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attackfishCommentators: Michael Dante DiMartino, series co-creator, Joshua Hamilton, episode writer, and Giancarlo Volpe, episode director and storyboarder.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Hi, this is Mike DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: My name is Josh Hamilton. I am the writer of this episode.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: And I’m Giancarlo Volpe. I’m the director of this episode.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: And… And we’re watching the intro.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah so this is, this episode is called “The Chase”, uh, I think this is kind of a Westerny inspired episode, wasn’t it, Josh, like kind of a…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah we watched a lot of Westerns, I think we saw The Good The Bad and the Ugly, and a show called Shane, and we were in a big Western mode when we wrote this.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, right before this was the “Zuko Alone” episode where he’s like wandering the plains, and desolate areas and stuff, and this is kind of a continuation of that sort of thing.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Is that an intentional thing? Like do you research the Westerns because you want to get that feel, or do you just happen to be watching Westerns at that point in your life?
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Aaron… Well Aaron wanted to research them I guess, but um…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah I think in this case it was like, we wanted that sort of feel, and so we were like, just checking out some movies to see how they handled it, and stuff like that.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Referring to a shot in the recap from “Zuko Alone” of Zuko riding off into the sunset] Yeah, that’s a nice shot.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: The Good the Bad and the Ugly comes into play, especially in the third act, but we’ll talk about that later.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Shh! Not yet, not yet!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, this is also really, if you want to talk about just the kind of… This is the first episode where we have Toph…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: As part of the group, you know, and how that changes the dynamic.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah, I thought it was awesome that she was like new, You wrote 2.06, and uh, I loved her attitude, she was so like um, just quick and kind of, kind of a jerk, kind of Sokka’s… A version of Sokka that’s a girl. I don’t know, I loved writing her. It was hilarious.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: This is another great episode animated by MOI Animation in Korea. Kim Sang-Jin is the director over there. He added some great hilarious touches to it. I don’t know, what do you think, Giancarlo, because you directed this episode, and then we send it off to Korea. Are you always surprised when you saw the stuff that they add from what you’ve put in there, or...
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah, I mean that I think that’s always kind of a thing about doing half the show in America and then sending it to Korea, like there’s always going to be an X factor of what you’re going to expect, of what comes back. Like you remember specifically on this episode I was really pleased with how it came back. I just really thought that they really got the gist of kind of what I was going for in the episode, and it was, it turned out really well.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Even Momo does his fair share.]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Oh Momo. Something I really liked about this episode, writing-wise was um, it starts out almost I want to say like a filler, almost like, but I don’t mean that in a bad way.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: What?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Because it’s kind of a character development thing, where you see, you kind of see that Toph and Katara are having these problems, and you sort of just assume that okay, they’re going to resolve it somehow by the end of the episode. But what it kind of does, for me anyway, is almost kind of lets your guard down, because you don’t expect it to take the crazy turns that it does like a lot later. I think that that was kind of my feeling when I first read the script was that you, you’re not really sure where it’s going to go, and it was really… It made it a good, a good read.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Which is always a good sign, you know, when I’m starting a new episode, man if the script is a page turner, you want to… You get really excited about starting to draw is.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Have you ever had a script that wasn’t a page turner?
GIANCARLO VOLPE and MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Like oh man I have to direct this?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Not on Avatar.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Okay, that’s cool.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I’ll leave it at that.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: What I like about this one, like what you were saying, Giancarlo, it’s, it’s about… Our characters are the only characters in it, you know, like our main cast. We don’t have… They don’t go to a town that’s like they meet someone new. It’s like we’ve met all these characters before, and we just get to see them like with each other, and the situation, being tired, like they are now, and how this affects them. I thought that was really fun.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah, they’re… Speaking of them being tired, I just kind of saw that we had painted these like dark circles under their eyes as kind of a, you know, a sign of exhaustion. [Referring to a closeup of Toph’s face] You see that on Toph right there. And uh, I was always… I was a little worried like how that was going to turn out, but then it, it actually really works. I think that it’s just subtle enough and it, it adds to the whole like building exhaustion that’s supposed to be happening to these characters over the course of this episode.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, they really feel like they get more and more tired, which is cool.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: It’s a good like stress builder.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to a shot of Katara becoming angrier and angrier as Toph speaks] I really love this animation.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah, this was some hilarious funny animation.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Sugar Queen!?]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: So who, did you come up with the line “Sugar Queen,” Josh?
