Pearl Low on building momentum for WHEELS & ROSES

WHEELS & ROSES is a magical girl coming-of-age story set in the fast-paced world of roller derby. Created by Orange Blossom Studios and spearheaded by L.A.-based artist Pearl Low, the indie project is currently on Kickstarter. The goal of the campaign is to create a TV pilot while paying the cast and crew union rates.

Pearl Low’s previous work includes storyboarding for the Oscar-winning short Hair Love as well as Craig of the Creek for Cartoon Network. Combining their professional experience with their love for anime’s storytelling tropes, they are creating a magical world in WHEELS & ROSES with a story about building meaningful relationships and overcoming all odds.

We sat down with Pearl to discuss the rise of indie productions, cross-cultural artistic influences, and how creators combine the craft of animation with activism.

WHEELS & ROSES was first described to me as, 'Sailor Moon meets roller derby,' which is so fun as a concept. How much of WHEELS & ROSES has been created already?

Pearl: The trailer is what we have right now that’s fully completed. It’s such an interesting thing to really realize and register; that animation is expensive to make. I think we all know this conceptually. But when you’re starting to do this independently, you’re like, “Oh wow, this is a lot of money!”

I’m trying to pay folks who are on my team union wages as much as possible. Especially during 2023, when I was unemployed during most of the year, it was difficult. A compromise I came to was making a trailer for the Kickstarter to give people a taste of what visuals they could expect, what style they could expect, and to hopefully fund it so we can make more!

While there are magical girl anime influences, with the roller derby premise lending itself to a tournament arc, it also has a distinctly American aesthetic. What inspired the concept of the show, and what influences are you pulling from?

Pearl: I think the first point of inspiration was roller skating, and roller skating in the sense of rhythm dancing. I was getting into roller skating myself in about 2018, and thought it would be cool to make a series around it. Some of the biggest influences in my life are sports anime and magical girl anime. I was thinking about sports, and how they’re a really good vessel to talk about different people’s journeys as individuals. As well as learning how to navigate community settings and just grow as people. 

I think a lot of sports shows, like Ted Lasso, are about sports, but they’re really about the people. So I was trying to think of a sport where I would feel comfortable, and it would feel natural to talk about themes that I wanted to talk about — like queer themes, magical themes, and having a diverse set of folks participating. In roller derby, you can be any shape, size or gender. You don’t have to be a six-pack kind of person. It just has so much bandwidth for different types of folks to participate in it. I really wanted to pull from roller derby because the types of communities that are included in the sport really speak to me.

And Magical Girl content is always something that I absolutely love. I really try to magic into all the scenes that I do on all the shows that I work on. There aren’t a lot of experiences that I have [working on] purely Magical Girl shows, so that was a sort of self-indulgent point of inspiration. I was like, “Alright, I like these two things: Sports anime and Magical Girl anime. Let me smush them together for a genre-bendy series.”

I started development [for WHEELS & ROSES] in 2019. In 2020, I actually optioned out the show to Netflix and I was doing some development with them. It ended up getting cut, but the original stuff that I pitched reverted back to me. I was like, “You know what? I’m still going to want to do something with this.” The point when I decided to do it was 2023, when I had time. Everyone was going through huge layoffs. I could dedicate putting a lot of time and work into trying to craft this sort of story. 

In terms of visuals, it’s funny because people online were saying it looks like Craig of the Creek meets Sailor Moon. And the previous job that I had before starting on my Kickstarter was Craig of the Creek at Cartoon Network. So I think my drawing shorthand is very much attached to the show I just came off of.

A lot of the designs still have a lot of remnants of Craig of the Creek — a Cartoon Network, kind of rounded style. And even now, I draw a little bit differently. I’m trying to learn to lean more into my anime tendencies, that I worked so hard to erase, just because of the industry that we’re in. I don’t think anime was talked about a lot in a good light. But now I’m like, “No, I really want to do that.” The trailer is still very Cartoon Network-reminiscent, but it may change in the future. 

Is this your first time spearheading a project like this?

