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attackfishCommentators: Michael Dante DiMartino, series co-creator, John O'Bryan, episode writer, and Joaquim Dos Santos, storyboard artist.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Hi, this is Mike DiMartino, co-creator and co-EP of Avatar.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And this is John O’Bryan. I’m the writer of the episode.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And this is Joaquim Dos Santos, I was the storyboard artist on this episode, and current director of season three of Avatar.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: John wrote this episode, and John is also uh, the genius artist behind uh, Sokka, whenever you see Sokka’s drawings, it’s John.
JOHN O’BRYAN: I don’t meant to brag or nothing, but yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: When you do those drawings, do you… What do you think about, like what’s your motivation when you’re…
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Laughter] What?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: When you’re creating those artistic genius moments?
JOHN O’BRYAN: I don’t think I’ve drawn anything since I was in second grade, so my style hasn’t evolved.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter] Excellent. So this is another episode we kind of… The end of season two is really very continuous, and a nice story arc in Ba Sing Se, and this is like the Earth King episode where the kids finally, finally make it to their goal of talking to the Earth King, and uh, kind of culminates this conspiracy storyline we began a few episodes, and stuff like that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, it’s tough to follow that last episode. The… 2.17 I think is one of the best episodes in the series.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Wow, I’ll tell Tim you said that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: This one’s pretty good too.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: This one had a lot to live up to.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah. I think what was kind of different about this one too, um, Joaquim, you can talk a little about the storyboarding, was that like, act one we knew was going to be… Usually act three is the big action scene or whatever.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, this one started off with a huge bang.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Because we wanted the kids to really earn their way to get to talk to the king, and, and you know, now that they, that as Sokka says, now that they don’t have any… Uh, Long Feng doesn’t have Appa to blackmail them anymore, they can, they can, but through.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Bust loose and just kind of go right at them, yeah.JOHN O’BRYAN: I, I don’t want to embarrass Joaquim or nothing, but he, he is a Brazilian Jujitsu practitioner.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Jeez Louise.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And I don’t know if that influences his fighting scenes at all.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Does it?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Those of you who are interested in that, its…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Do you bring any of your knowledge of martial arts to when you storyboard?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Um… There’s not too much grappling in Avatar.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, that’s true.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Which, Brazilian Jujitsu kind of contains a lot of, but I think it’s just a general love for all things that kick butt. So yeah, when we started on this, or you know, when I started, personally started on this show, it was kind of a breath of fresh air to just be able to unleash and just go, go wild as far as martial arts goes.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Cool.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Mike and I don’t know how to do anything.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I can do a couple moves. I can probably take you down.
JOHN O’BRYAN and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I don’t think…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: If I had to, I probably could.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I’ve seen Mike kick a little butt.
JOHN O’BRYAN: I’d just give up my wallet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Uh, this episode was directed by Ethan Spaulding.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: He’s a magnificent director.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Let’s fly!]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So here begins the insanity. I believe this is where you started, Joaquim? In this?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: This, this, I did a little bit of the first part there with the dialogue, but this is where it all starts coming together with the action.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And I remember talking about this in the startup meeting, and it sort of being the idea that there’s just multiple waves after waves of uh, of soldiers that come to stop them, they’ve got to get through it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to a shot of a boulder flying directly at Appa and the gaang] Woah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, great animation, uh, the animation director, Jae Myung Yoo.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Absolutely.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, that’s awesome.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I mean really look… Yeah, there’s so much weight to those, those you know, huge stones that they’re flying up at them.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah. I think what’s good about this action scene too, is it kind of shows how far the kids have come in their training too, like… A lot of times we don’t have… We always want to show like training scenes, and the kids getting better at the martial arts and stuff, but sometimes the story just, you know. Stories got to keep moving, so we don’t have time to show all the stuff, but in sequences like this, you can really see how they’ve progressed as individually, and together as a team, which is cool.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Absolutely.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, we’re, when we were pitching this out, the idea was just that they’re, they’re superheroes by this point.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And these guys are just disposable peons that they’re…
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, right.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Knocking out of the way.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to Toph walking with her rotating earth shield with Katara and her water whip in the background] And let me just bring to light how much animation was in that scene specifically, uh, overlapping action just, uh, they, they really really pulled through for us, the animation studio did.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: They did a kick butt job. [Referring to a scene where Aang and Toph raise up and knock down a line of large paving stones like dominoes, pinning a line of Earth Kingdom soldiers] I think our first cut of that, the guys looked like they were dead underneath the rocks, when we first, uh…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well they got totally squashed.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter] Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: They would not have had any legs. No, they’re okay. They’re just a little bruised.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah. [Referring to Toph and Aang bending a stone igloo as a shield against a large boulder] This is a cool concept that I think both you and Bryan had come up with in the pitch that they had formed this kind of cocoon.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, that. So I always ask the writers this, John, when they come in, is like, you know, you guys write the scripts, you haven’t seen it for a long time, it comes back in color, are you always like surprised to see the outcome of, of, you know, a script that you’ve written and stuff, and see it visualized? And do you enjoy that process?