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I did! I don’t know where it came from, but I can remember writing that line and thinking like this is that line that’s going to get cut somewhere along the line. Someone’s going to have a note. And it made it past you know, the different versions of you know, I wasn’t in the outline, but the first draft, and it made it past to the table draft, and then it made it past through the core draft, and then I don’t know.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I know.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I like it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think yeah, we started her saying Twinkletoes, and then I think we needed some alternates for people, so yeah, now she says all sorts of stuff about insulting people.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to Katara insulting Toph’s blindness, right before Toph bends Katara and her sleeping roll skyward and then onto Sokka] Katara just said one of her meanest lines.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah… That was another line I thought was going to get cut at some point, because it was like, there’s no… She can’t make fun of her being blind, that’s like…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: But I feel like it’s okay, because then Toph kicks her butt with the earthbending, so that’s… They’re kind of equally jerky to each other.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I also feel like when brothers and sisters argue, I mean I know Katara and Toph aren’t related, but it’s that type of relationship, you go for the throat. You’re not politically correct when you’re trying to insult your brother or your sister. Like you try to find something that’s wrong with them, and really hone in on that. So…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Aaron must have had a great childhood. That was his line that… And yeah that was another one I thought wasn’t going to make it. Of course now Toph jokes about her blindness all the time.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Okay, forget about setting up camp. I'm finding the softest pile of dirt and going to sleep.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I like this little animation of Sokka. He’s like a little worm, he’s wiggling on over there.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I noticed that like subconsciously working on this episode, because it was so much about them getting progressively more and more tired, I, I felt like it was kind of affecting me personally when I was working on it. I mean every episode does kind of wear you out by the time you get to the end to it, end of it, but this one especially, I was like man, just yawning a lot, and I had those circles under my eyes.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Well, it certainly tells the other warriors that you're fun and perky!]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO, JOSHUA HAMILTON and GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Laughter]
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Anyway, whoever's chasing us, they couldn't have followed us here. So... now would everyone just shhh!]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Jack’s read of that line is really…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter] Yeah, I think it was written as just a regular “shh”.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, Jack DeSena plays Sokka, always comes up with kind of funny variations of things.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I believe for the record, Andrea was like what is that? What did you just do, and he’s like shuh, you know, I’m changing it up a little.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Laughter] Someone had mentioned at some point in a board meeting or something that Lo and Li were driving the tank.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Oh yeah!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh right.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: That is our little secret story idea.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I thought I’d divulge that. You never see them, but Lo and Li, Azula’s teachers from the first episode of season two, we just imagined they’re in there with their goggles, just like driving the tank train, because we were wondering… We don’t see anyone. How’s it getting around?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to the giant lizards Azula and her companions are riding] What is… What’s those lizards called?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: We’re debating what the name of these things are. We think they’re mongoose-lizards or mongoose-dragons.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Might have been some fan name for them, I forget.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I remember kind of, in a very geek fashion, like, like daydreaming why they were riding on these instead of the rhinos, and it was like, they’re the all terrain, um, mounts in the Fire Nation, whereas the rhinos are kind of more like the tanks.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah totally. They’re the faster…
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to the lizards running] Yeah yeah, look at that, there you go, a rhino couldn’t… Case in point right there.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: No rhino could jump over that. And I believe they run on water. Giancarlo…
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well that was, that was kind of the reason we needed the new creature.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That you wouldn’t think would be able to run on water, but later on they needed to, so.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I actually got reference for that lizard running on water stuff online. I mean we, we actually pull a lot of reference off the internet, of just anything from like color scheme for a cloud for the sky or something, to you know, animation of a horse running or something, and somehow trying to turn that into an Avatar animal.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Sokka’s “I’ve never not slept before!” freak out] This animation of Sokka is hilarious.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I like that little dangle that his arm did.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I love the angle too, it like…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And uh, Ben and Jeremy who do the sound and music did a great job with this episode. So Ben did all the tank train sounds and stuff, and um Jeremy does the scoring.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Zuko’s in this episode!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Drawing the word out excitedly] Yeah!
JOSHUA HAMILTON: He’s still handsome!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh he is. I always forget that like, that this is the episode that, where the kids don’t even know who Azula is yet. Like we, when we were writing it, like you have to kind of remind yourself like you know who they are and the audience knows who she is, but these kids have no idea who’s been tracking them.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: What's going on!
AANG: Appa fell asleep!]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Laughter] This shot right here, I can remember, uh, Bryan drawing on the outline. He like drew you know, just freehand.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: And there was… I think I still have it. I’m going to sell it on ebay.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Appa falling?
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Just kidding.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah were Aang is upside down. Yeah, all the animation of everyone being really tired is fun. Like Sokka’s walk cycle here is really… yeah that’s great.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I think they also got some little fir tree needles in there.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: In their clothes and hair. [Referring to Toph welling “what?” and crumpling the ground like paper] That’s so funny.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: Alright, alright! Everyone's exhausted. Let's just get some rest.
TOPH: No! I want to hear what Katara has to say. You think I have issues?]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah this just feels like a bunch of kids who… have not slept, everyone’s on edge, in away it’s very realistic, like this is what would happen with a bunch of kids running around the world together, not sleeping.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: They’d break, eventually.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Referring to Toph] She’s cracking.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I love how she’s, how Katara’s just poking her, come on! Bring it on!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: Besides, if there's anyone to blame, it's sheddy over here!
AANG: What?!]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Aang gets very defensive of Appa.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: That’s his, that’s his soft spot.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I think, yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Ever want to make Aang mad...
