“It doesn’t get much more serious than South Park. Not that the show is dull or somber. It simply has the most manic production schedule of any animated series on television — probably ever. ‘We work between 100 and 120 hours in a seven-day week to deliver the episodes,’ says Frank Agnone, supervising producer at South Park Studios in Los Angeles. ‘We’re moving unbelievably fast right out of the gate,'” Dustin Driver reports in a large write-up on Apple’s Pro Profiles pages.
“Consider that an understatement. The South Park staff has been known to work around the clock — for nearly 24 hours — to turn out a show. And they don’t produce any shows ahead of time. Every new episode is delivered the day it airs. Why adhere to such a frantic production schedule? South Park wouldn’t be as funny or as remarkable if it wasn’t timely. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the show’s creators and chief authors, need the ability to spoof yesterday’s presidential news conference or parody Britney Spears’ latest hairdo. They demand the creative freedom to mock any celebrity, politician or fad almost instantly,” Driver reports.
Driver reports, “To get that freedom the duo has built an audio/video studio that’s driven by a few dozen Macs and a massive render farm. Their team can hammer out a show from storyboard draft to broadcast final in-house in a matter of days. It’s a full-fledged animation factory, one of the few in the world that’s capable of producing a weekly animated series without hang-ups. ‘We have very complex stuff that needs to be done very fast and we need to know that we can trust the machines to handle whatever we throw at them without crumbling,’ says JJ Franzen, technical director at South Park Studios. ‘That’s why we use Macs.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Aki” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple makes good on South Park episodes – December 17, 2006
Apple adds NBC’s ‘Scrubs’ to iTunes Store TV Shows lineup, adds ‘Season Pass’ for ‘South Park’ – March 29, 2006
Apple adds MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central TV shows – including South Park – to U.S. iTunes Store – January 26, 2006
South Park moves to Apple Xserve RAID – January 03, 2006
Hardware
* 34 Power Mac G5 artist workstations
* 3 Power Mac G5 Avid Adrenalin workstations
* 3 Power Mac G5 Pro Tools workstations
* 10 iMac production staff workstations
* 15-inch PowerBook production staff workstation
* 3 Xserve RAID
* 6 Xserve
Software
* Motion
* Shake
* Final Cut Pro
* Maya
* Adobe Photoshop
* Adobe Illustrator
* Corel Draw
* Qube
* Pro Tools
They’re also coupled to a 120-processor (AMD Athlon) Linux render farm.
Ki-u-ick assss!
I want to have a civil partnership with whoever made that decision. I can tell he’s gay.
South Park is a wretched show. The “creators” are slime.
South Park rocks. The “World of Warcraft” episode was one of the funniest shows ever!
Apparently you have confused the South Park creators with the Bush Administration.
To clarify, hereit is in context:
“The South Park creators are innovative pop-culture geniuses. The Bush Administration, on the other hand, are slime.”
See, that’s not so challenging.
Please try harder to convey your thoughts, wise contributor.
We are going to stay on the ground in the middle east and elsewhere until the genocide of radical Islam is complete.
Only until they demonstrate a willingness to join the rest of the world in peace will we consider leaving.
The very survial of the rest of the world rests in the balance.
Failure is not a option
Perhaps the Demoncrats would like another Hitler? This time with biological and nuclear weapons?
How quickly the stupid forget human nature and history.
Whilst I love that they use Macs, there is a part of me that is a bit disappointed that they don’t, in fact, use teams of small children to cut out the characters. I know it’s wrong but there it is.
Radical Islam wants to kill you.
Not because your nice or a decent human being.
Just because your a threat to their way of thinking.
They will just kill you unexpectly, without warning.
Imagine living in complete fear from the people around you, always watching your back, sleeping in a locked room to give yourself advanced warning of a potential attack?
Imagine your children being slaughtered just because they represent a threat later growing up and being anything other than a radical Islamic?
Just think of why young islamic males are isolated and conditioned and exposure to females is limited? Just think why their religion teaches they will have virgins in heaven after they have proven themselves with actions against enemies on this planet first?
The human male is easily conditioned to kill when seperated from females. Only the desire to procreate is stronger than any thought process or religion.
Action should be taken if women are excluded from any male social event.
For some reason I read, “This time with biographical and nuclear weapons.”
Sorry. I just had to laugh.
But meanwhile, back on the render farm: I just find it funny that their last choice was their best choice. Why is the Mac always the last choice? Why did they have to go through the expense and horror of using all those other choices before coming to the Mac?
I know, it was Maya coming to the Mac. But it has been on the Mac for a while now, hasn’t it?
Darn, wrong website. Sorry.
Mac’s rule!!!