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, yeah! I mean there’s a… I don’t know, I’m pretty bad at watching animatics, so I feel there’s even a lot that I miss in the animatic, because I can’t always decipher drawings. But yea, when the finished color product comes back, it’s, yeah, it’s always very impressive, and full… Lots of surprises, and…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Cool.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to a shot of the gaang riding a platform of earth that Toph and Aang are bending up a slope] And a little small detail here is that Appa is actually helping them up with the…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: With the elevator there by kind of flailing his tail.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh, I didn’t know that. Interesting. You know, from a… I’m sure you guys have talked about this, from a writing standpoint, one of the hardest things to do is figure out what to do with Appa. You can’t… You don’t always have somewhere to put him.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And I think you’ll see on the train, when they’re on the train, later, he’s just kind of floating outside the window, because we didn’t know where else to put him.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOHN O’BRYAN: There are so many stories we thought of in the old days, where… And somebody would just say, oh man, they can’t, what about Appa?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: They could totally just fly.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yep, that’s definitely one of our boarding notes too, we’re always like where’s Appa, and where is Momo.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah and Momo often disappears for a while. But we always find little nuggets for him to do.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to Zuko and Iroh returning to their apartment, and Zuko fainting] This was a great scene, boarded by uh, Mike Chang. That, and that animation on that fall is just something of beauty.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Tons of rubble.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Now that's an impressive door. It's gotta go somewhere.]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to Sokka leap kicking the door and falling down] This is a great gag we came up with in the pitch, where he just [sound effect] whooooo. And initially this scene was, I don’t know if you remember, was extended, and this was a huge fight scene in this enormous round room that we kind of.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That’s right, you did even more boards.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, yeah, I mean there was like a double board here.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And we ended up with…
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, time kind of cut it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think, I think I was satisfied with that action.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I…
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think they earned their way in.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Absolutely. I don’t know how many more animators we may have possibly killed if we’d had more, so.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter]
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Lay waste to all my guards, break down my fancy door, and you expect me to trust you?]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And, uh, I like how they saw the Earth King turned out. He’s not, he’s not uh, too cartoony, and he’s like, seems like a real guy. You know, I think kids had a lot of expectations of what this guy was going to turn out to be like.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And you kind of realize he’s just like a normal guy who has been sheltered all his life.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Which you know is based on real, real stuff in China and things there, where the emperor often wouldn’t leave the Forbidden City for years and years, and they, they led a very isolated existence in a way.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Which sort of personifies the ignorance is bliss.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, he means well. He’s not a bad guy.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Exactly.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Out of the loop.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: But that’s what I like about this story too, is how the kids come into his palace and stuff just kind of wakes him up.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: From, from what’s been going on.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Uh, nice touch with the little pince-nez, by the way, the little glasses.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Bosco licking Aang] Ah Bosco. Very funny.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Good old Bosco.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: I'll hear what he has to say.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, Bosco became… He appeared first in um, 2.14 I think, and then we just sort of decided we liked Bosco so much that he was going to hang out with the king.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: The Dai Li's kept it secret from you. It's a conspiracy to control the city, and to control you.
EARTH KING KUEI: A secret war? That's crazy.
LONG FENG: Completely.
AANG: Long Feng didn't want us to tell you, so he stole our Sky Bison to blackmail us.]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Sort of great here too that Aang pretty much showed everybody that he could get away if he wanted to.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Right.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: But he’s, he’s choosing to do this diplomatically.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Aang’s good like that.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: He is good like that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Aang, Aang really cares what people think about him, I think.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think you’re right.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
LONG FENG: These hooligans are part of an anarchist cell that my agents have been tracking for weeks. If you listen to them, you're playing right into your own destruction.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: What a no good liar.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Scoundrel.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: He’s… Long Feng was a good, good season two villain. I really liked his character.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And this was really one of the first… You know, besides the episode right before this, is where we really got to see what the Dai Li agents’ jobs were, and, and they feel they’re his minions.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, there are kind of two factions. It was like Long Feng and the Dai Li, and then the king and all his guards, and soldiers and generals and stuff.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Never met a Sky Bison, huh?]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh I remember, it took us a long time to figure out how to prove that, that he had had Appa.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That was a good way. [Referring to Aang smiling as he points out that the bruises on Long Feng’s leg match Appa’s teeth] I love this animation coming up here, with Aang where he’s like…
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: He just slides out.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think Ethan storyboarded that part.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: He did, he did. It’s great. [Referring to the gaang’s cheering turning into disappointment and then acceptance with Earth King Kuei’s different pronouncements] This is awesome acting here too.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Though I suppose this matter’s worth looking into.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: They say, we’ll take it.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
ZUKO: [Moans]
IROH: You're burning up. You have an intense fever. This will help cool you down.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think the idea of this, the story of Zuko was, was we knew we were going to have him kind of go through this transformation, and, and kind of lean toward the good side. And uh, wanted a kind of simple story where Zuko is literally going through this feverish transformation.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, I sort of got to do all the episodes with crazy dreams, I think.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Did you?
JOHN O’BRYAN: The one in third season, which everyone will see.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah. Don’t ruin it for anyone.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh, I’m not saying a word.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: So, this is what a train is like? I didn't realize it would be this... public.
KATARA: So you've never been outside the upper ring before?
EARTH KING KUEI: I've never been outside of the palace.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: His first time on the train!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yep.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: His first time out of the palace, right?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That’s right, yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: So, may I ask where we're going?
SOKKA: Underneath Lake Laogai, Your Kingliness. To the Dai Li's secret headquarters. You're about to see where all the brainwashing and conspiring took place.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to a Shot of Toph bending the entrance to the Lake Laogai headquarters up to the surface of the lake, only to find it has been destroyed] So that is actually an identical shot to the last episode that we did, where Toph raised the secret entrance.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Entrance to the Lake Laogai headquarters, and now it’s all broken up.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: The Dai Li must have known we were coming and destroyed the evidence.
EARTH KING KUEI: Hmm. That seems awfully convenient.
SOKKA: Hey, if anything, this proves the conspiracy exists even more.
