Voice actress Mary McDonald Lewis
Storyboard Director Doug Vandegrift
Story editor/writer Buzz Dixon
Story editor/writer Flint Dille
Story editor/writer Steve Gerber
Writer Christy Marx
Back
How did you get involved working on the GI Joe cartoon?
I had been doing story boards for a new company called DIC working on the Littles. When the show rapped Lee Gunther called me who at that time was putting together a crew to begin work on the Joe series. It was the first series that I had worked on that required sixty-five episodes.
What were your responsibilities as a storyboard artist and storyboard director?
After the scriptwriter writes the script and any changes have been made by the producers and, in this case, Hasbro, the board artist takes it and has to visualize it. I would read the script at least three or four times before drawing anything. About the fourth time reading it I would begin to visualize in my head as if I were watching a movie. It's the responsibility of the storyboard artist to bring to visual life what the writer has intended.
Do you remember any particular episodes you storyboarded? Do you have a favorite episode?
I worked on the series for over two years so all the episodes seem to blur together a bit. I remember the first one the most probably because it was the excitment of starting a new series and getting the look and feel just right. I can't remember the title off hand but it had something to do with a weather dominator device and the locale was somewhere in the Arabian desert.
Another favorite episode was when I came up with the look of on of the incidental characters. It would often happen that the incidental characters where not designed prior to us storyboarding the show so we would make them up and the changes would be made later on in the model dept. Russ Heath, who did models, did a wonderful job on the series. He was a master who'd worked for years in the comic book industry. Well, I had this show with this charater named B.A. Lecar who I made to look like the guy who sat at the desk next to me, a good friend named Mike Vosburg. Well, the look stuck and that's who you see in the episode.
How long did it take to draw the storyboard for an episode?
We would divide every episode up into two acts and give it to two board artists. We would have a deadline of about three weeks to complete the work before it would go to the recording director when they would bring in the actors to lay down the voices. The boards were always done before the soundtracks so the actors could see their motivation when recording.
Did Hasbro make a lot of changes to the storyboards?
Hasbro was always interested in making their products look good, so, yes... sometimes they were a pain. At times we would be in the middle of an episode when Hasbro would decide that they were discontinuing a particular charater or vehicle from their product line and tell us not to use them anymore. We would have to go back and change things.
When you were drawing the storyboards, did you have to follow the script exactly, or could you change things?
For the most part, yes. There were times when a script was written that just didn't make sense trying to visual in a cinematic way. Sometimes I would write in my own dialogue to certain scenes to bridge confusing gaps. The producer always had the final say but most of the time he would agree on the change. The final board would then go to Hasbro for final approval who never seemed to pick up on the additions.
On the second season credits, it says you also did the main title design. What is involved with designing a main title?
Every season they tried to design a new intro and I was asked by Don Jurwich, who was the producer, to work on it. I think I must have had some time between episodes. Someone else had done one that Don didn't like and so I started from scratch. I remember talking to Will Mineau about it because he had done that sort of thing before on other shows. He gave me a few of his ideas and I just put it together in a few days. As I look back on it I didn't think too much about it probably because I didn't think they would use it after I submitted it because a few other guys had tried and had them turned down. I was a bit shocked that they went with mine and that's what you see on the second season intro.
Any funny anecdotes you would like to share about your work on GI Joe?
I can't single out any one thing because we had such great fun making it. There was great comradory there. We never got tired of yelling "Yo, Joe" around the studio.
What have you been working on since GI Joe?
I worked on a few more series after the G.I. Joe ended. The crew disbanded and worked on other things. I did My Little Pony and Muppet Babies as well as the first couple of episodes of Batman the Animated series. I also worked on The Bionic Six, Defenders of the Universe and Conan, the Adventurer. I went back to New York and worked with a computer animation company and am now living in Utah creating entertainment software. I still use my storyboarding skills to create the games I now work on.
Again, thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.
My pleasure. I will scan some of my original storyboard pages and send them to you for your web site.