• Jayson Thiessen (FiM Supervising Director) Pops Up On Ponychan!

    Holy Crap! I love the team that works on this show! 

    Jayson Thiessen did a quick Q&A thing over on Ponychan.  He isn't very experienced with the way chan-boards work, so I don't have direct question responses here, but I'll post a whole bunch of quotes from the post for you guys to dissect!

    Nothing groundbreaking, but it's still fun to see the fanstorm in the thread below!

    Ponychan Q&A Thread

    This has also been confirmed on his twitter page for being legit, so neighsayers need not apply!  Everything he posted is Copy/Pasted Directly after the break for convenience!
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    1)----> "I'm the supervising director of the show and I just wanted to say hi to you guys and that all of us on the production team really love the enthusiasm and excitement you have for the show. We work hard to bring you the best ponies we can and your response has been incredible! It really makes it worthwhile and exciting for us. I love all the great macros and fan art, I save the best ones for my desktop.

    thanks to all for your support and feedback!

    sorry for the sappy post, but I mean it."
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    2)----> Derpy truly came from the fans... some cheeky animator stuck her in the BG with her eyes weird.. i saw it but left it in cuz it made me chuckle (and hasbro didnt catch it) then i couldn't believe it when somepony pointed her out . we loved the response so much that when we were finalizing the episodes, whenever we would catch the grey pony in the BG I'd call for a revision on her eyes to make them DERP. thats why you don't see them crossed again until several episodes in... we had finished a bunch before she was born. we did it without Lauren's blessing actually and i was a bit aprehensive how she would react. but she loved it and Derpy remains.
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    3)---->  I don't want to give too much away about whats upcoming. i could get in trouble.... it happened to our composer already... when that happened all hell broke loose. it was fun to see how fast the winter wrap up song exploded on the internet. its hard to keep up with the ponytrain. thanks again all! i'll be around...
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    4)----> I love the voice team. i couldnt have asked for a more awesome bunch! ashleigh ball has a band called "hey ocean" check it out. you can see what she looks like.
    Tabitha (rarity) is a total goof, and she always has cookies. its always fun to record them. we sometimes get pickups when a read is a bit off from what the drawings are or if we change something or there's a clarity issue.
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    5)----> Yes i'm a chan dummy. none taken. (by the way, the voice of the mule in episode 4 is the co-director James Wootton... we call him Wootie)
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    6)----> When i was first approached to direct MLP i was harshly skeptical. but once i saw that what Lauren had done with the property i was hooked.

    i vowed to make sure the show was made properly entertaining... but i am not taking all the credit. its a collaborative effort. Lauren wrote great characters and created this world. the writers, storyboard artists, designers, layout, animators, music, score, sound fx, voice.. it has to all come together and become one. and everypony at every stage has put their love and blood sweat and tears into it.

    listen to me.. i sound like i'm giving an acceptance speach.... geez. ok i'll go now. i'm supposed to be reviewing a storyboard...
    thanks again!
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    And his Twitter as Proof!

    44 comments:

    1. Awesome =D
      i love it when the creators talk to the fans

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    2. So awesome! I really like to crew working on this show.
      Derpy story is the best.

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    3. How did I miss that?

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    4. OH GREAT, they just had to give Wootie a name... DUCK AND COVER, Shipping is going to be shipped!

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    5. oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh


      I love these people

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    6. 1: I love all the people who work on the show. This is just more proof of their coolness.
      2: I love Everypony who works to keep ponychan so amazing. I'm proud to be a frequent poster.
      3: I love Everypony who works to keep Equestriadaily so amazing. This made my day 20% cooler!

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    7. If Hasbro tries to remove Derpy the Militia at Equestria Daily and the neighboring Derpy hooves site will rise up and destroy Hasbro! Then we'll just reinstate Derpy back into the show like Hasbro never existed.

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    8. Holy shit, this is so fukken awsome

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    9. ~i don't want to give too much away about whats upcoming. i could get in trouble.... it happened to our composer already
      ~subsequently, interview of composer filtered through Hasbro [link]
      >>I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Ingram's communications through official channels was a result of the leak (rather than more impromptu stuff like 4chan/ponychan). Still pretty cool that Hasbro's so open with all this though.

      The fact he uses the term 'everypony', epic win

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    10. @Parallel Logic

      He got in trouble for releasing Winter Wrap Up a month early, not for doing the interview.

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    11. Nice. Stuff like this is fascinating.

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    12. This makes my day so much, it just warms my heart to see this show getting so popular..
      NEVER STOP!

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    13. @Parallel Logic

      >The fact he uses the term 'everypony', epic win

      Ponychan automatically wordfilters everybody to everypony so I doubt it was intentional.

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    14. @Sethisto
      Right, I meant to say that Winter Wrap Up was out early, which caused Hasbro to flag his activity, which is why the interview was channeled through Hasbro rather than done in a more impromptu fashion like other staff on the show have done. Then again, I'm not fully clear on the particulars of how the interview was set up, whether it was initiated through Hasbro or if Hasbro stepped in later, I'm assuming the latter.

      @Anonymous
      Ah, I was not aware, thanks for the heads up.

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    15. @Parallel Logic

      Oh, I misread it. My bad.

      The interview just had to go through the hasbro legal department before it could be posted, since it was so extensive. I think it was primarily due to season 2 not being fully confirmed yet.

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    16. Also, I want some of Rarity's cookies.

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    17. Now watch FiMchan get Lauren Faust to interview, hahaha~~~

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    18. Has there ever been this much interaction between a show's production team and fandom? Lauren Faust posting on Ponychan and /co/, interviews with Thiessen and Ingram..., it all seems so unprecedented. I hope it lasts.