EARTH KING KUEI: Long Feng was right, this was a waste of time.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Is that Phil LaMarr as the Earth King?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah! I was going to mention that, he did the, he was the voice of the Earth King, and he does a lot of animation voices, and is a great actor.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: If you come with us to the outer wall, we can prove to you that the secret war is real!
EARTH KING KUEI: No Earth King has ever been to the outer wall. I don't have anymore time for this nonsense.
SOKKA: If you come with us, this time you can ride on Appa.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It’s always funny with the voice recording and stuff, is like rarely are all of the characters in the room together, you know, you got like, you think like everyone’s, they’re acting together, but sometimes we’ll have like Katara and Sokka together, or something, but the kid who plays Aang, uh, Zach Tyler Eisen, lives in New York, he’s always recording by himself, you know, sometimes Zuko’s recording by himself, so… But Andrea, the voice director, Andrea Romano, always brings, you know… Her direction style and stuff can really, really blend them all together really nicely, and make it very cohesive.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And the interesting thing from a boarding point of view is a lot of time when we get the tracks, it only has certain actors on it. Until we go to a pitch, we’ll kind of leave, say Katara hasn’t been on the track yet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: We’ll just kind of leave here really ambiguous what our acting is, and at a later date, we’ll wind up getting her track, and then plug in the acting later.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Zuko’s fever dream with the two dragons] So did you ever have a dream like this, John? When you were writing this?
JOHN O’BRYAN: My dreams like don’t ever actually make any sense. They’re, they’re never this cool. And like I can usually barely remember them, unless I write them down when I first wake up. But yeah, it’s usually it’s just you know, I’m going grocery shopping, except I’m at the post office.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Something really mundane like that.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: This was really cool, to see the, to see Zuko without the scar on his face.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Sort of what he should have looked like, had he not had such a horrible father.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
DREAM BLUE DRAGON AZULA: Sleep. Just like Mother!]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And you see a little glimpse of Zuko’s mother right here.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
DREAM URSA: Zuko! Help me!]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And if I can remember that correctly, I remember at one point, the boarding had Zuko’s mom actually getting swallowed by the dragon.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: She was in the mouth.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: She was in the mouth.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It was a little too scary.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: A little much.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Even for me.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I was scared looking at the board.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So we, so we uh, we changed that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s true, yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to an aerial shot of the drill outside the outer wall] So there we see the drill, which the uh, was in the episode, uh, called “The Drill.”
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Still, and you see that… I think Bryan had the idea of like, there were these, that the earthbenders kind of constructed these…
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Other walls around it, to, you know, because they were trying to kind of disrepair it and get it out of there, but they needed some protection still.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And looks like some little jersey berry or something like that.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
LONG FENG: Well, it's imported of course. You know you can't trust domestic machinery.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So this is here, this is where Long Feng’s lies all kind of finally crumble!
JOHN O’BRYAN: Kids, lies will always do that to you.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Can’t keep control forever.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Mmhmm
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Dai Li! Arrest Long Feng.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh the tangled web!
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to the Dai Li glancing at each other and making up their minds about who to obey] This is a great scene that I remember came together in the pitch, where both Dai Li agents look at each other.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: For a moment, like should I do this?
JOHN O’BRYAN: They have separate metal handcuffs.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: They do.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Because they can’t use the rock ones on him, obviously.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That’s right, yeah, had to create a new kind of handcuff. Well not new, I mean metal handcuffs have been around for a while.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: A new kind of Avatar metal newfangled handcuff.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: All this time, what I thought was a great metropolis, was merely a city of fools, and that makes me the king fool.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: This is kind of, this is the scene too that the kids have waiting to tell the king about the eclipse, since like the library episode I think. Which… When they first found out about it.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Which John also wrote.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Is that… Isn’t there a callback to that in one of these episodes, someone says something about…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: About…
JOHN O’BRYAN: About Professor Zei?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah, when they’re… When they first come to Ba Sing Se, they talk about how they met a professor from Ba Sing Se University. But uh, yeah, he went down with the library.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I can remember being so frustrated, having read the script at this point, when the king looked at Aang and said I’m the king of fools? I was like [Funny voice] Yes you are the king of fools!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: We'd be completely vulnerable.
SOKKA: You're already vulnerable.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: How was it, Joaquim, coming in, because, uh, you know, a lot of the crew have been around since the beginning, like coming in, in to a show that was like halfway, you know, in the middle of the season, and, and jumping in and stuff?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: It was, you know, it was a great experience as far as dealing with everybody, because everybody was just so, you know, so, so friendly friendly, and, and there wasn’t really that mentality, where you know, a lot of crews go on to, you know, this is our team, and you know, you’re kind of an outsider. Everybody, I remember I had lunch with you guys my first or second day, and you know, it just, everything flowed really smoothly. I think this show particularly kind of caters to what I enjoy about, you know film, and… So I think I took to it really really easily.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Now were you a fan before you started?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I was. I was a big fan.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: You were?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I can remember, my girlfriend at the time, my fiancée now, was watching TV, and, and this show had kind of made the rounds, uh, just rumor wise, and all of animation was just kind of hearing about this Avatar show, and she happened to catch it on Nickelodeon, and she Tivoed it, and she said, you got to come home, and you got to watch this show now. And the show that I was on at the time was coming to an end and everything just seemed to work out really really well.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Did you seek out Avatar after seeing the show?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I did.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Wow!
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I called up as soon as I heard there was a position open, and I was like, I want in. Let me in. And uh, I remember for a while not being able to, to take the test to get in, just because of work constraints, and then it worked out.
