#claudia cacace

[h0n3yk1tt3n]

Seeing Claudia post her final BMC animatic will certainly be A Day in this fandom's history

[thesquirrelqueer]

kinda a sappy post but whatever. so if you haven’t heard, claudia cacace aka clacomics announced this morning that she wouldn’t be continuing her bmc animatic project. and I totally support her choice to do this, although it does sadden me a little bit to have that final nail in the coffin.

i got into bmc in 2017 and claudia was one of the first bmc artists I followed. there was just something about her expressions and poses and the way she drew characters that drew me in. because of her animatics and her art, I decided to take my own art seriously and even wanted to go to school for animation so i could draw like her someday. while I ended going to school for comics and not animation, if it weren’t for her I might not have even gone to art school in the first place.

so thank you claudia, for inspiring me to pursue art

[astermoments]

NO FUCKING WAY

https://youtu.be/iaXPjnccwxA?si=O0DqeV-YEiuvVp7a

[thewadapan]

Sat down to watch the Be More Chill musical on my computer through legal means and got sucker-punched by the fact that the show was basically butchered when it was revived for the 2018 Off-Broadway production, I can only assume as a direct result of the casting of Will Roland in the lead role as Jeremy.

Roland apparently auditioned for Jeremy in Be More Chill in 2015, and was snubbed in favour of Will Connolly, who you hear on the first Original Cast Recording. In the meantime, he went on to perform in Dear Evan Hansen, which turned out to be phenomenally successful, and he won a couple of awards, which I assume is why when he came back to Be More Chill in 2018, the new song "Loser Geek Whatever" was added, becoming the new end-of-Act-1 number. This song, which is basically just an extended solo for Roland where Jeremy sings about resenting his social status and wanting to be cool (an emotional state which has been painfully well-established by this point), is like nails-on-a-chalkboard to me. It's like a caricature of what you'd imagine Be More Chill to be like if you haven't seen it.

If it was just one song, I guess I could grit my teeth and just skip it, but sadly Roland's performance and vocals are about as consistently offputting. It's difficult coming into a role which has already been originated by another actor, and putting your own spin on it, but I just think he fucked it. I can only describe his delivery as aggressive, angry and entitled instead of self-effacing and sardonic. He's so incredibly punchable. It's unbearable. I think it completely changes the tenor of the story. I'm not the only one; a quick google search yields tons of results for people making a similar point.

Anyway, I realised I'd never actually seen footage of the original 2015 Two River Theater production, just audio, so I went to look for it. Will Connolly's performance, by contrast, is far more naturalistic and precise; a lot of his mannerisms are subtle and awkward, his expressions are guileless, his delivery is earnest. Jeremy is still a little shitstain, but more in an "argh, what are you DOING!" way than a "fuck you fuck you fuck you" way. The only known video of the Two River production to exist covers just the first half-hour; maybe a third of the show. There's complete audio for the rest. Plus, of course, the studio recordings of the songs. And when it comes to musical theatre, it's like, yeah, same as it ever was—but for me this is my own personal Star Wars Special Editions controversy, where the only extant version of the story is one where it's like a madman has combed back over it to fuck up as many things as possible.

An animator called Claudia Cacace on YouTube produced several animatics for the show, splicing the studio recordings into the Two River audio, with lofty ambitions of eventually adapting the whole thing. I think a lot of her directorial choices are brilliant, but again, she only really touched Act 1—and last year she released an unfinished animatic, announcing that she was done with the project because people were being insane about it online. Again, same as it ever was. I can see some other YouTube users have valiantly attempted to compile playlists of animatics from various animators to cover the whole show, but what's the point, if the overall look and quality of the thing is wildly varying every five minutes?

Maybe I should go read the original novel. I hear it's good.

[merp-blerp]

