So What Do You Do, Bill Schultz, Emmy-Winning Animation Producer?

He's best known as the producer of animated smash hits, like The Simpsons and King of the Hill, but it's his forthcoming animated dramedy he hopes will earn him worldwide (Web) praise and land him a weekly spot on your TV. Bill Schultz's latest venture, Jimmy Stones, takes to the Internet to create a series for the people, by the people, to reach the masses. After four Emmy awards and nearly 30 years in the film and television business, Schultz is no stranger to collaboration, but online crowdfunding -- that's new. Now he's teamed up with Jim Manos, Jr., Emmy-Award-winning writer of The Sopranos and The Shield, and creator of Dexter, to develop a new kind of animated series. Jimmy Stones is a half-hour adult animated comedy series that follows a cynical guy as he deals with his miserable life and finds himself speaking to animals living around him New York City. The animals remind him it's never too late to start anew, even if your ex-wife wants you dead, the IRS is looking for you and your landlord is ready to toss you out. Manos and Schultz are asking fans to pony up to deliver custom content with a highly fan-centric approach. Get your name on the credits, get your script covered or just get a T-shirt... every little bit helps bring the carefully drawn characters to life! If Jimmy Stones is victorious, you'll catch about a dozen episodes online and Manos and Schultz hope it'll be on your television set, too. Name: Bill Schultz Position: CEO, producer Resume: Schultz is a four-time Emmy-Award-winning animation producer and studio executive with more than 25 years of experience producing such hit shows such as The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Garfield, Clifford the Big Red Dog, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Hero: 108. In 2010, Schultz founded Home Plate Entertainment (HPE), which launched its first series, Rob Dyrdek's Wild Grinders, a year later on Nicktoons. Birthday: June 11 Hometown: Los Angeles Education: University of Illinois Marital status: Married Media mentor: Animator Phil Roman Best career advice received: "Don't ever give up." Guilty pleasure: Bravo's Below Deck Last book read: David and Goliath, by Malcolm Gladwell Twitter Handle: @homeplateent What is a typical day like for you? The television business is a global business, so I work in a global time zone, meaning I get up at 5 a.m. so I can talk with people finishing their day in Asia and Australia and move into Europe and then the East Coast and gradually finish my day on the West Coast. I am looking at rough cuts, doing mixed notes, reading scripts, listening to voice casting, looking at distribution deals and talking about cartoons all day long. Is it still as much fun as it was when you started? It's more fun than when I started because when I started I didn't know where I was going with everything and now I have such a strong vision for what the final show will be even though it might change as you collaborate with people. The excitement of thinking about having something come together and bringing it to life, that's what keeps me going. Tell us about your latest project, Jimmy Stones. Jimmy Stones is an amazing creation by the writer James Manos Jr., who created Dexter on Showtime and won an Emmy for his college episode of The Sopranos and worked on The Shield and is doing new a series for WE tv called South of Hell with director Eli Roth. Jim has a tremendous handle on the details of what drives people in their dark moments and in their light moments, with a humor you don't often see paired with that sort of deep, introspective notion. On its own, it's just a story of one man's journey from life forces that make him want to check out, to a story of redemption with all these animals from New York City coming to his aid and becoming his confidantes and cheering him on and jeering at him and being what the human race has sort of failed to do for him, which is give him the kind of support and encouragement he needs to keep going. He's not going to make any money. He's going to work as little as possible. And he's kind of given up. And the animals have suffered their own sort of hurdles in life. It's quite a group of characters. How did the idea for Jimmy Stones come about? They say write what you know and I know that Jim [Manos] went through a divorce, though this is a work of fiction, obviously. I'm sure there must have been some moments for him where he's thinking, I've got to write my way through this to get through the pain of it all. What's the process like when you the two of you collaborate? Jim is a super nice guy and had never done animation before, so we're able to sit down and, well, you kind of need Abbott and Costello, right? Two Abbotts don't work. So, sitting down with Jim and talking about this world and these characters and the process and the possibility, and coming up with casting ideas is a lot of fun, and the world keeps expanding. What lessons from The Simpsons and King of the Hill did you bring to Jimmy Stones? The Simpsons took so much from its initial creative from Jim Brooks