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s right, Lauren MacMullan had left to work on a movie based on a fox animated show, that we can’t give you the name of. [Transcriber’s note, this is The Simpsons Movie.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I think I was taking… Was I taking Justin’s place, had Justin just left?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, uh, Justin Ridge, our storyboard artist for the… Who had been there since the beginning.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: But uh, there was definitely some big shoes to fill. I mean, I studied all of Justin’s boards and was absolutely just amazed by them. So there was, there was…MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: You filled the shoes.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I was intimidated.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Man, you filled them.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Well thank you.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
IROH: It will not be a pleasant experience, but when you come out of it, you will be the beautiful Prince you were always meant to be.
JOHN O’BRYAN: He’s going to be a butterfly! When he comes out of it.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: That line actually made me cringe when I read it, the beautiful prince line?
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Laughter]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: But when I saw it in the show, it worked out really well. It was like, beautiful.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: What's a Guru? Some kind of poisonous blowfish?]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter] That’s a great line.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So we’re kind of… This, this act three stuff is also, is used to kind of set up the next couple episodes, where the kids split up, and have to go their separate ways.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: My Mom's in the city, and from her letter it sounds like she finally understands me.
SOKKA: This is all such big news. Where do we even start?]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And also the news that they find out where their dad is. Something we’ve been setting up, you know since early season one, where we find out that their dad left their tribe to fight in the war.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: You have to meet this Guru, Aang. If we're gonna invade the Fire Nation, you need to be ready.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s a lot of, uh, legwork. If they have files on everybody in the city. Long Feng must have a lot of government employees.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It was before the internet, so it was harder to you know, keep track of…
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right, there was none of that [Pretending to be searching for a word] intraness?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: They have, uh, really good filing clerks though, I think in Ba Sing Se? Really good library science.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, I was thinking they stored a lot of them in the library that went down in the desert.
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s what… That’s where paperbenders come in, which we don’t go into.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: We haven’t seen those yet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: The useless art of paper.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: Katara, I need to tell you something. I've been wanting to say it for a long time.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Uh oh!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: What is it Aang?
AANG: Katara, I...
SOKKA: All right! Who's ready to get going on our little men-only man trip]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Aww, fellas all understand that.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yep! [Laughter]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: We’ve all been there.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Ba Sing Se owes you its thanks, and we look forward to your return.
PALACE GUARD: Your Majesty. There are three female warriors here to see you, they're from the island of Kyoshi.
SOKKA: That's Suki!]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to Sokka falling and sliding down Appa] This is great, [makes falling sound effect].
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Man he would have totally broken his back there.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: That’s definitely a compound fracture of some sort.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Then we shall welcome them as honored guests.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s why you have to be really careful who you give a recommendation for.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Uh huh.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Because it could come back and hurt you.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Wait, Aang.
TOPH: I'm really gonna miss you guys.
KATARA: Me too.
AANG: Yeah.]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to the look of dawning realization and discomfort on Sokka’s face when he realizes he’s about to get hugged by the entire rest of the gaang] This is great.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Great! That's enough! Okay, we love each other. Seriously.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Sokka doesn’t hug. Not a hugging guy.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: No.
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Referring to Zuko “waking up” inside his dream] Oh, this is my favorite part, I think, in the episode.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, this was staged really nicely. I think Mike Chang…
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, very well.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Mike Chang also did this.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: The way I knew this scene played really well is that it… You know, we’d seen it all the way from the beginning, from the rough stages, all through the storyboards, and it still shocked me when we got the footage back.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: It still threw me.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: You see Aang, a little positive thinking works wonders. We got the King on our side, we got Long Feng arrested, and when we get back, Suki's waiting for me.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: I love that he’s so happy that he got Long Feng arrested.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I love Aang’s line too.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Girls are waiting for us.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Everything's gonna work out perfectly, from now on and forever!]
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Laughter] He couldn’t set that up any better, could he?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Might have been overreaching a bit.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Perhaps.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
DAI LI AGENT: The Council of Five and the military are loyal to the Earth King, but the Dai Li remains loyal to you, Long Feng, Sir.]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: There’s a lot of great diffusion in that scene, which is, works out really well.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I love the scenes in the cell. They look really nice.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Creepy.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And then we have the Toph kidnapping, which you know, as we recall, Xin Fu and Master Yu, they were, they haven’t been around for many an episode, so.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, I hope people remember who they were.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Who are these dudes?
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: Hey! Who do you think you're dealing with?
XIN FU: One loudmouthed little brat who strayed too far from home.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: But I think… I really do love the ending of this episode, because you do get that feeling of kind of like, yeah things are going good, we could get a little complacent, and then bam!
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Aw, it’s Azula!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Our esteemed allies, the Kyoshi warriors!]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Avatar is great at disappointing kids.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOHN O’BRYAN: With it’s endings.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yep.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I definitely…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I feel like those make the best stories.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Absolutely.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Definitely.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: If you end with a happy ending every time, what are you going to do now?
JOHN O’BRYAN: Kids were so mad about the end of season two.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah. Tune in for Bryan and my commentary on the last episode of season two, for of that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yay!
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: This was a ball to work on though, this, this one in particular from season two, was a lot of fun.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Season two as a whole is pretty solid.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I would say so. I mean the fact that we get to do, you know, a political conspiracy thriller for children?
JOHN O’BRYAN: No doubt, yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Nothing wrong with that.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It’s exciting. Thanks again everyone who worked so hard on this, this episode in this series.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yep.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Thank you.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And thank you guys for joining us.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Thank you for having us.
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Laughter]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Hi, this is Mike DiMartino, co-creator and co-EP of Avatar.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And this is John O’Bryan. I’m the writer of the episode.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And this is Joaquim Dos Santos, I was the storyboard artist on this episode, and current director of season three of Avatar.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: John wrote this episode, and John is also uh, the genius artist behind uh, Sokka, whenever you see Sokka’s drawings, it’s John.