Pearl: Yeah, it is my first time! For most of my career, I’ve been in the story department. So I’ve been a story revisionist, then a storyboard artist. And in 2020, when I started working on Craig of the Creek, because it was a board-driven show, I was able to do some writing as well. So I've had a bit of experience with writing episodes. At the point where I started creating WHEELS & ROSES in 2023, I was in this space of wanting to pursue leadership opportunities like directing or being an assistant director or something like that. 

But because of the way the industry has been, there aren't any opportunities that are available to me right now. And so part of why I'm also making this Kickstarter project is to give myself the opportunity to direct and give myself the experience that I kind of seek, just because I'm not able to find that with major studios.

It's been a really great experience being an indie director. It was cool to put together a team to help me fill in the gaps of my knowledge personally. I did reach out to other people who were animators, and I reached out to a different composer. It was really nice to work with others and learn from them too, because it's not my expertise to do backgrounds or it's not my expertise to do music.

How would you describe the reaction to the Kickstarter and the trailer so far?

Pearl: It's been super positive. I think a lot of people in our generation who grew up on those [magical girl] shows — Cardcaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon, you name it — are now grown. We're all grown and we've been waiting in the Western industry for a magical girl show. So the response that I've been getting has just been like, “Oh my God, finally! I love this genre-bendy kind of show! Oh, I feel so represented!”

It's also really cool because a lot of my peers are also giving a lot of positive support, which is really nice. I feel like it's always cool when your community recognizes what you put out. So yeah, I've been really happy with the positive response so far.

The Kickstarter campaign page emphasizes the representation that viewers can expect to see in WHEELS & ROSES. Can you speak a little bit to the importance of diversity and inclusion, especially in a show that kids are going to be watching?

Pearl: I think it's really important to have representation on so many different layers. Age wise, so many times we hear in the Western industry that girls stop watching cartoons when they're thirteen. And it's like, no, they just go to watch anime instead because there's something for them there. And so with WHEELS & ROSES for that age demographic, I'm trying to diversify that gap there, by actually making something for that audience. 

As far as featuring queer characters, I'm Canadian, but I’m seeing the stuff down here in America that is being actively implemented to erase the visibility of queer folks and the rights of queer and trans people. I just want to hold space for people who deserve to see themselves on screen and deserve to see themselves in a magical capacity or in a badass sports anime style. Because they're part of our communities. 

One of the things about, you know, diversity for me is just really reflecting the types of communities that I navigate personally and being like, “This is real life.” They are just different people out here and they're part of a sport or they're part of this club. They're my friends. They're my next door neighbours. I'm in relationship with these people.

I'm in community with them. But when you create art, you have to intentionally reflect that.

You've chosen to crowdfund WHEELS & ROSES through Kickstarter. And you mentioned that Netflix had previously considered the project. What led you to decide to go down the crowdfunding  route?

Pearl Low: I did a Kickstarter back in like 2018 for a personal comic that I made called “Tension,” and I found that really successful. I was like, “This is great. So let me try it again.” 

It's still a really difficult path, sharing media these days. With AI coming in and scraping all the art on different social media, it's been hard to kind promote. But it's still something that I felt strongly about, because the crowdfunding process really includes community. And that's who I'm trying to speak to. That's what I'm trying to cultivate. So I think Kickstarter was really aligned with that mission. 

And people can have tax-deducted pledges.. So it felt like this route makes sense for me.

And how has working on an indie production differed so far from working on a studio production? There’s a lot more on your shoulders, but there must be a lot more freedom of expression as well.

Pearl: I would agree that there's a lot more freedom in expression. I feel like this is a very self-indulgent process for me. I get to pick the people who I work with. And I get to pick the aesthetic. It's been super nice to not compromise on vision. One of the things that I heard when I was developing with Netflix was that it was too genre-bendy for what they were looking for at that time. And that's something that I don't have to compromise when doing something independently. So that's been really lovely.

But yeah, there are a bunch of differences between a major studio and here. I'm doing the independent route where I have to wear many different hats. I have to be the producer, the editor, the writer, the storyboarder. I do a lot of different things. And the monetary support is not the same, that's for sure. 

And there aren't necessarily more experienced folks you can ask about things in your immediate vicinity. In a studio, it’s  like, “Oh, you should talk to the head of this department,” or they have connections to help mentor you or something like that. Whereas in an independent route, it's been figuring things out as I go and looking towards my peers to help mentor me.