So Claudia Cacace recently posted her last Be More Chill animatic and said in the pinned comment that she had wanted to stop a long time ago when people gave her bad attention; it made me think about how animatic creators at the height of the musical theater fandom were treated horribly, despite being the backbone of that fandom for the longest time. For example, I remember people used to give Mushroomie/Mushie r crap about how they were “copying” Szin’s art style, which is literally impossible. A lot of people in the fandom were clearly inspired my Szin’s artwork because she was one of the most popular artists in the fandom at the time and her art was indeed really good. You can’t “copy” an art style. And when Szin announced that she wasn’t going to make Hamilton animatics anymore “fans” were calling her a liar among other awful things because she had said in a now private (or maybe deleted) Q&A video that she had wanted to do all the songs, despite that fact that she also said in that same video that she was going to keep making Hamilton animatics as long as they were fun for her, which they has ceased to be by the time she had finished Act 1 and a bit of Act 2. It had been years, disinterest naturally happens and that’s okay. There were a lot of animatic creators who stopped for the same reason; animatic creating had stopped being fun for these artist and began to be more like a job rather than the hobby it started out as. Remember most of these creators were making these animatics alone and possibly without much if any pay from YouTube. And on top of that a lot of these creators were minors at the time! They likely had other obligations in life like school and family, not able to have time for a job, let alone a very time consuming, demanding, solo job. Not to mention all the other things these creators had to deal with, like making content in a timely manner so the algorithm didn’t abandon them, or YouTube’s shitty fair use system constantly threatening to copyright claim or strike videos and even entire channels in some cases like Mushroomie. If you were in the musical theater fandom around 2016-2019 you know how important animatics were. Pro-shots were even more rarely made than they are now (like pretty much never), and bootlegs of then-currently running shows stayed up online for only a few days or weeks if you were lucky, so a lot of fans had no way of legally seeing the show(s), and sometimes not even illegally. A lot of people who loved these musicals would love a show for it’s music, but had no clue what the full plot was out of a lack of being able to access the show in an affordable way, affordability still being an issue with Broadway today. So animatics were very vital to people getting at least an idea of how these shows visually looked and an opportunity for artist to do something they loved. This was how people got to see their favorite show in away that YouTube couldn’t (fairly) take down. Quite noticeably, when these animatic creators almost collectively stopped making animatics for these musicals or slowed down around 2019, the fandom fizzled out as well, or at least changed. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t dead like some believe in my opinion, but it’s definitely different. In one way, now that a lot of the most popular shows from this time and others have some kind of pro-shot or shitty movie adaptation, and YouTube being a lot more lose with bootlegs then they used to be, animatics aren’t as vital, but their importance shouldn’t be something to sneeze at and it blows that these animatic creators weren’t treated with the utmost respect they deserved at the height of their popularity. I know I’m pulling an old issue out of the grave and this issue is essential gone, with animatics being made at a less frequent rate than they were at the time, but I’ve never seen this talked about in length. If any animatic creators, currently active or not, are reading this, I hope you continue to enjoy you creations and that people respect you as they should.

[fionacle]

i cannot understate how much a squip would improve my life, but i also cannot understate how absolutely fucked i and everyone around me would be if my squip was evil like in the musical or if it did things wrong and potentially was glitching like in the book. voice of eric william morris coming out of darkiplier (claudia cacace lol)?? i’d be dead. god forbid it became like Wheatley or something. I need you to understand how horribly down bad I would be. it’d tell to punch my sister in the face and i’d just be the judge from the good place “yeah, you’re probably right.” i’d absolutely take the risk because schoolwork is hell and it could tell me how to go through every other part of life, again insanely useful, but dude if i tell you i got a squip keep an eye on me. i have to cope with it being a sentient computer AND whatever character or person it deems important enough to me to influence me? death

[nerdz-hq]

Thinking about the time I was talking about Claudia Cacace’s Jeremy Heere design and called him “Jeremy Theere” and said she drew “Won’t Connolly”

[sylvianartist]

slowly making a comeback to posting art. this is rich from be more chill, inspired by claudia cacace's animatics.

[blueikeproductions]

Be More Chill X Digimon Zone concept sketch. I did a couple of scenario write ups prior but now I whipped out a sketch while I was relaxing. Jeremy uses Claudia Cacace’s design as a basis while Micheal is more my own take.

When mysterious pill shaped devices called “SQUIPS” are discovered and used by the unwitting student body at Middleborough High in an attempt to better themselves, the nervous Jeremy Heere inadvertently discovers the world of Digimon in his quest to become popular and, well, be more chill. Somehow, several Digimon have been downloaded into the SQUIPS, and naturally some of them go wild influencing their human “hosts” to cause problems. Together with his best friend Micheal Mell, “exchange students” Daniel Ike and Izzy Izumi:, and their own Digimon, the boys uncover the mysteries behind the Digimon infused SQUIPS, all the while Jeremy being influenced by his own SQUIP, a charismatic Algomon that has its own motives, none of it good for humans or Digimon.

[your-funky-human-companion]

lol just a small doodle of the squip

im trying to figure out a design that really fits the personality and this attempt was HEAVILY influenced by claudia cacace's version. im obsessed with their design and im pretty happy with how this came out

i think next time I want the jawline to be a bit more sharp because this face is a bit round but the squip is sharp and sleek and i think a heavy, thin jawline would match nicely

this doodle i focused on the line weight. like how the ones in the inner corner of the eyes are darker than the rest. or how the edges of it's face i tried to make pretty heavy.

i think im pretty proud of this

[fandom-stuff101]

a silly little edit

Sorry not sorry (art is by Claudia Cacace)

[lacystar]

I wish I had Claudia cacace commissioner money. I have so many animatics that, if I had that money, I would give someone to make

[ask-squip-official]

Can I draw a profile picture for you? And if so, are there any specific references you'd like me to use?

I would be honoured, as much as a super quantum unit intel processor can be. A personal favourite reference of mine is the Upgrade animatic by Claudia Cacace. May you achieve glory in your endeavors.

[giganticotn]

new claudia cacace animatic what is this

[glitteriztical]

i forgot how much i love them ;-;

[whimsical--dragon]

i have watched the be more chill Upgrade animatic by Claudia Cacace around 20 times so far??

i love it... so much....

i want to BE that version of Squip!!!

i want to have that ART STYLE of the Squip!!!!

I LOVE IT!!! INSPIRATION!!!