Seth Kearsley Interviewed by KH13

Heart ❤ · Mar 4, 2017

Seth Kearsley, the director and storyboard artist of the cancelled Kingdom Hearts TV show, was recently interviewed by KH13.

Part of the the interview, in which Kearsley talks about his first experience with Kingdom Hearts, can be found below and the rest of the interview can be found on KH13's site.

KH13: Seth, thank you so much for participating in this interview with KH13.com. We are thrilled to have this opportunity.With a whole plethora of video games out there that would suit a TV show, what drew you to Kingdom Hearts specifically? What inspired you to make a show for Kingdom Hearts?

S: I was coming off directing Eight Crazy Nights, and I was hounding my agent about an idea of American Anime. I couldn’t quite define what American Anime meant at the time, but whenever I would say it in a meeting people would perk up like “Ooooo…those two words sound good together." He knew about this Kingdom Hearts project Disney TV animation had in development, and thought the mix of anime and American animation would appeal to me. I grabbed a copy of the game and started playing, and with no kids, or job at the time, I burned through the game in about a week. When I finally got the script for the pilot, it didn’t feel at all like the game I had just played, but more like an episode of Aladdin starring the characters from Kingdom Hearts. It was at that point that I almost lost the job because I said I wanted to rewrite the script, and that doesn’t generally go over well. It’s not like the idealized version of how hollywood works in people’s heads. Generally, once a studio has spent money and time getting a script to the point where they’re ready to go, if you say you don’t like the script then they just move on. Probably, the only reason that didn’t happen was because I was just coming off having directed a feature, so they heard me out more than they may have otherwise.

KH13: We know this is not your first attempt at making this show happen. What has changed about the show since that first attempt, and why give it a second try?

S: The fans. I honestly didn’t think anyone would even know about it when I put up the first storyboard panels on my Deviantart. I put them up because I loved that project and wanted to share some of my favorite drawings from this project that I loved. I stopped paying attention to Kingdom Hearts after they didn’t go with it. It’s going to sound sappy, but when you pour yourself into a project and it doesn’t happen, it’s kind of like a little romance that you had. The further the project gets the more it hurts when it doesn’t happen. Usually, it doesn’t get passed the first date. When it gets as far as a pilot that they’re testing, and it tests better than anything else they tested, and THEN it doesn’t go…it’s kind of like the girlfriend you had at camp. You were so in love, and who knows what would have happened if things where different, but you live too far away, or she was only looking for a summer camp love. I was a little heart broken after Kingdom Hearts. It’s only now as the fans are letting me know about what’s been going on over the last 14 years, that I’m like “Well, the least I can do for this long lost love is to give it another shot.”

What’s different this time around? I’m a lot better than I was 14 years ago. I also have my own little studio, which the pilot was one of the first project before my studio had a name. The technology is also so much more advanced now. Even if the do over is just re-doing the board, I can make it so much more now than if ever was then. You have to keep in mind, the drawings for that board were all about the size of the average post-it. That’s how we did boards back then. With Storyboard Pro now, I can have complicated camera work and tons more posing in the same amount of time.
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Thanks again to KH13 for this wonderful interview and don't forget, the entire interview can be found HERE.

Day~Dream · Mar 5, 2017

If anyone still had doubts about a show being made I'd like to think this interview could ease their minds and show that this project is in capable hands. Even though he's only played the first game I really like how he compared it to a Summer love and how he's determined to stay true to the games and will be diving into them all including the manga. If that's not determination and passion, I don't know what is x3

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Seth Kearsley Interviewed by KH13

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