I also think that 2023 was — hopefully — an anomaly of a year where a lot of people had a lot of free time to work on this project of mine. But if this was five years ago, I think it would have been a much slower process, because people have their day jobs and then they would be working on the Kickstarter project on the side. 

How big is your team so far?

Pearl: My team right now is the team that created the trailer. Hopefully we can expand once we get successfully funded. But right now we have myself, who's doing storyboarding, directing, editing, producing, managing. Then we have an animator, Li Cree, a 2D animator. And we have Marie Morel and Grace Nicoletti, who are on background design and background paint, and vis dev.

We also have Paul Fraser, who is the composer and sound effects designer. A lot of people do a lot of dual things. Like Li did composite and animation. And it's because she knows how to do it and she does it really well. But it was also because it's an indie project. We're doing multiple jobs at once. Same thing with Paul.

Paul usually is  a composer. And he mentioned to me, he was like, “I had to dust off my chops for sound effects design, because I haven't done that in a while.” But he did a great job. So he did multiple things as well. 

We also have Ashley Nguyen-Dewitt, who did voiceover directing. And we have Lauryn Alexandra, our voice actor. And then we have Leslie Ezeh, who's from Legends Animated, the nonprofit I'm working with. So a total of eight of us. 

We also have a couple of translators. Mishima Kitan did the Japanese translation of some of the descriptions on the campaign site. Then we have The Outcasts, which are a collective of two folks who did a Cantonese  translation for my project. So that was really cool.

What it always part of the plan to market WHEELS & ROSES to Japanese and Cantonese-speaking audiences?

Pearl: Yeah, it's something that I [wanted to do] to widen who can access this campaign in their language, and not have it just be a weird Google Translate situation. It was also part of an initiative that I had, where I really wanted to work with  different people of colour and queer folks. So Mishima Kitan is also a queer non-binary person, and they got to do the Japanese translation.

And one of the things that I hope is to pair with another studio. And if it ends up being another studio in Japan, or in France, or somewhere else in the world, it would be cool for them to do their native language.

Speaking of the Kickstarter, your first stretch goal is to pay the artists a union wage. Can you talk a bit about the current state of working conditions for artists and the importance of advocating for better conditions?

Pearl: One of the things that's always been difficult from my point of view with the animation industry is the cultural imbalance. Studios feel like we need them versus they need us. And there's a lot of bold actions on their part, where we are just expendable. In 2023, and a bit of 2022 as well, we saw a bunch of mergers; merging together different studios, less options of different media outlets, cancelling a bunch of shows, and removing people's work that already existed on streaming platforms. And just not being able to buy it or see it any anywhere else ever again. 

There are some people who are like, “I have a family, but I took time to overwork myself for this project. And now it's cut and now I have no job.” Right now it’s really, really difficult.  And I think unintentionally, from all the cuts and the inconsideration the studios have had towards artists and destabilizing our lives, indie movements are becoming stronger. Because we still have ideas and we have so many stories that we want to tell. We have different perspectives that deserve to be heard.

The fact that it's such a specialized skill set and it's still taken for granted just boggles my mind. It's so important for us to get compensated. We live in an expensive city. “We” meaning L.A.

And it doesn't just affect us here in America, either. For people who are outsourced in India, or somewhere like Korea, and it's like, now you just chopped two hundred-plus people's jobs. Because they lean on us to give them work. And if there's no work, what are they going to do? So that's also really difficult. And so it's really important, to circle back to the stretch goal, to pay people what they're worth. 

I also saw that a percentage of the income from WHEELS & ROSES will be going towards supporting Indigenous communities in and around L.A. What made you decide to combine your vocation, animation, with activism?

Pearl Low: For me, personally, art and activism are one and the same. And having been a settler here, a new settler here, I'm always thinking about how I can give back as somebody who's not from here. And I really would love to support Indigenous artists in some way. We need their perspectives.

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• Ready to roll? Learn more about the production and back the campaign on the WHEELS & ROSES’s Kickstarter page!
• Want to see more? To keep up with Orange Blossom Studios, follow them on YouTube and visit their website. To learn more about Pearl Low, be sure to visit their portfolio.
• Interested in planning your next independent animated project? Artists can download a 21-day trial of Storyboard Pro.