Catching Up with Mark McConville and Rebecca Kartzmark on the making of an indie pilot episode

We enjoy seeing independent creators develop an idea from concepts and storyboards through to a fully fledged animated production. Catching Up, created by Mark McConville, is a hilarious and heartfelt pilot for an animated series. The short follows Rob and Clay as they navigate nerve-wracking social situations from a cat and mouse’s perspective. From a disappointing all-ages club to the highs and lows of teen life, Catching Up taps into shared experience of growing up — and the comedy that comes with it.

Mark, along with Rebecca Kartzmark (animation director on Catching Up), were kind enough to share invaluable lessons for aspiring creators in animation, from the importance of starting small with independent projects to blending expressive hand-drawn animation with more economical 2D rigging techniques. They offer a behind-the-scenes insight into how Catching Up evolved from its early concept to a fully realized animated pilot.

With a successful Kickstarter now paving the way for a second episode, Catching Up is just getting started. If you’ve ever been curious about creating your own animated series, this interview contains firsthand advice on making that dream a reality, one frame at a time. 

What can you tell our readers about Catching Up?

Mark: Catching Up stars two guys, Rob and Clay, as they tackle various frightening social situations with their unique points of view! For example, the Pilot, which we released back in September of last year, features Rob and Clay going to their first Club! (Which is just a really lame underage disco.)

Rebecca: Mark contacted me through twitter on March 2021, asking about rigged animation using Toon Boom Harmony. From there I helped with pre-production for the pilot.

How did you get involved on Catching Up and what were your roles?

Mark: I created the project back in 2020 and between then and 2024 took on the role of writer, director and storyboard artist, along with some other odd jobs throughout production.

Rebecca: I helped Mark early on with testing the rigs out, hiring animators, animation tests, and did a few animated scenes for the pilot. Going forward I’ll be working as animation director, and work on improving and speeding up the animation process.

What changes can readers who saw Rob & Clay expect to see now that they’ve evolved to Catching Up?

Mark: Initially I had the characters in middle school before deciding to age them up a tad. Now they’re Freshman in high school, which I think opens more storytelling possibilities as they try to navigate the transition from kids to adults. And how neither of the two feel like they’re ready to grow up.

Did the designs evolve significantly from the original concepts?

Mark: Originally Rob was a dark brown with a very small hat, however over the course of drawing him I simplified his design more and more, along with making his hat tower over his ears. I struggled a lot more with Clay at first, starting with a beige dog design before I eventually landed on a blue cat.

Because the show is rigged, their puppets are versions of them I had designed back in 2022. I don’t draw them exactly the same anymore, so I’m looking to add in those few tweaks for follow-up episodes.

What inspired the visual style and overall aesthetic of the Catching Up pilot?

Mark: I wanted the world to take inspiration from the town’s I grew up in, living in rural Ireland with winding roads, giant mountains and crappy-looking villages.

To me, Irish towns tend to look like everyone was just making do, most buildings appearing like they haven’t been renovated in hundreds of years, but despite that nobody seems to mind. I wanted their world to reflect a clearly run-down area that’s been built overtop genuinely beautiful landscapes.

What animation techniques did you use to bring this pilot to life?

Mark: I wanted the pilot to reflect the cartoons that I grew up enjoying, focusing on strong key poses with minimal in-betweens. Really highlighting the silhouette of a character with varried posing and facial expressions.

Rebecca: We used Rigged animation in Harmony, and we went with a style that focused on strong poses and quick animation timing. Much like cartoons in the early 2000s. Thanks to the team we had, we were able to push certain scenes to make this pilot stand out.

Were there any unexpected technical challenges you can talk about?

Mark: Being my first time producing something on this scale there were many technical issues I was not prepared for; I could go on for days so I’ll just highlight a couple haha. The thick outline around the characters were created using nodes which could be altered on the spot, which was helpful for dealing with different camera angles, but became an issue when a character would be sitting behind an object in the foreground, for example in this early version of a shot of the characters at school the outline disappears when their body parts overlap with the foreground elements.

