Q&A with Spin Kick Bros
Following the launch of their online animation strand back in April, Wildseed Studios – the brainchild of duo Jesse Cleverly and Miles Bullough – have continued to expand the channel’s output with the addition of new series, both live-action and animated. The latest of the latter category is Lone Wolves, launched this week and created/animated by animation duo Spin Kick Bros (aka Tom Gran and Martin Woolley). The pair, whose other work includes the short film Writer’s Block and Frederator series Ace Discovery, have joined forces with Wildseed to tell the story of ex-biker Ham attempting to deal with the antics of his two similarly-obdurate sons Mich and Boston. With the first episode of Lone Wolves having gone up this week, we caught up with Tom to learn more.
How did the two of you wind up working together, and what sort of projects have you been involved with pre-Wildseed?
We met while studying animation at UWE Bristol and ended up writing together because there was a lot of overlap in the kind of stuff we wanted to make and the sort of humour we found funny (puns and dick jokes, mostly).
Before working with Wildseed we developed several series ideas together and managed to get some funding to turn a few of them into pilots, including Ace Discovery for Frederator and Barrell deCloon for Mondo. We also made a short film called Writers’ Block with IdeasTap and Wonky Films.
Where does the name ‘Spin Kick Bros’ come from?
We do quite a lot of spin kicks. We are not actually brothers so we made that part up.
Can you tell us a bit about the world and characters of Lone Wolves?
Lone Wolves follows the trials and tribulations of Ham, a single ex-biker dad and his two unruly teenage sons, Mich (short for Michigan) and Boston. Ham is desperate to make sure his kids don’t turn out as bad as he did but at the same time is unable to let go of his tough guy instincts and his dubious moral code. As a result Mich and Boston struggle to negotiate teen life without flipping out and hitting someone with a brick. The show is set in the late 80s in a kind of amalgamation of the small American towns you see in John Hughes movies and over-the-top teen dramas. However instead of seeing it from the perspective of the cool kids or the down trodden rebel, we’re seeing it through the eyes of full-on deadbeats.
The series seems to both revel in and subvert a particular image of American machismo – are there any particular visual/cultural inspirations for it?
Their whole stand-offish attitude and way of talking is based on a mash up of all the Michael Madsen/Mickey Rourke/Nick Nolte charismatic Hollywood tough guy anti-heroes. We wanted to try and apply that cliché to everyday life and find comedy in how ridiculous and obnoxious it quickly becomes – especially when it’s coming out of teenagers with very average problems.
What inspired you to approach Wildseed with Lone Wolves?
We initially went to Wildseed with a bunch of different ideas including the original version of Lone Wolves. They funded us to develop three of our pitches and then eventually decided Lone Wolves was the most suitable to turn into a short series.
Once the premise was picked up, can you talk us through how it was developed into the final series?
Initially the three characters weren’t family, they were just three ridiculously tough guys living in a house together for some reason. The original joke was kind of just how long we could stretch out the tough guy back-and-forth banter when they were basically all arguing with mirror image versions of themselves. When we developed the original pilot with Wild Seed we decided to turn it into more of a family drama with Ham as the father, but Mich and Boston were still in their 30s so they were essentially still all the same guy. After trying a pilot we realised we couldn’t get that much mileage out of the one joke (no matter how much violence we put in) so we decided to age Mich and Boston down, which had the bizarre effect of making them kind of endearing. We found that with his sons’ futures still uncertain, Ham’s struggle to keep them on track had a lot more weight to it and it felt like there was more at stake if he failed. We also got to play with the tropes of teen drama shows and build stories out of the problems kids face, which are ultimately pretty overblown and ridiculous.
Once in production did the two of you work on it alone or were you managing a team?
We had one animator, a composer and a sound guy, as well as support from Wildseed and a few odd favours from friends.
Do either of you have specific roles when it comes to your creative projects or do you both do a bit of everything (or does it depend on the project)?
We pretty much do all the pre-production together (often in a bar). Then once we reach production, I (Tom) handle most of the animation – the amount of which varies depending on how many animators we can afford to hire (often none). Martin’s based in Oxford so he co-directs and weighs in on all the creative choices but mostly has to do it remotely or pay for a lot train tickets.
Has your involvement with Wildseed benefited your overall working process, as regards Lone Wolves and/or other projects you have on the boil?
We’ve never had any of our shows picked up beyond a pilot episode so it was a new experience planning and managing the production of an entire series, even though it’s only a few episodes long. We had to learn to streamline our process and make everything more efficient in order to get it all done in time and on such a small budget.
On that note, what else are the two of you working on/planning?
We’ve got a couple of projects we’re developing with people but I don’t think we’re really allowed to talk about them just yet! Aside from those, we’ve also just started adapting our sci-fi adventure comedy Ace Discovery into a web comic, so look out for that (in about a year).
Visit Spin Kick Bros online at spinkickbros.com
Keep your eyes on Wildseed Comedy’s YouTube channel for more upcoming content in the coming weeks and months. To learn more about the studio check out our interviews with Managing Director Miles Bullough and Creative Director Jesse Cleverly respectively.