by Google
How did your passion for animation begin?
From a young age, my parents allowed me to watch South Park, which I consider to be the key moment that turned me on to animation. Since my classmates in elementary school couldn't watch South Park, I started drawing comics for them from the episodes I saw and showing them at school. Over time, I also started creating my own stories.
Where did you go to school? Did you also study animation?
I studied at Vazov, an ordinary elementary school that I didn't enjoy because I had a problem and struggled with subjects like physics and mathematics. The only thing I really enjoyed was drawing. Later, when I was in the eighth grade, I learned about the Secondary School of Animation in Petržalka, where they took me. After that, I worked out how to get out of elementary school as quickly as possible and agreed on differential exams. So I left already in the eighth grade, and in the summer I had to pass all the exams from the ninth grade and achieve at least fours. I had a lot of fun at that school, and I tried to absorb as much of this craft as possible. I think the school was very well equipped, maybe even more so than the later college, because being a private school, they had great machines, software, and excellent teachers. I really, really enjoyed it there.
How did the character of Pištu Lakatoš and LokalTV in general come about?
I think the first impulse came during my university studies. In my second year, I was assigned to make an animated documentary, whatever, but I didn't want to make classic educational documentaries. When I was in elementary school, I was woken up every morning by a commercial on Fun Radio dubbed by Marián Čekovský, and it was an excellent sound that put me in a great mood every morning. I remembered that at that time someone posted an uncut version of this advertisement on the Internet, i.e. the whole sound, not just 30 seconds. I took this sound, cut it differently than it was used in the commercial and animated the character Pišta Lakatoš for it. I then posted the video on YouTube, which was still at the beginning of its era, but it was a huge success.
What did Marián say about it and what happened after the success of the first Pištu animations ?
Marián Čekovský didn't know about it at all and when he saw it on YouTube, he was excited and liked it very much. After publication, we were contacted by Orange and Televízia JOJ. Orange wanted an advertisement for Funfón with the character Pištu Lakatoš for a new product. So we filmed a Christmas spot, which developed into a long-term campaign. JOJ TV wanted Pišta Lakatoš as a judge in Talent. They liked the idea, but there were only two of us and we couldn't produce videos fast enough. Later they suggested that we film the whole series. We agreed, even though there were only two of us and we didn't know how we would handle it. Originally they wanted eight parts, but we were able to complete only four and we will deliver another four parts in the second year. That's how the project took off and became what it has become.
Are there any differences between working for TV and the Internet?
Working for television and for the Internet was quite different. In TV it was more conventional, we had to have scripts and we called actors to dub, which required approvals. That didn't sit too well with us as we felt it was outdated. We had a lot more freedom on the internet. We often dubbed everything ourselves, without the need to call actors. The stories were created by coming to the studio in the morning and trying to make each other laugh. We had no fixed script, just the basic points we wanted to cover in the story. Then we went to the microphone and improvised. Our internet production, Lokálka, was basically based on freestyle.
How did the little fish come about?
Fish! In our best period, there were ten of us and we worked in an office environment where everyone was watching something and always looking for inspiration on the Internet. One of us ran into a Marine, which we really liked and enjoyed. We got his contact and decided to reach out to him. Originally, I wanted Marine to be the main character of the new animation, but he didn't want to continue in this role anymore, he said that it was overcooked. Then we started inventing a new series, which we called animotherapy - a series where different animals would make life and surroundings difficult. Fučo improvised Rybicka's voice for about 15 minutes, we took two minutes out of it, adjusted the voice to make it sound thinner, and the result was perfect.
How does the work on such an animation go and how did you get to the whole series of animals?
We always recorded the sound first and only then started the animation and drawing. We listened to the voice and created a visual accordingly. For example, when we heard the Marine's voice, we gave the character squinting eyes like the Marine did. This approach was a great success, so we quickly continued with other videos - we drew a dog, a pony, and the series took off. We decided to regularly invite people who are able to improvise to the series. We gave them the opportunity to choose an animal and a topic to talk about. Various performers appeared here, such as Jerry or Ladižo, and gradually it became a rule that each animal had its own voice. This concept turned out to be very entertaining not only for the audience, but also for the dubbers, who always had a good time doing it.
How did the collaboration with Rytmus come about?
My colleague and I often imitated different people's voices in the company. This proved useful during our work for JOJ, where we had to create a rap piece. We tried a parody of Rytmus, which was very popular on TV. When we went online, one of the first series we wanted to try was Rytmaus. We found that rap could be parodied well and that it worked - people laughed and the viewership was high. From there we moved on to freestyle battles. I remember that when it was still on JOJka, Rytmus wrote to us - I don't know how he got our number. He appreciated it very much and laughed that we could "load" him even more, that it was funny. We tried to film something with him and in one part he appeared as a freezer. He wanted to cooperate. Later, I feel that he wanted to do something in the film as well, but it didn't work out. I have information that over time he didn't appreciate it as much and it probably started to bother him. How did you come up with the idea of combining cartoon characters with real guests in your talk show ? We wanted to create something that combines animation with reality. This concept seemed very original to us because we had not seen anything like it before. Viktor Horián, who dubbed the character of René in Lokálka, in real life hosted his own talk show in clubs. His character René, as his alter ego, could have been even more eccentric and we enjoyed that. The concept of the talk show was relatively easy to implement, with Viktor behind the camera and interacting with real guests, but no one was physically sitting next to him on the couch - we animated that character into the scene after the fact. The guests always liked it too, that it was pretty fucked up. Do you have a favorite character? Pišta Lakatoš is my favorite character. He's kind of my Homer Simpson. I always animate it myself, so that's what I wanted. I kept listening to his voice and needed no external references; I tried to sketch it to fit the voice the best. I was not inspired by a specific person, everything came by itself. It was complete magic. One evening, as I looked at him, I said to myself: "That must be him." What are your plans for the future? Now I am working on two films and at the same time we are planning to revive our production on LokalTV. I'd like to release new content more regularly and expand our social media presence, maybe even on TikTok. I can't believe I'm saying this at my age.
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