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Mention Appa. Talk bad about Appa. Or steal him.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: The Appa shedding I just remembered is, was like an idea from the first season. Mike, do you remember that, like someone came in with the idea of like Zuko finding them because of Appa?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, that was a really old… That may even have been from development, like the idea that Zuko could track Appa because he’s shedding when it’s hot out and stuff.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah and it’s great for the springtime, yeah you know like to show the seasons changing, and you know, how it affects him.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So there’s stuff like that, ideas like that, that we’ve that have been there kind of since the beginning, or get pitched and we… They’re great ideas but sometimes we don’t have… They just don’t work into the stories we’re doing now so… Yeah we always end up kind of finding a place for them eventually.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: It’s neat how they all work together, like the Appa shedding, and then you know, them being chased relentlessly, and they just kind of fit together like puzzle pieces, and they…
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I always kind of think Sokka’s drinking coffee here. I think that was sort of the idea, I mean he probably isn’t, but it just looks kind of like he’s having an espresso to perk himself up.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Sadly] Yeah I think it’s just water.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I like this, uh, washing Appa music. [Laughter] And Sokka gets wet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Classic. Yeah I like wet Appa too. He’s been wet and droopy a couple of times. He looks cute.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to Appa taking the top bit off some pines as he flies] Uh oh.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: That’s trouble.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Appa made a big mistake right there. They would have been fine if Appa hadn’t hit the tree.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: This coming up was uh when she sees Uncle, they don’t know each other, you know, one’s on the good side, one’s on the… bad side, or you know, Uncle’s whatever, but it’s great. It was a perfect opportunity to like have them talk to each other and not know who they are.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah, that’s a really nice moment in this episode coming up when the two of them share the tea.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah I remember reading that and just loving that scene, so then I ended up storyboarding it because I loved it so much.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: You did?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah!
GIANCARLO VOLPE: That’s a very rare occasion, when Mike or Bryan will actually kind of request to storyboard a section, usually because they’re just so busy, and Mike just came in my office one day and said hey, do you mind if I do the scene with Toph and Uncle? And I was like, hmmm, that’s less work for me!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Alright. You storyboarded the whole fight in the end, which was kind of crazy, so.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: The threeway fight. [Referring to Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee splitting up] The scene that just passed, I remember we did a rewrite on it after we saw the animatic, and Aaron said that he wanted to put in um… Maybe you also did too, Mike, but have Mai and Ty Lee talk more? Because I don’t think we’d heard from them since show 2.03.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Which was “Return to Omashu.” [Referring to the shots of the ghost town as Aang walks through] This part’s so Westerny. It’s great. Just kind of like the gray, quiet man in the deserted town.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: These are storyboards by Ian Graham I think.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yep.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: He did some nice, like atmospheric shots.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I really like kind of the contrast in the art direction that Bryan did and the background painters did in this episode.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah, like the dark shadows. You really got that sunsetty feel. This is great like a Western, you know, you’re being chased, and now it’s time to like… Now you’re ready. You’re going to face them. I love that.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: So great.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to a shot with Appa’s fur tinted by the sunset with clouds in the background] Nice uh, sunset colors there.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: That’s a crazy Momo screech.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: How did they find us?]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Imitating Katara] How did they find us? There’s occasionally lines like Josh was just talking about that get added sort of later, and I had to do like a temp track I guess for Katara saying How did they find us? And I tried to imitate Mae, and I always kind of feel bad that she heard that and then was hugely insulted by it or something.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I always enjoy your performances, Giancarlo. It’s funny when you hear an animatic, and out of nowhere you hear Giancarlo’s voice.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Oh! It’s a little scarring, because every time….
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Mai and Ty Lee’s lizard mounts running across the water] Oh there there there! They’re running on the water!
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Oh yeah!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So they do, they really do run like that too, don’t they?
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: With arms like…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: They kind of flail their arms like that. When I was a kid I saw that and laughed so hard.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I noticed there’s a slight kind of scissors noise when Katara’s throwing those water blasts at Ty Lee there.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think it’s kind of like water disks, sharper.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.[Referring to a shot of Ty Lee flipping as she comes in for the attack] That’s awesome. That’s a little shot that I added in.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Ty Lee’s fight with Sokka] I love this part. This is great. So she’s chi-blocking him, which really for Sokka that just means he loses sensation in his limbs, since he doesn’t have any bending abilities.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I really like that we’re kind of saying there’s no chi in his head.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Right!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Or his head’s so dense.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
MAI: Oh well, victory is boring.]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: The fighting scenes are always really difficult to write. Usually we just kind of write a generic version of it. Sometimes not. Sometimes not. But like, we didn’t have that goofy arm thing, which turns out hilarious, so.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff we’ll work out in the storyboard meetings, with the storyboard artists and the directors.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Kind of come up with funny actions, or Kisu for the action scenes and stuff.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Fights sometimes kind of almost have a mind of their own when you’re working on them, because it’s… When you’re working on them. Because you um, you kind of get characters back into a corner or whatever, and you’re suddenly like wait how are they going to get out of this corner and they… It’s like this, this organic process.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I’m glad I don’t have to think about that.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Azula’s impression of her brother] That was another joke too I didn’t think we’d get through, but I love it. When she imitates Zuko.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: That’s the first time, yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And that’s totally, like you were saying earlier, Giancarlo, that’s totally the brother sister thing too.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Mmhmm.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: like, only she will just make fun of his scar to his face. [Referring to the scene change to Iroh serving Toph tea] So yeah, this is the beautiful Uncle Toph moment where he’s making her tea.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: There’s kind of a little… There’s subtle stuff going on here too, that may not be um, completely obvious. He’s kind of, he’s kind of like testing to see if… When she, when he hands her that tea, he’s testing to see how aware she is, because he can kind of tell she’s blind, but…
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: You wouldn't even let me pour my own cup of tea.
