THE SIMPSONS CURATION CAMPAIGN
NEW FRANCHISE ROLLOUT
The on-air creative team at FXX came to Pilot with a plan celebrate The Simpsons’ enduring influence on pop-culture and the artists the show inspires today. They wanted to accomplish this using real life artists documented through FXX’s unique, cutting edge brand lens. The end goal: create a franchise that would be refreshed multiple times a year with new sets of artists.
THE ASSIGNMENT
Develop a series of three mini-documentary pieces for digital and on-air featuring diverse and hip artists working in unique mediums with interesting and involved processes.
FXX’s brief was a natural progression of the show’s brand as it has evolved on through FXX’s brand lens: Take the original show, its art, and deconstruct and re-imagine The Simpsons in ways that are both fresh and recognizable.
The digital content pieces would run about two minutes. The on-air pieces would be 30-seconds.
Pilot shot, produced, and edited the three mini-documentaries. We shot in the artists’ studios and homes in Silverlake, New Jersey, and Queens. Each shoot had its own unique look and feel, but felt part of the same whole—thanks in no small part to a carefully developed shooting plan used across all three shoots and the Simpsons on FXX’s sharply defined brand filter as our guiding force.
ARTIST: Danielle McGurran / LONG ISLAND CITY
Danielle McGurran is a miniature artist living and working in Long Island City, NY. She likes to say she “makes tiny things” and insists you pronounce the “a” in miniature (lots of people skip over it). Her work focuses on small recreations of New York architecture—neighborhoody subjects like bodegas, bookstores, general urban decay, and disappearing landmarks.
Danielle took her unique interest in this subject matter and applied it to the Simpsons, sculpting her interpretation of Noiseland Arcade.
Her attention to detail highlighted the grit and grime of Springfield and put a spotlight some of the best background gags from the series: hilariously named arcade games such as “Robert Goulet Destroyer,” “Triangle Wars,” and “My Dinner with Andre.”
ARTIST: BILLY KHEEL / Silver lake
Billy Kheel is a felt appliqué artist living and working in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. What’s an appliqué artist you ask? We’ll let Billy’s website explain it: “Using felt and thread, Billy Kheel creates soft sculptures, wall hangings, portraits and installations.”
Billy’s garage studio, featuring endless pieces of past work, was a magical place to shoot and provided the perfect atmosphere: lots of space and natural light, and incredible beauty shots. Billy himself, a thoughtful artist whose work “challenges traditional gender roles and concepts about masculinity,” brought his point-of-view to his work: a felt relief pennant that explores the deeper meaning of Duff Man, Springfield’s resident beer mascot—and the show writers’ source of sports and alcohol marketing satire.
Billy has been featured in numerous gallery shows and exhibitions around Los Angeles. He recently participated in the first season of the NBC maker/craft art reality competition “Making It.”
ARTIST: TISHA CHERRY / WEST NEW YORK
Tisha Cherry knows how to have fun with food. She also knows how to make art out of it. Tisha works from her apartment kitchen in West New York, NJ. She also spends a good deal of time at the local grocery store. Her work depicts pop cultural and art historical subjects—rendered in food products. These include sculptures, paintings in condiments, and etchings in Oreo. As a rule, the ingredients she uses in her art must jibe culinarily as well—meaning she’s never going to mix cheese and fish just because it would look good. The art needs to be edible.
As a HUGE Simpsons fanatic, Tisha had a huge personal investment in this project—her apartment was covered in Simpsons paraphernalia from throughout the show’s history. This led to her making a bunch of different pieces including Blinky the Three Eyed Fish in sushi, a scrambled egg Hans Moleman, and a Chief Wiggum in donut sprinkles (just to name a few).
Tisha has a large Instagram following thanks, in part, to her work. She and her work have been featured on numerous crafts and food blogs across the interwebs.
CAMPAIGN PERSONNEL
From Pilot we had Kyle Orlowicz (director/creative director), Steve Behnke (director/creative director), Louis Venezia (owner/chief creative officer), Mary Brownlee (editor), and our EPs, Karen Goodwin and Rebecca Brower. On set we featured Dave Gorn (West Coast DP), Andrew Maso (East Coast DP), and Tara Althoff (producer).