and Sam Simon and Matt Groening in terms of their commitment to quality that there was never a time that if the joke didn't work that they just gave up and said, 'Too late; it's done.' There was always something else to be done to try to enhance the content. It didn't matter what stage of production or what the toll was on the crew, but everybody shared that value. That really is what led to the golden age of animation where you have people who've grown up on The Simpsons and taken Matt Groening's lead and want to do whatever it takes to make something work. You know that's what we say in TV and in film, you make it work, which means make it great. What would you say is your signature style? I would say my signature style is to work with the visionary, in this case it's Jim Manos, to allow him to get every bit of his vision on the screen, even if he didn't know it was his vision. So, I might say, 'You've described this scene as a husband and wife who are having a fight in this tenement building and Jimmy Stones is walking by. We could also have a dog in the foreground.' [My style is] giving him different ways of opening up the visual that you wouldn't be able to do in live action, but you can do in animation and then he just takes it and runs with it. How did you choose who voices the characters? We haven't finalized the casting process. Truth be told, we'd love to have Jason Bateman or Michael J. Fox. Jim did the voice in the trailer, and [he] is actually an accomplished actor, but we think if we can cast it with some actors who already have an established fan base that might help us to reach more people. Ultimately, that is the goal, to reach as many people as possible. What are your goals with this new animated comedic series? This is a style of animation and storytelling that hasn't been done, the animated dramedy. It's a comedy, there's no question about that, but it has some weight to it. I think Jimmy Stones has an intellect and an interest level. And when I say I want as many people as possible to see it, I don't mean as many people as [who] watch Shark Tank, but maybe as many people as watch The Office or a show like that or Breaking Bad, which became huge, but 10 years ago if I would've pitched you Breaking Bad you would've thought I was crazy. I think if we get to execute this the way that I think we can, it can become a benchmark for a new type of animated programming. How has the crowdfunding campaign gone so far? We're just starting to push it out there. We're on a new platform called Tilt, which is different. It's not Kickstarter. It's not Indiegogo. It's something where we can control the platform with our users. It's not like a walled-in garden like Kickstarter is, but at the same time it means we don't have to say goodbye to people at the end of a 30-day campaign. We can continue to engage. We feel if we can somehow reach enough people, 100,000 people, it doesn't sound like a lot, and get them to contribute $1 each then we've reached our goal and we can produce 10 to 13 episodes. If we produce 10 to 13 episodes, we're going to be able to reach hundreds of thousands more and if we either do another round of crowdfunding or at that point we might have enough to prove the concept to a major broadcaster. Tell me about your innovative approach to marketing. People have now begun to connect with content in ways that's much more direct -- whether it's on their iPhone or their tablet or their computer or their smart TVs with the over-the-top apps. You know I'm sitting there watching on my tablet, but I have my iPhone, [on which] I can order [merchandise]. I can think, 'You know I really love that show. I'm going to buy a T-shirt.' I think the consumer product industry and the commercial merchandisers are learning that Kickstarter is not just a way of funding content; it's also a way of selling merchandise. So backers can engage and super fans can engage with the content. You're seeing that from people [at] Amazon and all the platforms that are going after the eyeballs. What advice would you give someone who wants to bring their own show -- be it animated or otherwise -- to life? Just do it. It's like the old Nike commercial. The tools are there, the editing, the software, the way of seeking out collaborators is there. With Jimmy Stones, we're offering people a chance to actually get their scripts covered, a chance to give story notes, a chance to get their name in the credits. We're really opening up the kimono. It's like a Wiki collaboration, and we're looking at doing that throughout the series. So, yes, when we get to a big television network series, then that would have to fall away but while it's of the people it's of the people. This platform we've created really offers people a chance to do something they've never done before. Maria Coder is a freelance writer based in New York City. Email her at InvestiDate@gmail.com. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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So What Do You Do, Bill Schultz, Emmy-Winning Animation Producer?

Maria Coder

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Maria Coder