The Saiko

This year at Comic-con Titmouse animation Studios did something nobody else was doing.  They had a yacht behind the Comic-con convention center where they hosted an open casting call for their newest project called 7200 Frames.  Slated to be the first of its kind, 7200 Frames is a reality show / docu-series shedding light on what it takes to make an animated short.

There were 7200 Frames / Titmouse folks handing out flyers at the con that gave directions to the boat.  They encouraged everybody that had animation ability to drop by and give a pitch on why they should be one of the 12 selected to be featured on the show.  You all know that The Saiko can’t draw for sh%*, but we had to roll down and see what was going on.

We have to say that the marina in San Diego is pretty cool.  We walked down the wide path behind the con and the Hyatt admiring all of the different types of boats and wondered, “How in the hell did Titmouse come up with this idea of holding a casting call on a yacht?”  Genius.

We digress.

The boat was at the end of the Marina near Tim and Eric’s Awesomecon.  The boat was a sweet 2 story party yacht thing.  It was replete with banners and a giant Titmouse Studios titmouse bird flag.  We somehow managed to lie our way onto the boat.  That was a feat considering they were gung-ho about limiting access.  Maybe they love The Saiko as much as you do.  (ahem)

We got a chance to speak with the 2 founders of Titmouse Studios, who happen to be the big cheeses behind 7200 Frames.  Though they seemed extremely busy listening to pitches and listening to the Doobie Brothers, we were able to get a few nuggets from Chris and Shannon Prynoski.  ”We’re really happy with the quality of people that have come through so far,” Shannon confidently stated.  Chris followed up with a cryptic response in what apparently is known as his style, “Yeah, we had some cool people.  It’s pretty cool.  We had a klingon earlier.  He was cool.”  Was Prynoski taking the piss out of us!?

After being thrown off the boat, we took note of the sorts of people that were lining up to audition for this new reality show.  There were a lot of them, but no two looked the same.  I chatted with a few to get a better feel for their background.  Many were in fact animators hungry for their chance to share their animation ability with the world.  We also met people dressed as pirates, others that were half drunk, illustrators and comic book artists.  What a great mix of creative folks.

We said our thanks and stole some water from the 7200 Frames ice chest and headed back to “the Con”.  We had to track down the area where the nights were fighting with armor, shields and swords.  Think:  Those sections in the movie Role Model.  See below: