Whoops, fixing my timestamp.
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[[Matt Chapman|Matt]] was interviewed
on
by Jeff Rubin on [http://jeffrubinjeffrubinshow.com/ The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show], during which the two discussed his work on [[Homestar Runner (body of work)|Homestar Runner]] and "in the industry". In addition, Matt revealed some information regarding the future of Homestar Runner.
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[[Matt Chapman|Matt]] was interviewed by Jeff Rubin on [http://jeffrubinjeffrubinshow.com/ The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show], during which the two discussed his work on [[Homestar Runner (body of work)|Homestar Runner]] and "in the industry". In addition, Matt revealed some information regarding the future of Homestar Runner.
== Transcript ==
== Transcript ==
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Yeah, definitely. I mean, by the time I got to eighth grade, I was gonna— it was either I was gonna go out for track or not, it was literally like the night before. Okay tomorrow's the physical, and you go and you know, tomorrow's like the tryouts for track and everybody else in my family had done track, and athletics and stuff, and I just decided like at the last minute that it was like, I dunno if this is what I want to do. And my parents were super cool and for the next birthday I got a video camera, and so that's kind of like from then on, alright, I'm gonna be doing, I gonna make something hopefully for a living, at some point. Be it with a video camera or a computer or a pen and paper or a whatever it was.
'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Yeah, definitely. I mean, by the time I got to eighth grade, I was gonna— it was either I was gonna go out for track or not, it was literally like the night before. Okay tomorrow's the physical, and you go and you know, tomorrow's like the tryouts for track and everybody else in my family had done track, and athletics and stuff, and I just decided like at the last minute that it was like, I dunno if this is what I want to do. And my parents were super cool and for the next birthday I got a video camera, and so that's kind of like from then on, alright, I'm gonna be doing, I gonna make something hopefully for a living, at some point. Be it with a video camera or a computer or a pen and paper or a whatever it was.
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' I'm so impressed that
we
knew exactly what you wanted to do, you recognized what you were good at, you recognized your passion in eighth grade.
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' I'm so impressed that
you
knew exactly what you wanted to do, you recognized what you were good at, you recognized your passion in eighth grade.
'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Well I wouldn't— Definitely not good at it, I'll correct you there. ''{laughs}''
'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Well I wouldn't— Definitely not good at it, I'll correct you there. ''{laughs}''
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Well there's a few fans on the Internet who would beg to differ. I mean, did you imagine yourself as an animator, as a writer, as a director, or you just wanted to make things?
'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Well there's a few fans on the Internet who would beg to differ. I mean, did you imagine yourself as an animator, as a writer, as a director, or you just wanted to make things?
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' I definitely, in the early days I wanted to be, I wanted to make films. I wanted to go to film school, which I ended up doing. But like, I was like, "I'm gonna make movies!" And then again like I said, I kind of realized over the course of it, once I started making, you know, terrible demo tapes of music on my answering machine in college, I realized I was satisfied with making content
whereever
you could sort of squeeze it into the world. And then, so when my brother and I finally found Flash
,
a friend introduced us to it in the late 90's
,
we were kind of like "Oh, this is great! Like we could easily tell stories with this and not have to do anything but sit in front of our computer for a few hours!"
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' I definitely, in the early days I wanted to be, I wanted to make films. I wanted to go to film school, which I ended up doing. But like, I was like, "I'm gonna make movies!" And then again like I said, I kind of realized over the course of it, once I started making, you know, terrible demo tapes of music on my answering machine in college, I realized I was satisfied with making content
wherever
you could sort of squeeze it into the world. And then, so when my brother and I finally found Flash
(
a friend introduced us to it in the late 90's
)
we were kind of like "Oh, this is great! Like we could easily tell stories with this and not have to do anything but sit in front of our computer for a few hours!"
'''JEFF RUBIN:''' When were you in college? Like, especially with relation to when did Homestar Runner start?
'''JEFF RUBIN:''' When were you in college? Like, especially with relation to when did Homestar Runner start?
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Where did these characters come from? Like are they based on anything? Was there a nugget of Strong Bad that you remember starting with before he became who he is?
'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Where did these characters come from? Like are they based on anything? Was there a nugget of Strong Bad that you remember starting with before he became who he is?
-
'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Um, yeah, a little bit. I mean there's— the main characters came from a, like I was talking earlier about just making weird zines at, you know, the
coffee
shop or whatever. My friend Craig Zobel and my brother Mike made a little zine called Homestar Runner— The Homestar Runner Enters the World's Strongest Man Contest back in like 1996, and it was intentionally supposed to be like a weird children's book that didn't make a lot of sense and was kind of weird, and its moral was a little strange. And so, that had, that's where Homestar, Strong Bad, The Cheat and Pom Pom all came from.
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Um, yeah, a little bit. I mean there's— the main characters came from a, like I was talking earlier about just making weird zines at, you know, the
copy
shop or whatever. My friend Craig Zobel and my brother Mike made a little zine called Homestar Runner— The Homestar Runner Enters the World's Strongest Man Contest back in like 1996, and it was intentionally supposed to be like a weird children's book that didn't make a lot of sense and was kind of weird, and its moral was a little strange. And so, that had, that's where Homestar, Strong Bad, The Cheat and Pom Pom all came from.
'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Oh, wow. So they all have like these— they go back.
'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Oh, wow. So they all have like these— they go back.
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Man, you guys are so ahead of your time. Like, that's a thing people are doing now— you hear stories about people making livings on YouTube. But 2000, 2001, 2002? That's so unheard of. When you told people, "We don't work for a company; our job is we make cartoons on the Internet," did they look at you like you were telling them that you were flying a jetpack to the moon or something?
'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Man, you guys are so ahead of your time. Like, that's a thing people are doing now— you hear stories about people making livings on YouTube. But 2000, 2001, 2002? That's so unheard of. When you told people, "We don't work for a company; our job is we make cartoons on the Internet," did they look at you like you were telling them that you were flying a jetpack to the moon or something?
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Yeah, I mean most people just— it's funny, they just sort of didn't hear that. Because I would meet people years later that we had told that to back when we first started doing it, and they'd be like, "Oh wait, you do this full-time?" And I was like, "Yeah, I told you that in 2003, man!" And they'd be like, "Oh, I just didn't assume you could do this full-time." And like— so when we would tell people that, they just didn't believe it or their brains just sent it right out the other ear, and kind of would forget that we said that we were doing it full-time. And it wasn't until anyone else started making a living, or at least getting noticed on the Internet, that they were like, "Oh, okay, they might be one of ''those'' people." But yeah, it was funny. It definitely would surprise people when they'd be— they just assumed that it was like, "Okay, you must have a day job, and you're supplementing it with this," or "You're doing a bunch of freelance on the side," and then when we tell them "No, we're lucky enough to this solely as our source of income," they would just be like, "Okay, I didn't hear what you just said. Goodbye, I'm ''leaving.''"
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Yeah, I mean most people just— it's funny, they just sort of didn't hear that. Because I would meet people years later that we had told that to back when we first started doing it, and they'd be like, "Oh wait, you do this full-time?" And I was like, "Yeah, I told you that in 2003, man!" And they'd be like, "Oh, I just didn't assume you could do this full-time." And like— so when we would tell people that, they just didn't believe it or their brains just sent it right out the other ear, and kind of would forget that we said that we were doing it full-time. And it wasn't until anyone else started making a living, or at least getting noticed on the Internet, that they were like, "Oh, okay, they might be one of ''those'' people." But yeah,
so
it was funny. It definitely would surprise people when they'd be— they just assumed that it was like, "Okay, you must have a day job, and you're supplementing it with this," or "You're doing a bunch of freelance on the side," and then when we tell them "No, we're lucky enough to this solely as our source of income," they would just be like, "Okay, I didn't hear what you just said. Goodbye, I'm ''leaving.''"
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''{
32
:
38 interview
mark}''
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' And was that income from ads or was it merchandise? Or something else I'm not thinking of?
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' No, yeah, we never did any ads.
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' I mean like Google Adsense. I'm not sure if that even existed then. Now you don't have to do anything to do ads on YouTube; you just check a box. But I don't even know what you would've had to have done to do ads. I mean I guess it would've been shitty banner ads.
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Yeah, it would've been banner ads, which it's hilarious, we made the conscious decision, I remember when we were first putting up the website, I think you could, with the Yahoo! hosting account we had, I think you could just add banner ads if you wanted, and we were intentionally like, "Man, we hate banner ads! Banner ads are the worst thing about the Internet and they're gonna go away any day now, so we're not gonna put them on our website!" So no, it was all just from merchandise sales. We never did any advertising because that's a thing we always hated about the Internet. We were like, "TV needs these. Why does the Internet need these?"
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' It's amazing that you were moving just enough pure merchandise that you weren't even selling the show. The show was just an ad for the merchandise.
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Well, sort of. We were actually pretty bad, like I said, our Dad helped us out in the early days and he was always sort of bugging us to push the merchandise more than we ever were. We were always sort of, maybe, a little too punk rock about trying not to sell out and not to push the merchandise to where lots of people would be fans of our stuff for years and not know that we even sold t-shirts or CDs or DVDs.
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Man, a Homestar t-shirt in the early 2000's, that's such a great way to make friends. Cause if you see someone else that recognizes that shirt there's a really good chance you two are gonna get along.
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' That's, yeah, we've heard a few stories of couples that, that's what they got— that's what they met over was somebody wearing a shirt, or met over laughing over a Strong Bad e-mail and then ended up getting married and then we'd get a, they would've bought one of the baby Trogdor shirts that we made for their baby that they had, and they'd be like, "Look, Homaster Runner brought us together!" It's sort of a wonderful byproduct that never ever would've intended.
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''{Left off at the 34:33 mark}''
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''{Starting again at the 35:33 mark}''
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Are there people that still access the website? I mean, I looked at it this week and it's fun. Are there people that still access the website? Then I'll tell you what I thought when I looked at the website.
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+
'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' I would assume so. I mean, yeah, we do have Google Analytics now so we check it. I mean, we've always tried to stay— we want to make sure people are looking at it, but at the same time we never wanted that to influence what me made, you know? Like we didn't want it to be like, "Oh, nobody's looking this week! That means we need to make more 'blank' kind of cartoons!" So we know that people are still watching it. When we did that April Fools Day update this year it got way more, like, way more people looked at it than we ever even imagined would have at this point. So, people are still checking it and our goal is, we did that thing as a test to get back into doing it. We'd love to start making stuff again now that we're— I've recently moved back into the same town as Mike.
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Definitely want to hear about that, but before I forget, let me tell you what I thought when I looked at the website, because this is what makes Homestar Runner so cool. There is nothing else like it and there probably never will be again. Because, in addition to making the cartoon, you also had to build the player for the cartoon. So that's why you have all these interactive touches and this way you took advantage of Flash as a medium. If you're making a cartoon today, I'm not saying no one does this or you can't do it, but it's pretty crazy if you're making a cartoon not to just put it on YouTube or Vimeo or something like it. But you guys had to build the website.
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' If you go to the site now it's kind of a mess. If you were going every week back in 2004 to 2006, then you kinda knew where things were and you knew here the new stuff went. Now from just a user experience stand point and an information architecture stand point it's a total train wreck. Which, we figure if we actually started doing stuff regularly again we would probably have like the museum version of the site which is as it stands now and as it's been for the past twelve years or whatever, and then a newer version that has a front page that's maybe a little more 2013— I'm not gonna say that it's 2014, we'll maybe go as recent as 2013 as far as interface. Cause yeah, it's kind of a hilarious, it's like a little time capsule almost of the early 2000's.
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''{Left off at the 37:54 mark}''
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''{Starting again at the 46:18 mark}''
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'''JEFF RUBIN:''' Do you still work with your brother on those projects?
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'''MATT CHAPMAN:''' Since I started working on those Disney shows it was harder cause I was in Los Angelos and he was in Atlanta, so it's been actually a couple years since we've really worked hard together on something, so, I've just moved back into the Atlanta area with him so we're psyched to start working together actually.
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''{
Left off at the 46
:
42
mark}''
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