@DR
I’m a Dirtbag Republican and I LOVE SouthPark. So I guess, you must be incredibly smart to be able to ascertain the political leanings of Oops by his vocal disdain for a cartoon. A friggin genius, no less. I think everyone here should stand up, wherever you are, at work or at home and give Dirtbag Republican a round of applause just for being so gadd@mn brilliant! Thank you Dirtbag Republican! Thank you for you contributions to humanity and your willingness to share with us, the unwashed masses, your pearls of wisdom! Thank you! Thank you oh wise and knowledgeable one!
Jackass.
mw=appeared As in: “From a distance, he appeared to be a rational human being.”
That is the lamest answer ever wiseguy.
If another hitler got the bomb, he would have a one bomb and that would not even be that strong. takes years to make and perfect it. Say he bombs a city. They trace it back to whoever did it. Then you have the world against that hitler. Game over. Hilter had a strong army. The new hitler would be weak with no industry to help produce anything like like a Hilter army. It would just be sneak attacks.
Right now all the bush people are doing is making the military industrial complex richer and killing people and making peoples lives worst. Most people over there just want a job, get there kids to school and live peacefully. We fucked it all up for them. Its easy to forget that part in the movie farenhiet 911 where they show many iraqis sitting in a coffee house enjoying whatever freedom they had, but being safe, then the attack. they are lucky now to even go out and be safe. Imagine you or your kids not even being able to go out in the streets and enjoying dinner.
You have to admit we are in the wrong war. We should be fully be in afganistan going after bin laden and now in iraq. Thats how stupid people forget hisotry.
If you ever read it saddam hated bin laden so they had no relations to the attack on 911. Its the saudis that hate us more then anything but since bush kisses the royal princes ass they will never get down to the nitty gritty.
You dumb asses do realize that both Trey Parker and Matt Stone absolutely hate the left don’t you? God you libtards are such f*cking idiots. Go back to watching your George Bush bashing videos or something since that’s the only “humor” you morons can even handle. South Park is WAY above your level of intellect.
wise guy Your right on! Some beleave it would be better to fight these terrorest over hear
“Perhaps the Demoncrats would like another Hitler? This time with biological and nuclear weapons?”
You mean like the nut-job in the White House that thinks he’s on a mission from God? That doesn’t even listen to his advisors. That thinks being a draft dodger and putting on a flight suit and landing (as a passenger) on an aircraft carrier is military experience. That has gotten us into a war and occupied a country that even his father knew wasn’t a good idea getting us smack dab in the middle of a religious civil war that has no solution. IOW another Vietnam.
if the dirtbag politicians that send our countries best and brightest off to fight wars had to send their own sons and daughters maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to do so.
Most of us that went to Vietnam as young naive barely out of high school children came back older beyond our years.
I am not a pacifist, I believe that sometimes war is a necessary evil. But it should not be started by greedy politicians with hidden agendas.
Carpet bomb the entire middle east with pork rinds and go home.
Bev M.
Cu Chi, Vietnam, 1968
“Tet was a MF”
MDN Magic Word = take. As in that is my take on your asinine comment.
Well, I don’t knowif it makes a difference, but in an interview with Matt and Trey (yes, a real interview, not an article about) one said that they hate conservatives but REALLY fucking hate liberals. I think it was Trey, actually.
Oh, well, their shows usually have a good message, a la Aesop.
What are “Apple Macs”?
Funny, working on mac I’d thought they wouldn’t have to put so much time into it.
such an appropriate name .. ‘wiseguy’ another name for gangster, which is what our government is filled with. The M.E. has been a hot bed for the West because is was a place we sold weapons to the willing regardless of who they were, and while the West ‘controls the chaos’, they quietly suck out the Black Gold. The only way out is reversing Reagan’s lowering of efficiencies for manufactured goods, uncovering alternative technologies for energy and motors, and make war illegal. “Either war becomes obsolete or Man does”, R.B. Fuller.
I believe it’s pronounced ‘nuke-u-lar’.
Of course, they use Macs. They are the funniest out there.
I am a republican but do not agree with how Bush has run the war.
My solution; pass a note to all Iraqees saying, Very soon anything that
breaths will be dead. Get out quick. !! Haukenah Haukenah…
Then after all friendlys have left, toss a neutron bomb in…
Kill without damage or long lasting radiation.
After get my fk;ing oil and get prices back down below 1.50 a gallon.
We deserve it.
Just a I’m soo tired of roadside bombs though…
Matt & Trey do a great job of making fun of extreme positions of the left & right with the “message” usually being a logical conclusion somewhere in the middle. One of the best shows on TV.
Screw you and screw your corporate propaganda. Macs suck.
crabpeople – crabpeople – crabpeople…