these roles I was typically the animator and the director, doing it all. These small studios were a great experience because they taught me to learn to take feedback well, and pay close attention to detail. I built my animation brain in those jobs which set me up for success when working on larger productions.

Are there any Harmony or Storyboard Pro features that have been particularly useful for animating Krapopolis? New features you’ve discovered in producing this film?

Hayden: In Harmony, on the animation side, we use all sorts of node combinations to build our FX, like fires, god powers, atmospheric FX, anything else that just needs that little extra boost.  We’ve used both complex rig animation, and hand drawn animation on this show.  It’s great to be able to do both and apply FX instantly to what we’ve done with nodes, all in one program.

The flexibility of vectors, the line/pencil tool, and seamless deformers allows us to fix small errors quickly (without redrawing), that alone has saved us countless hours. Overall, Harmony feels pretty unlimited! It’s nice to be able to take and apply a creative vision without too much of a technical barrier in the way.

Pete: We use Storyboard Pro for our boards on Krapopolis, and there are many features that I do find very useful. Our editors use Premier for animatic editing so to get the boards exported to them we just export the storyboard projects as XMLs. 

The editor can just import that XML into Premier and that saves a ton of time. And when the editors have made changes in edit sessions, new lines, or revised timing, we just export an XML out of Premier and drop it right into Storyboard Pro. All the work that the editor has done gets transferred directly into Storyboard Pro and there's no guesswork. This makes revisions easier and makes the conform process fast, smooth and accurate. 

I am also a big fan of the drawing guide tools in Storyboard Pro since our compositions and shots use a natural, realistic perspective. It's so easy to get the scale right for scene planning and the ability to export a BG to our BG designers saves time throughout the production, from design to animation. And, finally, the ability to manage layers is a plus on any production. Whether selecting a character layer across multiple panels, or deleting hidden layers throughout the whole project, this ability helps cut down the clutter and keeps layers more organized and easy to work on.

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• Want to watch Krapopolis? The series is currently streaming on Hulu.
• Interested in join the pantheon at Bento Box Entertainment? Be sure to visit the studio's website and bookmark their careers page.
• Ready to animate your own legend? Artists can download a 14-day trial of Toon Boom Harmony.