IROH: I poured your tea because I wanted to and for no other reason.
TOPH: People see me and think I'm weak. They want to take care of me. But I can take care of myself by myself.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah it’s always nice when we have the opportunity to have characters get together who normally you don’t see together in the episodes, or they’re enemies because they’re chasing each other in the episode. And yeah that’s why I just… I love the meaning of the scene about having… Letting people who love you help you, and, and…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
IROH: Not that I love you; I just met you.]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I like that read.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, Mako was such a great voice actor, and this year we were sorry that he passed away to cancer, but um, he was such a great… He brought so much to the role of Uncle, and we just… Will always remember him and honor him with our show. Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: So now you're following him.
IROH: I know he doesn't want me around right now, but, if he needs me, I'll be there.]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah like… You know this is perfect, this is just a great opportunity to like, before they know who, before the season continues and they know who each other are, they can just talk to each other like strangers.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And you get the idea too that like Uncle, even though he let Zuko go, he like, he’s still worried about him, so he’s been tracking him down, and kind of, just kind of staying on the sidelines until he needs… He needs Uncle, so.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah. He’s been tracking Zuko, who’s been tracking Azula, who’s been tracking Aang and the kids.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Everybody’s tracking everyone.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: And it all sort of comes to this point.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AZULA: Do you really want to fight me?
ZUKO: Yes.]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah you can’t really tell, but Zuko’s ostrich-horse ran through really fast.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And then we always joked that he and the mongoose-lizards are fighting somewhere.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
ZUKO: Back off, Azula! He's mine!
AZULA: I’m not going anywhere.]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: So this is where we start the kind of The Good The Bad and The Ugly.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Uh, Mexican standoff, they call it, where, uh, who’s going to shoot first?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to a panning shot of the three soon-to-be combatants] That’s great build up.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I think that this sequence was about twice as long in the original animatic, but unfortunately it has to get… Every show has to fit within twenty-two minutes, so it was a little shortened, but I think it still works.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: And the big surprise of course is that Azula, given the choice between capturing the Avatar or attacking her own brother… [Laughter] Would rather go after her brother.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I love how she shoots him first. It’s so great, so telling.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: So doing a threeway fight is, is not something that I look forward to.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Laughter] Yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Doing again. I mean it was very… It was exciting hearing about… Reading about it, but I, the kind of logistics of keeping track of the characters and everything is just… It’s a lot of work.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I always think… Well there’s always exceptions to the rule, but usually the… The best fights are usually the one on one stuff, but I don’t know, you did such a great job with this. I don’t… Let’s do some more threeway fights that Giancarlo can direct.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Laughter]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I love this little touch too that you added where she shoots… Azula shoots blue fire, but when it then catches something on fire, it turns to regular red fire.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Oh yeah!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It’s a cool little touch.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Just trying to keep it scientific.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah see it did it again, yeah. I think the idea was that Azula’s flames burn hotter or something, and then, when you know when it catches something on fire, it cools down to regular fire temperature I guess.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Scientifically speaking. Sokka jumping around the corner.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well now it becomes more than a three way. There’s like eight people fighting or something.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: A lot of it had to be handled by cutting away from the action.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Referring to Zuko and Iroh] They got away!
GIANCARLO VOLPE: You just do a little shot… Like there’s a crazy one like this with the uh sort of all four of them, but it’s like you gain more by what you don’t see.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Referring to Toph’s entrance] Yep. That was Toph’s way of apologizing, I think.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Laughter] Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Rather than them apologizing to each other.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh was that… Did you storyboard, you just came up with Uncle bellying, hitting her with his belly?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I think that might have been a Kisu sugestion? He always kind of thought Uncle would fight with his belly.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It’s awesome. [Referring to the moment when everybody is arrayed against Azula, cornering her] So this is the moment right here where he recognizes that she’s part of the group, and Azula takes advantage of that moment of weakness.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah. [Referring to the shot where they all strike Azula as one] This shot right here, I’ve seen on the internet a thousand times. I think people really kind of liked the idea of all four elements combining to attack, you know, the forces of evil.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah. [Referring to the shot of Zuko crouching over a wounded Iroh] This is my favorite shot in the episode, right here.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
ZUKO: Get away from us!]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I, I remember like posing out the Zuko… I… As close as I could get to him crying over Uncle’s, you know, condition, but obviously he doesn’t cry, but he’s having a hard time.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: For the ending, I remember writing some ending where like uh, Toph and Katara are about to argue and then they stop, but Aaron came up with this where they just go to sleep, and I think it’s the perfect ending.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter] It’s totally the perfect ending.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I forget that they still haven’t slept that whole time.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Right. So thanks to everyone who did a… Thanks to everyone on the crew, who did a great job with this episode.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah my board artists, Bobby Rubio, Ian Graham, and Oreste Canestrelli.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: And those people there.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I’ll just try to read the credits as fast as I can.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Rapidly] Kathy Gilmore…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Thanks guys for doing the commentary. Good times.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Sarcastically] Thanks Mike, Giancarlo, good work people.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: For real. I’m incidentally working on another Josh script as we speak.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I believe it also has a little Toph Katara argument in it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Here and there.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Hi, this is Mike DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: My name is Josh Hamilton. I am the writer of this episode.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: And I’m Giancarlo Volpe. I’m the director of this episode.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: And… And we’re watching the intro.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah so this is, this episode is called “The Chase”, uh, I think this is kind of a Westerny inspired episode, wasn’t it, Josh, like kind of a…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah we watched a lot of Westerns, I think we saw The Good The Bad and the Ugly, and a show called Shane, and we were in a big Western mode when we wrote this.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, right before this was the “Zuko Alone” episode where he’s like wandering the plains, and desolate areas and stuff, and this is kind of a continuation of that sort of thing.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Is that an intentional thing? Like do you research the Westerns because you want to get that feel, or do you just happen to be watching Westerns at that point in your life?