      Maybe ponies can track down some of the voice actors/creators at cons and report back with some epic stories.

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    19. @Mute

      I've been wondering that too, as far as I know it's never really happened before, but I'm really glad it has. This is just one more reason why Friendship is Magic is awesome!

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    20. @ anonomous

      Sorry to be a party pooper, but everybody filters to everypony on ponychan, so more than likely he does not actually use that term.

      Also I felt kind of bad that I thought he was an impostor and I parasprited as Lauren Faust. I hope I didn't scare him away or anything.

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    21. ...can't breathe...my heart exploded...

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    22. FeelsGoodpony.jpg

      This is Great :D

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    23. I love this show's team. They're all excellent people and I so badly want to meet them in person. We like need a PonyCon...

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    24. Everything that needs to be said has already been said.

      Awesome stuff.

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    25. The fact that these guys post these interviews by their own free will can only mean good things for the future. And that they lurk the chans on their free time? That's pretty marvelous as well.

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    26. It WAS HIM!? YAY i didn't wasted my time!

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    27. The Team is really awesome. They're so cool, interacting directly with the fans. That show us that they not just have their heads in the money like other producers. This guys are all really awesome.

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    28. Kind of disappointed that he sidestepped the important issue of which pony was his favourite. Otherwise, yay.

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    29. Mute: Well depends on how you mean...when Babylon 5 was on the air, JMS (the creator/writer)would be on a USEnet newsgroup (think of it as a text based pre-cursor to Chan sites)talking about the episodes, answering questions on the story and making of, every week.

      And the late Dwayne McDuffie had a forum at his website where he freely talked about Ben 10 or JLU or whatever he was working on with fans.

      This is a little different though, just by the nature of the varied locations of Pony talk...some Chans, here, AllSpark...with various creators popping on to say hi, or even joining the community.

      (As for Winter Wrap-Up leak...given that in some ways, that was the point for Ponyfever to explode, as a "leak" it did pretty good.)

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    30. This brings joy and cupcakes to my heart.

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    31. is anyone else checking out "hey ocean"? this is a pretty cool band. i wonder how long it will be before somepony makes an amv with one of their songs.

      http://www.myspace.com/heyocean

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    32. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    33. BEST THREAD EVER!

      (P.S., I'll figure out this discussion format eventually... :) )

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    34. @Tim_Kangaroo

      Oh hi! Nice to see a familiar name here. :)

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    35. That's so awesome that the production team interacts with the fans so publicly. I love how every interaction has been extremely positive!

      I believe he was answering one of my questions regarding the voice team:

      "Um, how much work do you get to do with the voice actors? If you do, what's it like?

      And speaking of voice tracks, do you ever find you need to re-record lines at all?"


      I've also been checking out Hey Ocean, too. =)

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    36. Haha, oh wow, this just adds to the awesome. Jayson Thiessen is a great man, and I wish him & the rest of the FiM team continued success - may they continue to dazzle us throughout Season 1 and into Season 2!

      @Parallel Logic

      I can answer this.

      I e-mailed Daniel asking how we could best show our support for a potential soundtrack CD release. He got back to me with some cool info that, ultimately, Sethisto couldn't post (due to, like Seth said, Season 2 not being confirmed at the time).

      At the end of the back-and-forth, Daniel offered to be interviewed for EqDaily, Seth let me handle the process, and both Daniel & I came to the same conclusion that Hasbro should comb over everything - since Daniel had already landed in hot water once (for the Winter Wrap Up leak).

      So, it was cooperatively Daniel's decision and my decision. Seth agreed to this. I never spoke to Hasbro directly; D.I. handled that side of it. He was QUITE helpful in that.

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    37. @Tekaramity
      Ah, thank you.

      ~how we could best show our support for a CD release
      >>Ironic that should be the reason the interview was initiated and ended up being one of the questions omitted by Hasbro.

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    38. and the identity of the mysterious yet awesome M. A. Larsen remains undisclosed

      i'm starting to suspect it's someone's pen name - like Faust's or Mccracken's, or possibly them both working in collaboration

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    39. @Zarkanorf
      is FIMchan even a thing nowadays? i sort of assumed everypony just stay in /co/, unlike ponychan populated by /b/ refugees

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    40. it's like a dream come true!

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    41. To everyone that is surprised about the production people being this interactive with the fans, here's my take on it.

      For one I don't think many of the people are much older than our fan base. (16-24ish?)Although, Faust and a few others are, I dare say younger production members brought all of this to their attention.
      So here they are working on what they think is a kid's show, but they are truly putting their heart and soul into this, and people are noticing. Not just little kids, but mature(mostly) adults and teens alike. People that can eloquently phrase what they like about the show. We as an older audience enjoy the product, but we also understand the processes behind the show and therefore THEIR hard work.
      What I am trying to get at is that it has to feel good to have someone enjoy the fruits of your labor, and appreciate the work behind it. I can guarantee you that even if this show ends after season two (Celestia, Luna and God forbid) they will remember the show as something that went beyond its boundaries and beyond its intended purpose. Like Skynet, only without the nuclear holocaust, and more friendship and love.

      Either way, its pretty fucking cool that they interact in this manner with the fans. (Excuse the language, but I think it was deserved.)

      On an unrelated note, I do hope Derpy gets at least one clear and conscience speaking line.

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    42. I wonder if Jayson's e-mail address is still goldenrusset [at] hotmail.com?

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