EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Ryan Naumann

ChefRich: All right. So let’s just jump right in. So, F. Ryan Naumann, right?

Ryan Naumann: Yes!

All right. What’s the ‘F’ stand for?

It stands for Frederick but when a lot of people ask I’ll say it stands for flatulent or effin’ Ryan Naumann but the legal version is Frederick.

Very neat. John wanted me to throw that one in there. I said I would get an LOL out of it. And where are you from?

I’m originally from Hamden, Connecticut, so right outside New Haven.

What kind of educational background do you have?

Yeah. I went to Syracuse University for TV/Radio/Film, which I said is more of just an experience than anything. I mean, I kind of look back and I’m like I don’t know if I would be in any different position if I didn’t go to college. But I would never pass up that experience ever.

I agree full heartedly with that. I’m a chef in my real world job, so I know experience pays a lot more than the books do.

Exactly.

So, Season 2 of Do’s and Don’ts is in full swing. What could we expect from the rest of the season and beyond?

Well, right now we’ve only got two episodes left. The next episode’s gonna be a big WTF episode that I’m really interested to see what their response to it is because it’s just like a very standalone, I’m just having fun with it kind of episode. And then we go out with a big bang with zombie apocalypse as the finale that just jump back right into the traditional sense of the show. They wanted to do more episodes, like continue on Season 2 but because I’m a one-man show, I’ve got really over and tired of animating everything. And it like becomes your entire life, so I told them, you know, if you could find a studio to animate stuff for me I’ll be in charge of writing and directing everything but I don’t know if they’ve succeeded in doing that ’cause I know that’s the numbers they’re working with aren’t ideal. So Season 3 or the continuation of Season 2 is still in question.

Very interesting. How did the concept of this show come about?

Well, I mean, I’ve always grown up with cartoons, like Simpsons and Family Guy and things like that. And this was actually a spin-off – not a spin-off but I guess the fine-tuning of the previous series I did called Children’s Guide to Growing Up, which was on the Super Deluxe Channel. And it was the same general concept. It’s like a PSA meets South Park, sort of the concept of taking a subject matter and like taking like the view point from innocence where you can start from scratch and like build it up and focus on that subject matters and everything in a more satirical way because the kids don’t know any better. So what you tell them is Gospel. Yeah, that’s – I think it originally started more of like ideas that you didn’t need to teach kids, like the very first episode If you look it up it’s about how to survive in prison and then I had decided like that could get gimmicky after awhile. So I just thought it’d be more fun to just take general subject matters that are relevant and focused..

 Very cool, very cool. Now how were you approached by Shut Up Cartoons? Did they find you? Did you find them or how did that work out?

My manager – I’m represented by the Goffman Group and he – I guess that’s when Alloy was looking for shows and I think they probably just submitted some of my stuff to them. So they wanted to do their version of this show. So it was really as simple as that. And I came in and met with them and it was more of whether I wanted to do it or not in their eyes and I was like, “Absolutely.” It seemed like a great opportunity.

All right. How stressful is it to take on so many different jobs for a show?

You know, it’s a lot and like when I think back on it I’m like why in the hell would I ever be doing this. Like it’s so much work, but just like anything else, you develop a system and the system is so fine-tuned now that I can knock things out pretty quickly and the beauty of kind of keeping things internally is that you can – once you’ve done something, you can just reuse it. So if I have a kid walking, I can use that walk cycle for everything else. So the more animation I do then the faster things go and the more complicated I can end up making it ’cause then I don’t have to do quite as much work. That said, it’s still sucks. It’s still just the most draining time-consuming thing. It’s like if you had a team of people you could knock it out of the park in like a few days but I’m also a perfectionist in a sense. So if I see just some tiny little thing and I’m like, ah, no, I can’t live with that. I need to fix it. That’ll take a few extra hours of time per episode.

Exactly. You said, you know, the animating was kind of the toughest. Do you have a favorite job for the show?

Writing is the best job. That’s just the most fun, and that’s what I like to do – that’s actually the foundation of everything is just be a writer, just get the ideas like the concepts. I mean, I figure anybody who went to school for animation could take care of that but the real creator’s charm comes in to the writing.

It’s almost like a little bit of a personal touch whereas to any – I don’t want to say anybody can animate but you could learn and be taught but it takes a certain person to write.

Sure. And what usually sells shows, as far as my experience in the business is concerned is the voice of the creator and they’re always looking for that particular voice. And so whenever somebody, like some executive tells me they like the show. They always say, “We like your voice,” and that becomes more apparent as you compare yourself to other stuff that’s out there, like, okay, I see what they’re saying. To me, this is just my sense of humor. This is just what I do but apparently it’s – it stands out enough that people can delineate it from other things.