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Aaron… Well Aaron wanted to research them I guess, but um…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah I think in this case it was like, we wanted that sort of feel, and so we were like, just checking out some movies to see how they handled it, and stuff like that.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Referring to a shot in the recap from “Zuko Alone” of Zuko riding off into the sunset] Yeah, that’s a nice shot.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: The Good the Bad and the Ugly comes into play, especially in the third act, but we’ll talk about that later.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Shh! Not yet, not yet!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, this is also really, if you want to talk about just the kind of… This is the first episode where we have Toph…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: As part of the group, you know, and how that changes the dynamic.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah, I thought it was awesome that she was like new, You wrote 2.06, and uh, I loved her attitude, she was so like um, just quick and kind of, kind of a jerk, kind of Sokka’s… A version of Sokka that’s a girl. I don’t know, I loved writing her. It was hilarious.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: This is another great episode animated by MOI Animation in Korea. Kim Sang-Jin is the director over there. He added some great hilarious touches to it. I don’t know, what do you think, Giancarlo, because you directed this episode, and then we send it off to Korea. Are you always surprised when you saw the stuff that they add from what you’ve put in there, or...
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah, I mean that I think that’s always kind of a thing about doing half the show in America and then sending it to Korea, like there’s always going to be an X factor of what you’re going to expect, of what comes back. Like you remember specifically on this episode I was really pleased with how it came back. I just really thought that they really got the gist of kind of what I was going for in the episode, and it was, it turned out really well.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Even Momo does his fair share.]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Oh Momo. Something I really liked about this episode, writing-wise was um, it starts out almost I want to say like a filler, almost like, but I don’t mean that in a bad way.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: What?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Because it’s kind of a character development thing, where you see, you kind of see that Toph and Katara are having these problems, and you sort of just assume that okay, they’re going to resolve it somehow by the end of the episode. But what it kind of does, for me anyway, is almost kind of lets your guard down, because you don’t expect it to take the crazy turns that it does like a lot later. I think that that was kind of my feeling when I first read the script was that you, you’re not really sure where it’s going to go, and it was really… It made it a good, a good read.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Which is always a good sign, you know, when I’m starting a new episode, man if the script is a page turner, you want to… You get really excited about starting to draw is.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Have you ever had a script that wasn’t a page turner?
GIANCARLO VOLPE and MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Like oh man I have to direct this?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Not on Avatar.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Okay, that’s cool.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I’ll leave it at that.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: What I like about this one, like what you were saying, Giancarlo, it’s, it’s about… Our characters are the only characters in it, you know, like our main cast. We don’t have… They don’t go to a town that’s like they meet someone new. It’s like we’ve met all these characters before, and we just get to see them like with each other, and the situation, being tired, like they are now, and how this affects them. I thought that was really fun.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah, they’re… Speaking of them being tired, I just kind of saw that we had painted these like dark circles under their eyes as kind of a, you know, a sign of exhaustion. [Referring to a closeup of Toph’s face] You see that on Toph right there. And uh, I was always… I was a little worried like how that was going to turn out, but then it, it actually really works. I think that it’s just subtle enough and it, it adds to the whole like building exhaustion that’s supposed to be happening to these characters over the course of this episode.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, they really feel like they get more and more tired, which is cool.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: It’s a good like stress builder.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to a shot of Katara becoming angrier and angrier as Toph speaks] I really love this animation.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah, this was some hilarious funny animation.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Sugar Queen!?]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: So who, did you come up with the line “Sugar Queen,” Josh?
