Hello EqD! Vimbert of the pre-readers here, reporting from beautiful Las Vegas, where Unicon is in full swing. The awesome, talented Daniel Ingram did an hour-long panel focusing on the process behind creating the season finale, but there's some interesting general stuff in there as well from the Q&A section. Find more after the break.
About the Season Three finale:
- A lot of things changed about the episode in production. For example, Daniel originally wanted to look into how the mane six's cutie marks changing changed history, complete with a song! It was cut due to time, but just imagine if Pinkie had grown up on Sweet Apple Acres or if Rarity always did the weather for Ponyville!
- Twilight originally got her wings during the first Elements of Harmony blast. The wings would appear followed by a commercial. Instead, they used the "celestial dimension" space that Twilight met Celestia in.
- Daniel had a huge amount of work for the finale on his shoulders due to it being a musical. Much of the original was modified. He mentioned that he shut himself in his house for a week, writing a song each day!
- The end of the episode originally featured Twilight singing about her new wings to the tune of the show's theme.
- Everyone on the show wanted it to be a 2 part episode (if not more!), but they were very happy with the outcome and how they handled the challenge of such a plot-heavy episode with music.
- Hasbro and the show team really wanted to do a musical episode. At first, there was talk of making episode 12 a musical, as Daniel worried about making such a story-heavy episode mesh in tone with how happy the songs tend to be.
- "What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me" has a hidden reference to "Art of the Dress" during Applejack's section
- The hardest song for him to write for the finale was either "True True Friend" and "What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me," due to how complicated the topics of the songs were.
- Favorite song in Season Three: a split between "What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me," "Find a Way (full version)," and "Celestia's Ballad."
- Celestia's song was originally longer and dealt with her history.
- He envisioned Celestia's song as a parent watching a child grow up and mature.
General Section
- When asked, Daniel Ingram most wants to do a song with Discord or Luna out of all the characters that don't have songs.
- Tara Strong doesn't sing Twilight because she lives too far away; it's critical to have singers nearby for any changes. He prefers to have sing the same day they do lines.
- Daniel Ingram sings as he writes the songs! Apparently, somewhere out there, there is an archive of embarrassing singing.
- No songs he made have ever been rejected from the show, but an original "Smile, Smile, Smile" song that was a bit too slow nearly did. In the end, Jayson and Daniel came to an agreement on an upbeat, fast-paced song.
- Hasbro is very encouraging of Daniel's ideas.
- He makes the demos sound as close to production as possible for the sake of pitching them to Hasbro.
- Hasbro wants to do an official soundtrack of the songs and the background music, but they have a lot on their plate, with legal issues and royalties possibly making it not profitable. (Maybe enough of us pledging to buy it would change their minds, eh?)
- Hasbro loves music in their shows, and gives him a generous budget to make the pony songs we love happen.
- He says songs are like a puzzle, fitting the pieces into specific time slots while still conveying the full message.
- They really appreciate Will Anderson even more after working the background scores for the finale.
- Episodes are chronologically worked on over at the music side.
- Dialogue interludes are usually added by Daniel Ingram: "True, True Friend" for example.
- Almost in every case a song is specifically written and used for each show, though another show he worked on with a rejected song did sneak into a non-pony project.
- He starts with lyrics, but they are really close overall between melody and lyrics. Lyrics are reworked throughout to meet the melody.
- He prefers writing songs in one sitting.
- If he had an unlimited budget, he would love to do a song where every single pony sings, maybe about Ponyville or Equestria.
- Daniel can't listen to non-remixed songs just like the writers can't read fanfic, but he's really excited for the day when he can finally check it all out. As he said at the panel, "I can't wait until... I'm fired."
- His advice to those looking to break into the music scene: collaborate with other people and network to get your name out there. Eventually, someone who needs music will make some calls!
- The melody from "Love is in Bloom" snuck into Pound Puppies after the song was already complete just because it fit, as a fun Easter egg. They also used the CMC song very briefly.
- Keeping track of all the relationships and how everypony helped each other get their cutie marks back got so confusing, he and Jayson had to draw a map complete with connecting lines. It was drawn on a napkin in a pub. (If anyone happens to find this, please call me.)
- He has freedom to change what he wants to make a song work, but he usually sticks with what they give him.
- Originally, Pinkie Pie was the only pony that was going to sing! This changed as the show went on, obviously, but it's interesting to imagine the show having that much less singing in it.
Much to Sethisto's chagrin, Daniel had no comment on any future Trixie songs.