What was the process like in choosing voice actors for the show and voice acting yourself?

For voicing actors, the main character played by Luke Adams, he’s – I met him – he’s a DJ over at the Brass Monkey Karaoke out here in Los Angeles. I’ve known him for several years. And he does voices on some cartoons, for like Family Guy and whatnot. But I just always loved his voice. I thought it’d sound perfect for this kind of thing, so when I tested it out it called up and used him. I’ve been using him every since. I always liked the idea of using kids for the actual voice talent for the children because it’s sort of that like inherent innocence that comes with a kid’s voice that is different than just adult impersonating a kid. You know, you can always tell. It’s not like it sounds bad when a professional voice-over artists do it but there’s just that professionalism that they have that the kids don’t have or like their voice waivers and then it’s – directing kids is real difficult, especially if they’re not prepared for that kind of thing, but it’s the sounds in general something I liked. I know they do that on South Park and that’s probably where I heard it first and I was like, “That sounds so much funnier to me that it’s an actual kid doing it.” So just parents I knew who had kids either they wanted them to be actors or not, I was like, hey, you want to see if your kid wants do this voice on the scripts? But I don’t anyone ever said no. How does that happen? You know, it’s like you get a lot of people go, oh, I can’t believe kids voiced this thing or whatever but what they don’t understand is that you have to take things in context. The kids are never saying swears. Even if things are bleeped out, the kid’s not actually swearing into the microphone. They’re saying fudge or shoot, or something like that.

 There was a bit of a controversy with like the starting a cult and stuff like that with the kids voices and everything like that. I was curious how that really played out?

Yeah. And it’s like for this series I don’t think there’s really any super questionable lines or like you set them by themselves they would really mean anything bad or like sound that bad. And of course you’ve got a lot of oversensitive people that regardless are gonna find things offensive. But if, especially if the lines are long or split up that the kid can’t remember ’em, they’re saying them in pieces anyway and I splice that audio together in pre-production.

 Now I’m a bit of a gym rat and I have to admit that out of all the episodes that have come out so far the Gym and the Gym Part 2 are without a doubt my favorite because to me they feel the most accurate.

Right, ’cause you’re exactly my target audience. That’s the kind of thing where – ’cause I mean I’m also, I’m a personal trainer, outside of this gig and, yeah, I’ve worked at gyms and I’ve been doing that since I was a teenager. So it’s just so much comedy in the gym, as I’m sure you know. It’s like you can’t like lure it and I know that like a lot of kids aren’t going to get the overall jokes but it’s that the one that I’m supposed to appeal to like the adult audience more and like the people that it’s relevant to.

Let’s put it this way. Now before I get on the squat rack I clap my hands together and say, “Get that pump.” So you’ve made an impression.

(laughs) That’s awesome!

Do you have a favorite episode of all the episodes that have come out so far or…?

You know, the recycling one this season is probably among my favorite because it’s – that’s another like WTF episode and it really – it’s the actual philosophy behind the show. So I thought it’d be funny to be like a steak behind the scene but still like hold true with like the purpose of the show and the overall point. So that one I got a kick out of and usually the ones that seem smarter to me, like the cult one or the reality television one or like the race one. Things that usually ended up stirring more controversy but like in the end a lot of people see the point of the thing. Those are among my top ones.

So beyond Do’s and Don’ts, do you have any other fun projects in the mix?

I mean, I’ve got a million things I’m always trying to work on. That was part of why I didn’t want to animate anymore it’s because I wanted to start hatching some like fledgling ideas that I’ve never been able to develop because I’ve been so inundated with work. So I’m excited to start doing a lot of new projects and we’ll see what happens with those.

 Very cool. That’s pretty much all I got. So thanks a ton.

Yeah. And I sent John a picture. It’s an old one but I love it.

Cool. Yeah, he actually just messaged me a little while ago and said, “Wait until you see the photo we loaded in for Ryan.” I was like, “I can’t wait.” So, thank you very much and if we’re ever in L.A. I’ll shoot you an email and we’ll hit the gym or something like that. Get that pump!

Absolutely. Let’s do it man!

So there ya have it! Will we be seeing more Do’s on Shut UP!? Keep it locked here because we’ll always keep you in the loop. Also, follow Ryan on Twitter (@ryannaumann).

Thanks for reading!

Chefrich