JOHN O’BRYAN: I don’t meant to brag or nothing, but yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: When you do those drawings, do you… What do you think about, like what’s your motivation when you’re…
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Laughter] What?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: When you’re creating those artistic genius moments?
JOHN O’BRYAN: I don’t think I’ve drawn anything since I was in second grade, so my style hasn’t evolved.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter] Excellent. So this is another episode we kind of… The end of season two is really very continuous, and a nice story arc in Ba Sing Se, and this is like the Earth King episode where the kids finally, finally make it to their goal of talking to the Earth King, and uh, kind of culminates this conspiracy storyline we began a few episodes, and stuff like that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, it’s tough to follow that last episode. The… 2.17 I think is one of the best episodes in the series.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Wow, I’ll tell Tim you said that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: This one’s pretty good too.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: This one had a lot to live up to.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah. I think what was kind of different about this one too, um, Joaquim, you can talk a little about the storyboarding, was that like, act one we knew was going to be… Usually act three is the big action scene or whatever.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, this one started off with a huge bang.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Because we wanted the kids to really earn their way to get to talk to the king, and, and you know, now that they, that as Sokka says, now that they don’t have any… Uh, Long Feng doesn’t have Appa to blackmail them anymore, they can, they can, but through.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Bust loose and just kind of go right at them, yeah.JOHN O’BRYAN: I, I don’t want to embarrass Joaquim or nothing, but he, he is a Brazilian Jujitsu practitioner.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Jeez Louise.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And I don’t know if that influences his fighting scenes at all.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Does it?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Those of you who are interested in that, its…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Do you bring any of your knowledge of martial arts to when you storyboard?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Um… There’s not too much grappling in Avatar.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, that’s true.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Which, Brazilian Jujitsu kind of contains a lot of, but I think it’s just a general love for all things that kick butt. So yeah, when we started on this, or you know, when I started, personally started on this show, it was kind of a breath of fresh air to just be able to unleash and just go, go wild as far as martial arts goes.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Cool.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Mike and I don’t know how to do anything.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I can do a couple moves. I can probably take you down.
JOHN O’BRYAN and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I don’t think…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: If I had to, I probably could.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I’ve seen Mike kick a little butt.
JOHN O’BRYAN: I’d just give up my wallet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Uh, this episode was directed by Ethan Spaulding.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: He’s a magnificent director.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Let’s fly!]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So here begins the insanity. I believe this is where you started, Joaquim? In this?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: This, this, I did a little bit of the first part there with the dialogue, but this is where it all starts coming together with the action.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And I remember talking about this in the startup meeting, and it sort of being the idea that there’s just multiple waves after waves of uh, of soldiers that come to stop them, they’ve got to get through it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to a shot of a boulder flying directly at Appa and the gaang] Woah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, great animation, uh, the animation director, Jae Myung Yoo.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Absolutely.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, that’s awesome.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I mean really look… Yeah, there’s so much weight to those, those you know, huge stones that they’re flying up at them.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah. I think what’s good about this action scene too, is it kind of shows how far the kids have come in their training too, like… A lot of times we don’t have… We always want to show like training scenes, and the kids getting better at the martial arts and stuff, but sometimes the story just, you know. Stories got to keep moving, so we don’t have time to show all the stuff, but in sequences like this, you can really see how they’ve progressed as individually, and together as a team, which is cool.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Absolutely.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, we’re, when we were pitching this out, the idea was just that they’re, they’re superheroes by this point.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And these guys are just disposable peons that they’re…
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, right.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Knocking out of the way.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to Toph walking with her rotating earth shield with Katara and her water whip in the background] And let me just bring to light how much animation was in that scene specifically, uh, overlapping action just, uh, they, they really really pulled through for us, the animation studio did.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: They did a kick butt job. [Referring to a scene where Aang and Toph raise up and knock down a line of large paving stones like dominoes, pinning a line of Earth Kingdom soldiers] I think our first cut of that, the guys looked like they were dead underneath the rocks, when we first, uh…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well they got totally squashed.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter] Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: They would not have had any legs. No, they’re okay. They’re just a little bruised.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah. [Referring to Toph and Aang bending a stone igloo as a shield against a large boulder] This is a cool concept that I think both you and Bryan had come up with in the pitch that they had formed this kind of cocoon.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, that. So I always ask the writers this, John, when they come in, is like, you know, you guys write the scripts, you haven’t seen it for a long time, it comes back in color, are you always like surprised to see the outcome of, of, you know, a script that you’ve written and stuff, and see it visualized? And do you enjoy that process?