Possibly the biggest issue I faced was during the compositing stage and receiving materials over Google Drive, as sometimes certain effect templates would fail to upload, leading to many missing layers when opening certain shots for the final render.

I want to say about 75% of the shots had this issue and it resulted in many weeks of me attempting to recobble everything back together.

Rebecca: We wanted a thick outline with the characters, and depending how you plugged the nodes, it can mess up easily, and it took time to figure out which exact plug was causing the issue. Our early rigs were too heavy and made it difficult for the animator to pose out a scene. As time went on, we improved and made the rigs lighter and easier to use.

The Pilot was animated in Harmony Premium using 2D puppet rigs, alongside Adobe After Effects for compositing.

How did you approach character design and visual development for the pilot?

Mark: I wanted the Pilot to solely focus on Rob and Clay, showing how they interact with the world around them. So I created many secondary characters for them to play off of over the course of the cartoon, showing how each of them deals with different awkward scenarios. I feel like this was a good way of keeping the focus on the main characters while still allowing the world to open. Throughout the cartoon we’ve now introduced a plethora of characters we can give greater attention in the future.

What were your inspirations for animating the club scene?

Mark: I wanted to convey the cramped feeling of being in a club, barely being able to recognize half the people there. The shots were filled with many background characters and extreme lighting affects to help highlight Clay’s feeling of being overwhelmed by it all.

In your opinion, which scenes played the largest role in conveying emotion or atmosphere?

Rebecca: I didn’t work on the shot, but the scene where Clay begins to panic in the club; the acting on him was incredible. Another great shot is Rob standing far from the crowd, alone and isolated from his peers. It really made me feel like that young kid in school who didn’t have friends.

Mark: Rob is a very naive character who believes just being himself will be enough to garner friends, and so I personally love the scene where he finally starts to have his world view be broken a little as he stands alone, ostracized from his peers.

I think this contrasts well with a scene earlier on of the two exiting Rob’s dad’s car, which has Rob take up way more of the screen with a confident look on his face, ready for the night to start. 

How did the animation team collaborate throughout their work on the project?

Mark: I had a Discord Server for the animation team to communicate with, which allowed them to look at how other shots were coming along and also gave them the opportunity to give feedback on each other’s work which I found particularly helpful.

What is the larger vision for the Catching Up universe? Do you hope to develop it into a full series, and if so, what would that look like?

Mark: I funded the entirety of the Catching Up Pilot myself out of pocket, and so I’m extremely grateful to have run a successful Kickstarter campaign to produce a second. I’ve learned a lot from working on the first campaign and so I think this second one could be something amazing. And I’m really enjoying how it’s coming out so far as I reach the end of the boarding stage.

I would absolutely love to produce a full series but now it all depends on how things go with the second episode. I would be interested in launching a Patreon in the future to have a consistent stream of support so I can ensure my team is paid what they’re worth. There's a fleshed-out plan of how I would want the entire series to go from start to end. I hope someday I’m able to tell that story!

What advice would you give to independent animators or teams looking to create their own pilot from scratch?

Mark: Start small! I cannot stress enough how bad of an idea it was to start with a full 20- minute pilot haha. There were many hurdles that could’ve been avoided with more experience and so I would recommend starting with smaller shorts and try to garner a fanbase from that first.

Rebecca: Make a story that you yourself would want to watch. When it comes from the heart, the show feels more alive and real. Also don’t overwhelm yourself with huge world building or insane storylines. Focus more on the characters, and make the audience believe the characters are alive.

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• Catching Up's second episode has already been funded on Kickstarter, but if you are interested in following the project you can subscribe to Mark McConville's channel on YouTube.
• Ready to start production on your animated short? Artists can download a 21-day trial of Toon Boom Harmony.