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I did! I don’t know where it came from, but I can remember writing that line and thinking like this is that line that’s going to get cut somewhere along the line. Someone’s going to have a note. And it made it past you know, the different versions of you know, I wasn’t in the outline, but the first draft, and it made it past to the table draft, and then it made it past through the core draft, and then I don’t know.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I know.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I like it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think yeah, we started her saying Twinkletoes, and then I think we needed some alternates for people, so yeah, now she says all sorts of stuff about insulting people.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to Katara insulting Toph’s blindness, right before Toph bends Katara and her sleeping roll skyward and then onto Sokka] Katara just said one of her meanest lines.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah… That was another line I thought was going to get cut at some point, because it was like, there’s no… She can’t make fun of her being blind, that’s like…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: But I feel like it’s okay, because then Toph kicks her butt with the earthbending, so that’s… They’re kind of equally jerky to each other.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I also feel like when brothers and sisters argue, I mean I know Katara and Toph aren’t related, but it’s that type of relationship, you go for the throat. You’re not politically correct when you’re trying to insult your brother or your sister. Like you try to find something that’s wrong with them, and really hone in on that. So…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Aaron must have had a great childhood. That was his line that… And yeah that was another one I thought wasn’t going to make it. Of course now Toph jokes about her blindness all the time.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Okay, forget about setting up camp. I'm finding the softest pile of dirt and going to sleep.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I like this little animation of Sokka. He’s like a little worm, he’s wiggling on over there.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I noticed that like subconsciously working on this episode, because it was so much about them getting progressively more and more tired, I, I felt like it was kind of affecting me personally when I was working on it. I mean every episode does kind of wear you out by the time you get to the end to it, end of it, but this one especially, I was like man, just yawning a lot, and I had those circles under my eyes.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Well, it certainly tells the other warriors that you're fun and perky!]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO, JOSHUA HAMILTON and GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Laughter]
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Anyway, whoever's chasing us, they couldn't have followed us here. So... now would everyone just shhh!]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Jack’s read of that line is really…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter] Yeah, I think it was written as just a regular “shh”.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, Jack DeSena plays Sokka, always comes up with kind of funny variations of things.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I believe for the record, Andrea was like what is that? What did you just do, and he’s like shuh, you know, I’m changing it up a little.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Laughter] Someone had mentioned at some point in a board meeting or something that Lo and Li were driving the tank.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Oh yeah!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh right.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: That is our little secret story idea.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I thought I’d divulge that. You never see them, but Lo and Li, Azula’s teachers from the first episode of season two, we just imagined they’re in there with their goggles, just like driving the tank train, because we were wondering… We don’t see anyone. How’s it getting around?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to the giant lizards Azula and her companions are riding] What is… What’s those lizards called?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: We’re debating what the name of these things are. We think they’re mongoose-lizards or mongoose-dragons.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Might have been some fan name for them, I forget.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I remember kind of, in a very geek fashion, like, like daydreaming why they were riding on these instead of the rhinos, and it was like, they’re the all terrain, um, mounts in the Fire Nation, whereas the rhinos are kind of more like the tanks.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah totally. They’re the faster…
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to the lizards running] Yeah yeah, look at that, there you go, a rhino couldn’t… Case in point right there.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: No rhino could jump over that. And I believe they run on water. Giancarlo…
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well that was, that was kind of the reason we needed the new creature.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That you wouldn’t think would be able to run on water, but later on they needed to, so.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I actually got reference for that lizard running on water stuff online. I mean we, we actually pull a lot of reference off the internet, of just anything from like color scheme for a cloud for the sky or something, to you know, animation of a horse running or something, and somehow trying to turn that into an Avatar animal.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Sokka’s “I’ve never not slept before!” freak out] This animation of Sokka is hilarious.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I like that little dangle that his arm did.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I love the angle too, it like…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And uh, Ben and Jeremy who do the sound and music did a great job with this episode. So Ben did all the tank train sounds and stuff, and um Jeremy does the scoring.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Zuko’s in this episode!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Drawing the word out excitedly] Yeah!
JOSHUA HAMILTON: He’s still handsome!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh he is. I always forget that like, that this is the episode that, where the kids don’t even know who Azula is yet. Like we, when we were writing it, like you have to kind of remind yourself like you know who they are and the audience knows who she is, but these kids have no idea who’s been tracking them.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: What's going on!
AANG: Appa fell asleep!]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Laughter] This shot right here, I can remember, uh, Bryan drawing on the outline. He like drew you know, just freehand.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: And there was… I think I still have it. I’m going to sell it on ebay.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Appa falling?
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Just kidding.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah were Aang is upside down. Yeah, all the animation of everyone being really tired is fun. Like Sokka’s walk cycle here is really… yeah that’s great.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I think they also got some little fir tree needles in there.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: In their clothes and hair. [Referring to Toph welling “what?” and crumpling the ground like paper] That’s so funny.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: Alright, alright! Everyone's exhausted. Let's just get some rest.
TOPH: No! I want to hear what Katara has to say. You think I have issues?]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah this just feels like a bunch of kids who… have not slept, everyone’s on edge, in away it’s very realistic, like this is what would happen with a bunch of kids running around the world together, not sleeping.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: They’d break, eventually.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Referring to Toph] She’s cracking.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I love how she’s, how Katara’s just poking her, come on! Bring it on!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: Besides, if there's anyone to blame, it's sheddy over here!
AANG: What?!]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Aang gets very defensive of Appa.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: That’s his, that’s his soft spot.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I think, yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Ever want to make Aang mad...