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, yeah! I mean there’s a… I don’t know, I’m pretty bad at watching animatics, so I feel there’s even a lot that I miss in the animatic, because I can’t always decipher drawings. But yea, when the finished color product comes back, it’s, yeah, it’s always very impressive, and full… Lots of surprises, and…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Cool.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to a shot of the gaang riding a platform of earth that Toph and Aang are bending up a slope] And a little small detail here is that Appa is actually helping them up with the…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: With the elevator there by kind of flailing his tail.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh, I didn’t know that. Interesting. You know, from a… I’m sure you guys have talked about this, from a writing standpoint, one of the hardest things to do is figure out what to do with Appa. You can’t… You don’t always have somewhere to put him.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And I think you’ll see on the train, when they’re on the train, later, he’s just kind of floating outside the window, because we didn’t know where else to put him.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOHN O’BRYAN: There are so many stories we thought of in the old days, where… And somebody would just say, oh man, they can’t, what about Appa?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: They could totally just fly.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yep, that’s definitely one of our boarding notes too, we’re always like where’s Appa, and where is Momo.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah and Momo often disappears for a while. But we always find little nuggets for him to do.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to Zuko and Iroh returning to their apartment, and Zuko fainting] This was a great scene, boarded by uh, Mike Chang. That, and that animation on that fall is just something of beauty.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Tons of rubble.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Now that's an impressive door. It's gotta go somewhere.]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to Sokka leap kicking the door and falling down] This is a great gag we came up with in the pitch, where he just [sound effect] whooooo. And initially this scene was, I don’t know if you remember, was extended, and this was a huge fight scene in this enormous round room that we kind of.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That’s right, you did even more boards.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, yeah, I mean there was like a double board here.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And we ended up with…
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, time kind of cut it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think, I think I was satisfied with that action.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I…
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think they earned their way in.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Absolutely. I don’t know how many more animators we may have possibly killed if we’d had more, so.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughter]
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Lay waste to all my guards, break down my fancy door, and you expect me to trust you?]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And, uh, I like how they saw the Earth King turned out. He’s not, he’s not uh, too cartoony, and he’s like, seems like a real guy. You know, I think kids had a lot of expectations of what this guy was going to turn out to be like.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And you kind of realize he’s just like a normal guy who has been sheltered all his life.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Which you know is based on real, real stuff in China and things there, where the emperor often wouldn’t leave the Forbidden City for years and years, and they, they led a very isolated existence in a way.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Which sort of personifies the ignorance is bliss.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, he means well. He’s not a bad guy.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Exactly.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Out of the loop.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: But that’s what I like about this story too, is how the kids come into his palace and stuff just kind of wakes him up.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: From, from what’s been going on.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Uh, nice touch with the little pince-nez, by the way, the little glasses.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Bosco licking Aang] Ah Bosco. Very funny.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Good old Bosco.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: I'll hear what he has to say.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, Bosco became… He appeared first in um, 2.14 I think, and then we just sort of decided we liked Bosco so much that he was going to hang out with the king.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: The Dai Li's kept it secret from you. It's a conspiracy to control the city, and to control you.
EARTH KING KUEI: A secret war? That's crazy.
LONG FENG: Completely.
AANG: Long Feng didn't want us to tell you, so he stole our Sky Bison to blackmail us.]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Sort of great here too that Aang pretty much showed everybody that he could get away if he wanted to.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Right.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: But he’s, he’s choosing to do this diplomatically.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Aang’s good like that.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: He is good like that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Aang, Aang really cares what people think about him, I think.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think you’re right.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
LONG FENG: These hooligans are part of an anarchist cell that my agents have been tracking for weeks. If you listen to them, you're playing right into your own destruction.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: What a no good liar.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Scoundrel.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: He’s… Long Feng was a good, good season two villain. I really liked his character.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And this was really one of the first… You know, besides the episode right before this, is where we really got to see what the Dai Li agents’ jobs were, and, and they feel they’re his minions.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, there are kind of two factions. It was like Long Feng and the Dai Li, and then the king and all his guards, and soldiers and generals and stuff.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Never met a Sky Bison, huh?]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh I remember, it took us a long time to figure out how to prove that, that he had had Appa.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That was a good way. [Referring to Aang smiling as he points out that the bruises on Long Feng’s leg match Appa’s teeth] I love this animation coming up here, with Aang where he’s like…
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: He just slides out.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think Ethan storyboarded that part.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: He did, he did. It’s great. [Referring to the gaang’s cheering turning into disappointment and then acceptance with Earth King Kuei’s different pronouncements] This is awesome acting here too.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Though I suppose this matter’s worth looking into.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: They say, we’ll take it.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
ZUKO: [Moans]
IROH: You're burning up. You have an intense fever. This will help cool you down.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think the idea of this, the story of Zuko was, was we knew we were going to have him kind of go through this transformation, and, and kind of lean toward the good side. And uh, wanted a kind of simple story where Zuko is literally going through this feverish transformation.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, I sort of got to do all the episodes with crazy dreams, I think.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Did you?
JOHN O’BRYAN: The one in third season, which everyone will see.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah. Don’t ruin it for anyone.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh, I’m not saying a word.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: So, this is what a train is like? I didn't realize it would be this... public.
KATARA: So you've never been outside the upper ring before?
EARTH KING KUEI: I've never been outside of the palace.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: His first time on the train!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yep.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: His first time out of the palace, right?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That’s right, yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: So, may I ask where we're going?
SOKKA: Underneath Lake Laogai, Your Kingliness. To the Dai Li's secret headquarters. You're about to see where all the brainwashing and conspiring took place.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to a Shot of Toph bending the entrance to the Lake Laogai headquarters up to the surface of the lake, only to find it has been destroyed] So that is actually an identical shot to the last episode that we did, where Toph raised the secret entrance.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Entrance to the Lake Laogai headquarters, and now it’s all broken up.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: The Dai Li must have known we were coming and destroyed the evidence.
EARTH KING KUEI: Hmm. That seems awfully convenient.
SOKKA: Hey, if anything, this proves the conspiracy exists even more.
EARTH KING KUEI: Long Feng was right, this was a waste of time.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Is that Phil LaMarr as the Earth King?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah! I was going to mention that, he did the, he was the voice of the Earth King, and he does a lot of animation voices, and is a great actor.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: If you come with us to the outer wall, we can prove to you that the secret war is real!
EARTH KING KUEI: No Earth King has ever been to the outer wall. I don't have anymore time for this nonsense.
