KitCutCase studies

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From a 10-second film to two cartoon series

Series
Leo, and Duchess
Episodes
15 and 10
Length
1:45 to 5 minutes
Kept cast
13 pieces for Leo, 8 for Duchess
Look
Hand-drawn, in crayon

Not every series is a business. Leo The Big Boy is a family channel with two crayon cartoons on it: Leo, about a four-year-old who is almost five, which is basically a grown-up, and Duchess, about a very dignified white cat who keeps losing her dignity. The channel's owner writes the stories; KitCut draws, narrates and scores them. Duchess started as a single 10-second film. Three weeks later there are 25 episodes across the two series.

Duchess, episode 7: "The Sour Cream", 2 minutes.

It started with one sentence

On 26 September the whole idea was ten words long: "A cat tries to catch the red laser dot and loses all its dignity." KitCut made a 10-second film of it. The cat was funny, so she got a series: the same cat, the same living room, the same deadpan narrator, and a DIGNITY meter at the top of the screen that drains as she gives in.

A KitCut cartoon frame in crayon: Duchess the white cat sitting inside an open fridge beside a tub of sour cream, eyes wide, with the DIGNITY meter at the top of the screen down to 20%.
Duchess, at 20% dignity.
A KitCut cartoon frame: the fridge door open, the sour cream tub on the floor and Duchess flat on the kitchen tiles, with the DIGNITY meter at 0%.
"Her dignity is gone."

What every episode keeps

A cartoon series lives on its running jokes, and those can't drift. Here they are kept, not redrawn or re-recorded:

  • The lines that open and close the joke are recorded once. "This is Duchess. Elegant, composed, deeply dignified." "Her dignity is gone." "She meant to do that." Each is kept as a voice line in the project, so every episode plays the same take. Leo opens the same way every time too: "This is Leo. Leo is four. Which is almost five. Which is basically a grown-up."
  • The cast is kept as drawings. Leo's project holds 13 pieces: Leo himself, his big brother, his parents (seen only as legs and a hand, because the world is drawn at Leo's height), the backyard bat he never quite catches, his watering can, the family car, the house and the street. Duchess's holds 8, from the cat and her living room to the vet's carrier, the villain of episode 9. A new episode uses them as they are.
  • The owner's notes become rules. After episode 10 of Leo, the notes on what looked wrong went into the brief: picture and words agree, the camera does not jump, nobody blinks out of a scene. Every episode since follows them.
A KitCut cartoon frame in crayon: Leo in his yellow sunglasses buckled into a bus seat, CLICK! written above him, with the grown-ups beside him seen only as legs and the newspapers they hold.
Leo's first bus ride, at Leo's height: grown-ups are legs and newspapers.
A KitCut cartoon frame in crayon: a white city bus with a red balloon floating above it and the word air! pointing at its door.
Why does the bus go psssshhh? One true, simple fact per episode.

Written like a bedtime story

Most episode ideas are the story and its narration, with a note that the picture is KitCut's to make. Some are a few plain sentences: Leo got an electric wiggle car for his birthday, it has lights and a funny face, and he drives it every evening. Both work, because the brief already knows who Leo is, how he looks, what he loves and how an episode ends.

Rain! Leo The Big Boy, Episode 2Leo · 1:46Leo Rides the Bus! The Wheels on the BusLeo · 3:01The Big Hike: Leo Climbs to the Sunset with One Big FlashlightLeo · 5:01Duchess Episode 2: The Dot ReturnsDuchess · 2:01Duchess and The Box: If It Fits, She SitsDuchess · 2:01Duchess Gets the 3 A.M. ZoomiesDuchess · 2:01Duchess and the Sour CreamDuchess · 2:01Duchess Meets the Queen of Norway: The State VisitDuchess · 2:01

What made it work

  • Start small. A 10-second film is enough to find out whether a character works. If it does, the brief grows from it.
  • Keep the running jokes exact. Recorded lines and kept drawings are why episode 10 feels like episode 2.
  • Write the story, not the shots. Someone who has never animated anything writes what happens and what the narrator says; the picture is KitCut's job.

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