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Mention Appa. Talk bad about Appa. Or steal him.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: The Appa shedding I just remembered is, was like an idea from the first season. Mike, do you remember that, like someone came in with the idea of like Zuko finding them because of Appa?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, that was a really old… That may even have been from development, like the idea that Zuko could track Appa because he’s shedding when it’s hot out and stuff.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah and it’s great for the springtime, yeah you know like to show the seasons changing, and you know, how it affects him.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So there’s stuff like that, ideas like that, that we’ve that have been there kind of since the beginning, or get pitched and we… They’re great ideas but sometimes we don’t have… They just don’t work into the stories we’re doing now so… Yeah we always end up kind of finding a place for them eventually.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: It’s neat how they all work together, like the Appa shedding, and then you know, them being chased relentlessly, and they just kind of fit together like puzzle pieces, and they…
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I always kind of think Sokka’s drinking coffee here. I think that was sort of the idea, I mean he probably isn’t, but it just looks kind of like he’s having an espresso to perk himself up.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Sadly] Yeah I think it’s just water.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I like this, uh, washing Appa music. [Laughter] And Sokka gets wet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Classic. Yeah I like wet Appa too. He’s been wet and droopy a couple of times. He looks cute.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to Appa taking the top bit off some pines as he flies] Uh oh.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: That’s trouble.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Appa made a big mistake right there. They would have been fine if Appa hadn’t hit the tree.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: This coming up was uh when she sees Uncle, they don’t know each other, you know, one’s on the good side, one’s on the… bad side, or you know, Uncle’s whatever, but it’s great. It was a perfect opportunity to like have them talk to each other and not know who they are.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah, that’s a really nice moment in this episode coming up when the two of them share the tea.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah I remember reading that and just loving that scene, so then I ended up storyboarding it because I loved it so much.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: You did?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah!
GIANCARLO VOLPE: That’s a very rare occasion, when Mike or Bryan will actually kind of request to storyboard a section, usually because they’re just so busy, and Mike just came in my office one day and said hey, do you mind if I do the scene with Toph and Uncle? And I was like, hmmm, that’s less work for me!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Alright. You storyboarded the whole fight in the end, which was kind of crazy, so.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: The threeway fight. [Referring to Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee splitting up] The scene that just passed, I remember we did a rewrite on it after we saw the animatic, and Aaron said that he wanted to put in um… Maybe you also did too, Mike, but have Mai and Ty Lee talk more? Because I don’t think we’d heard from them since show 2.03.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Which was “Return to Omashu.” [Referring to the shots of the ghost town as Aang walks through] This part’s so Westerny. It’s great. Just kind of like the gray, quiet man in the deserted town.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: These are storyboards by Ian Graham I think.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yep.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: He did some nice, like atmospheric shots.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I really like kind of the contrast in the art direction that Bryan did and the background painters did in this episode.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah, like the dark shadows. You really got that sunsetty feel. This is great like a Western, you know, you’re being chased, and now it’s time to like… Now you’re ready. You’re going to face them. I love that.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: So great.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Referring to a shot with Appa’s fur tinted by the sunset with clouds in the background] Nice uh, sunset colors there.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: That’s a crazy Momo screech.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: How did they find us?]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Imitating Katara] How did they find us? There’s occasionally lines like Josh was just talking about that get added sort of later, and I had to do like a temp track I guess for Katara saying How did they find us? And I tried to imitate Mae, and I always kind of feel bad that she heard that and then was hugely insulted by it or something.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I always enjoy your performances, Giancarlo. It’s funny when you hear an animatic, and out of nowhere you hear Giancarlo’s voice.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Oh! It’s a little scarring, because every time….
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Mai and Ty Lee’s lizard mounts running across the water] Oh there there there! They’re running on the water!
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Oh yeah!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So they do, they really do run like that too, don’t they?
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: With arms like…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: They kind of flail their arms like that. When I was a kid I saw that and laughed so hard.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I noticed there’s a slight kind of scissors noise when Katara’s throwing those water blasts at Ty Lee there.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think it’s kind of like water disks, sharper.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.[Referring to a shot of Ty Lee flipping as she comes in for the attack] That’s awesome. That’s a little shot that I added in.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Ty Lee’s fight with Sokka] I love this part. This is great. So she’s chi-blocking him, which really for Sokka that just means he loses sensation in his limbs, since he doesn’t have any bending abilities.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I really like that we’re kind of saying there’s no chi in his head.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Right!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Or his head’s so dense.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
MAI: Oh well, victory is boring.]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: The fighting scenes are always really difficult to write. Usually we just kind of write a generic version of it. Sometimes not. Sometimes not. But like, we didn’t have that goofy arm thing, which turns out hilarious, so.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff we’ll work out in the storyboard meetings, with the storyboard artists and the directors.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Kind of come up with funny actions, or Kisu for the action scenes and stuff.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Fights sometimes kind of almost have a mind of their own when you’re working on them, because it’s… When you’re working on them. Because you um, you kind of get characters back into a corner or whatever, and you’re suddenly like wait how are they going to get out of this corner and they… It’s like this, this organic process.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I’m glad I don’t have to think about that.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Azula’s impression of her brother] That was another joke too I didn’t think we’d get through, but I love it. When she imitates Zuko.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: That’s the first time, yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And that’s totally, like you were saying earlier, Giancarlo, that’s totally the brother sister thing too.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Mmhmm.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: like, only she will just make fun of his scar to his face. [Referring to the scene change to Iroh serving Toph tea] So yeah, this is the beautiful Uncle Toph moment where he’s making her tea.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: There’s kind of a little… There’s subtle stuff going on here too, that may not be um, completely obvious. He’s kind of, he’s kind of like testing to see if… When she, when he hands her that tea, he’s testing to see how aware she is, because he can kind of tell she’s blind, but…
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: You wouldn't even let me pour my own cup of tea.
IROH: I poured your tea because I wanted to and for no other reason.