SOKKA: If you come with us, this time you can ride on Appa.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It’s always funny with the voice recording and stuff, is like rarely are all of the characters in the room together, you know, you got like, you think like everyone’s, they’re acting together, but sometimes we’ll have like Katara and Sokka together, or something, but the kid who plays Aang, uh, Zach Tyler Eisen, lives in New York, he’s always recording by himself, you know, sometimes Zuko’s recording by himself, so… But Andrea, the voice director, Andrea Romano, always brings, you know… Her direction style and stuff can really, really blend them all together really nicely, and make it very cohesive.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And the interesting thing from a boarding point of view is a lot of time when we get the tracks, it only has certain actors on it. Until we go to a pitch, we’ll kind of leave, say Katara hasn’t been on the track yet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: We’ll just kind of leave here really ambiguous what our acting is, and at a later date, we’ll wind up getting her track, and then plug in the acting later.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Zuko’s fever dream with the two dragons] So did you ever have a dream like this, John? When you were writing this?
JOHN O’BRYAN: My dreams like don’t ever actually make any sense. They’re, they’re never this cool. And like I can usually barely remember them, unless I write them down when I first wake up. But yeah, it’s usually it’s just you know, I’m going grocery shopping, except I’m at the post office.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Something really mundane like that.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: This was really cool, to see the, to see Zuko without the scar on his face.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Sort of what he should have looked like, had he not had such a horrible father.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
DREAM BLUE DRAGON AZULA: Sleep. Just like Mother!]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And you see a little glimpse of Zuko’s mother right here.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
DREAM URSA: Zuko! Help me!]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: And if I can remember that correctly, I remember at one point, the boarding had Zuko’s mom actually getting swallowed by the dragon.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: She was in the mouth.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: She was in the mouth.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It was a little too scary.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: A little much.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Even for me.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I was scared looking at the board.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So we, so we uh, we changed that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s true, yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to an aerial shot of the drill outside the outer wall] So there we see the drill, which the uh, was in the episode, uh, called “The Drill.”
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Still, and you see that… I think Bryan had the idea of like, there were these, that the earthbenders kind of constructed these…
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Other walls around it, to, you know, because they were trying to kind of disrepair it and get it out of there, but they needed some protection still.
JOHN O’BRYAN: And looks like some little jersey berry or something like that.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
LONG FENG: Well, it's imported of course. You know you can't trust domestic machinery.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So this is here, this is where Long Feng’s lies all kind of finally crumble!
JOHN O’BRYAN: Kids, lies will always do that to you.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Can’t keep control forever.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Mmhmm
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Dai Li! Arrest Long Feng.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Oh the tangled web!
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to the Dai Li glancing at each other and making up their minds about who to obey] This is a great scene that I remember came together in the pitch, where both Dai Li agents look at each other.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: For a moment, like should I do this?
JOHN O’BRYAN: They have separate metal handcuffs.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: They do.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Because they can’t use the rock ones on him, obviously.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That’s right, yeah, had to create a new kind of handcuff. Well not new, I mean metal handcuffs have been around for a while.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: A new kind of Avatar metal newfangled handcuff.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: All this time, what I thought was a great metropolis, was merely a city of fools, and that makes me the king fool.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: This is kind of, this is the scene too that the kids have waiting to tell the king about the eclipse, since like the library episode I think. Which… When they first found out about it.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Right.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Which John also wrote.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Is that… Isn’t there a callback to that in one of these episodes, someone says something about…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: About…
JOHN O’BRYAN: About Professor Zei?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah, when they’re… When they first come to Ba Sing Se, they talk about how they met a professor from Ba Sing Se University. But uh, yeah, he went down with the library.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I can remember being so frustrated, having read the script at this point, when the king looked at Aang and said I’m the king of fools? I was like [Funny voice] Yes you are the king of fools!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: We'd be completely vulnerable.
SOKKA: You're already vulnerable.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: How was it, Joaquim, coming in, because, uh, you know, a lot of the crew have been around since the beginning, like coming in, in to a show that was like halfway, you know, in the middle of the season, and, and jumping in and stuff?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: It was, you know, it was a great experience as far as dealing with everybody, because everybody was just so, you know, so, so friendly friendly, and, and there wasn’t really that mentality, where you know, a lot of crews go on to, you know, this is our team, and you know, you’re kind of an outsider. Everybody, I remember I had lunch with you guys my first or second day, and you know, it just, everything flowed really smoothly. I think this show particularly kind of caters to what I enjoy about, you know film, and… So I think I took to it really really easily.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Now were you a fan before you started?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I was. I was a big fan.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: You were?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I can remember, my girlfriend at the time, my fiancée now, was watching TV, and, and this show had kind of made the rounds, uh, just rumor wise, and all of animation was just kind of hearing about this Avatar show, and she happened to catch it on Nickelodeon, and she Tivoed it, and she said, you got to come home, and you got to watch this show now. And the show that I was on at the time was coming to an end and everything just seemed to work out really really well.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Did you seek out Avatar after seeing the show?
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I did.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Wow!
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I called up as soon as I heard there was a position open, and I was like, I want in. Let me in. And uh, I remember for a while not being able to, to take the test to get in, just because of work constraints, and then it worked out.
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s right, Lauren MacMullan had left to work on a movie based on a fox animated show, that we can’t give you the name of. [Transcriber’s note, this is The Simpsons Movie.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I think I was taking… Was I taking Justin’s place, had Justin just left?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, uh, Justin Ridge, our storyboard artist for the… Who had been there since the beginning.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: But uh, there was definitely some big shoes to fill. I mean, I studied all of Justin’s boards and was absolutely just amazed by them. So there was, there was…MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: You filled the shoes.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I was intimidated.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Man, you filled them.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Well thank you.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
IROH: It will not be a pleasant experience, but when you come out of it, you will be the beautiful Prince you were always meant to be.
JOHN O’BRYAN: He’s going to be a butterfly! When he comes out of it.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: That line actually made me cringe when I read it, the beautiful prince line?
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Laughter]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: But when I saw it in the show, it worked out really well. It was like, beautiful.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: What's a Guru? Some kind of poisonous blowfish?]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter] That’s a great line.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So we’re kind of… This, this act three stuff is also, is used to kind of set up the next couple episodes, where the kids split up, and have to go their separate ways.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: My Mom's in the city, and from her letter it sounds like she finally understands me.
SOKKA: This is all such big news. Where do we even start?]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And also the news that they find out where their dad is. Something we’ve been setting up, you know since early season one, where we find out that their dad left their tribe to fight in the war.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: You have to meet this Guru, Aang. If we're gonna invade the Fire Nation, you need to be ready.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s a lot of, uh, legwork. If they have files on everybody in the city. Long Feng must have a lot of government employees.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It was before the internet, so it was harder to you know, keep track of…
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right, there was none of that [Pretending to be searching for a word] intraness?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: They have, uh, really good filing clerks though, I think in Ba Sing Se? Really good library science.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah, I was thinking they stored a lot of them in the library that went down in the desert.
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s what… That’s where paperbenders come in, which we don’t go into.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: We haven’t seen those yet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: The useless art of paper.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: Katara, I need to tell you something. I've been wanting to say it for a long time.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Uh oh!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: What is it Aang?
AANG: Katara, I...
SOKKA: All right! Who's ready to get going on our little men-only man trip]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Aww, fellas all understand that.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yep! [Laughter]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: We’ve all been there.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Ba Sing Se owes you its thanks, and we look forward to your return.
PALACE GUARD: Your Majesty. There are three female warriors here to see you, they're from the island of Kyoshi.
SOKKA: That's Suki!]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to Sokka falling and sliding down Appa] This is great, [makes falling sound effect].
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Man he would have totally broken his back there.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: That’s definitely a compound fracture of some sort.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Then we shall welcome them as honored guests.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: That’s why you have to be really careful who you give a recommendation for.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Uh huh.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Because it could come back and hurt you.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Wait, Aang.
TOPH: I'm really gonna miss you guys.
KATARA: Me too.
AANG: Yeah.]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Referring to the look of dawning realization and discomfort on Sokka’s face when he realizes he’s about to get hugged by the entire rest of the gaang] This is great.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Great! That's enough! Okay, we love each other. Seriously.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Sokka doesn’t hug. Not a hugging guy.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: No.
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Referring to Zuko “waking up” inside his dream] Oh, this is my favorite part, I think, in the episode.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, this was staged really nicely. I think Mike Chang…
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, very well.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Mike Chang also did this.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: The way I knew this scene played really well is that it… You know, we’d seen it all the way from the beginning, from the rough stages, all through the storyboards, and it still shocked me when we got the footage back.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: It still threw me.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: You see Aang, a little positive thinking works wonders. We got the King on our side, we got Long Feng arrested, and when we get back, Suki's waiting for me.]
JOHN O’BRYAN: I love that he’s so happy that he got Long Feng arrested.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I love Aang’s line too.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Girls are waiting for us.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Everything's gonna work out perfectly, from now on and forever!]
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Laughter] He couldn’t set that up any better, could he?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Might have been overreaching a bit.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Perhaps.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
DAI LI AGENT: The Council of Five and the military are loyal to the Earth King, but the Dai Li remains loyal to you, Long Feng, Sir.]
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: There’s a lot of great diffusion in that scene, which is, works out really well.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I love the scenes in the cell. They look really nice.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Creepy.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And then we have the Toph kidnapping, which you know, as we recall, Xin Fu and Master Yu, they were, they haven’t been around for many an episode, so.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yeah, I hope people remember who they were.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Who are these dudes?
JOHN O’BRYAN: Right.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: Hey! Who do you think you're dealing with?
XIN FU: One loudmouthed little brat who strayed too far from home.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: But I think… I really do love the ending of this episode, because you do get that feeling of kind of like, yeah things are going good, we could get a little complacent, and then bam!
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Aw, it’s Azula!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
EARTH KING KUEI: Our esteemed allies, the Kyoshi warriors!]
JOHN O’BRYAN: Avatar is great at disappointing kids.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO and JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: [Laughter]
JOHN O’BRYAN: With it’s endings.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yep.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: I definitely…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I feel like those make the best stories.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Absolutely.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Definitely.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: If you end with a happy ending every time, what are you going to do now?
JOHN O’BRYAN: Kids were so mad about the end of season two.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah. Tune in for Bryan and my commentary on the last episode of season two, for of that.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yay!
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: This was a ball to work on though, this, this one in particular from season two, was a lot of fun.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Season two as a whole is pretty solid.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I would say so. I mean the fact that we get to do, you know, a political conspiracy thriller for children?
JOHN O’BRYAN: No doubt, yeah.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Nothing wrong with that.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: It’s exciting. Thanks again everyone who worked so hard on this, this episode in this series.
JOHN O’BRYAN: Yep.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Thank you.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And thank you guys for joining us.
JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: Thank you for having us.
JOHN O’BRYAN: [Laughter]
no subject
Date: 2019-03-12 11:03 pm (UTC)Just a note on a couple of typos: the John quote after Joaquim says "Bust loose and just kind of go right at them, yeah" is on the same line, and similar for the Mike quote where he and Joaquim are talking about Justin Ridge.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-12 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-07 12:05 am (UTC)