TOPH: People see me and think I'm weak. They want to take care of me. But I can take care of myself by myself.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah it’s always nice when we have the opportunity to have characters get together who normally you don’t see together in the episodes, or they’re enemies because they’re chasing each other in the episode. And yeah that’s why I just… I love the meaning of the scene about having… Letting people who love you help you, and, and…
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
IROH: Not that I love you; I just met you.]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I like that read.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, Mako was such a great voice actor, and this year we were sorry that he passed away to cancer, but um, he was such a great… He brought so much to the role of Uncle, and we just… Will always remember him and honor him with our show. Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: So now you're following him.
IROH: I know he doesn't want me around right now, but, if he needs me, I'll be there.]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah like… You know this is perfect, this is just a great opportunity to like, before they know who, before the season continues and they know who each other are, they can just talk to each other like strangers.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And you get the idea too that like Uncle, even though he let Zuko go, he like, he’s still worried about him, so he’s been tracking him down, and kind of, just kind of staying on the sidelines until he needs… He needs Uncle, so.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah. He’s been tracking Zuko, who’s been tracking Azula, who’s been tracking Aang and the kids.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Everybody’s tracking everyone.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: And it all sort of comes to this point.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AZULA: Do you really want to fight me?
ZUKO: Yes.]
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah you can’t really tell, but Zuko’s ostrich-horse ran through really fast.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And then we always joked that he and the mongoose-lizards are fighting somewhere.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
ZUKO: Back off, Azula! He's mine!
AZULA: I’m not going anywhere.]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: So this is where we start the kind of The Good The Bad and The Ugly.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Uh, Mexican standoff, they call it, where, uh, who’s going to shoot first?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to a panning shot of the three soon-to-be combatants] That’s great build up.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I think that this sequence was about twice as long in the original animatic, but unfortunately it has to get… Every show has to fit within twenty-two minutes, so it was a little shortened, but I think it still works.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: And the big surprise of course is that Azula, given the choice between capturing the Avatar or attacking her own brother… [Laughter] Would rather go after her brother.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I love how she shoots him first. It’s so great, so telling.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: So doing a threeway fight is, is not something that I look forward to.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Laughter] Yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Doing again. I mean it was very… It was exciting hearing about… Reading about it, but I, the kind of logistics of keeping track of the characters and everything is just… It’s a lot of work.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I always think… Well there’s always exceptions to the rule, but usually the… The best fights are usually the one on one stuff, but I don’t know, you did such a great job with this. I don’t… Let’s do some more threeway fights that Giancarlo can direct.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Laughter]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I love this little touch too that you added where she shoots… Azula shoots blue fire, but when it then catches something on fire, it turns to regular red fire.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Oh yeah!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It’s a cool little touch.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Just trying to keep it scientific.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah see it did it again, yeah. I think the idea was that Azula’s flames burn hotter or something, and then, when you know when it catches something on fire, it cools down to regular fire temperature I guess.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Scientifically speaking. Sokka jumping around the corner.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well now it becomes more than a three way. There’s like eight people fighting or something.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: A lot of it had to be handled by cutting away from the action.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Referring to Zuko and Iroh] They got away!
GIANCARLO VOLPE: You just do a little shot… Like there’s a crazy one like this with the uh sort of all four of them, but it’s like you gain more by what you don’t see.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Referring to Toph’s entrance] Yep. That was Toph’s way of apologizing, I think.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: [Laughter] Yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Rather than them apologizing to each other.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh was that… Did you storyboard, you just came up with Uncle bellying, hitting her with his belly?
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I think that might have been a Kisu sugestion? He always kind of thought Uncle would fight with his belly.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It’s awesome. [Referring to the moment when everybody is arrayed against Azula, cornering her] So this is the moment right here where he recognizes that she’s part of the group, and Azula takes advantage of that moment of weakness.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah. [Referring to the shot where they all strike Azula as one] This shot right here, I’ve seen on the internet a thousand times. I think people really kind of liked the idea of all four elements combining to attack, you know, the forces of evil.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Yeah. [Referring to the shot of Zuko crouching over a wounded Iroh] This is my favorite shot in the episode, right here.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
ZUKO: Get away from us!]
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I, I remember like posing out the Zuko… I… As close as I could get to him crying over Uncle’s, you know, condition, but obviously he doesn’t cry, but he’s having a hard time.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: For the ending, I remember writing some ending where like uh, Toph and Katara are about to argue and then they stop, but Aaron came up with this where they just go to sleep, and I think it’s the perfect ending.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter] It’s totally the perfect ending.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I forget that they still haven’t slept that whole time.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Right. So thanks to everyone who did a… Thanks to everyone on the crew, who did a great job with this episode.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: Yeah my board artists, Bobby Rubio, Ian Graham, and Oreste Canestrelli.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: And those people there.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: I’ll just try to read the credits as fast as I can.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Rapidly] Kathy Gilmore…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Thanks guys for doing the commentary. Good times.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: [Sarcastically] Thanks Mike, Giancarlo, good work people.
GIANCARLO VOLPE: For real. I’m incidentally working on another Josh script as we speak.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: I believe it also has a little Toph Katara argument in it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah.
JOSHUA HAMILTON: Here and there.
