Leroy Dorsalfin - The pitch

A few months ago I was invited to an animation festival in Seoul Korea to pitch my Leroy Dorsalfin project at their SPP conference. Although I had made a bible as well as a pilot in past, I had never made a formal "pitch" of the materials to present in this format.

Long story short, the conference was a blast, and I had a fantastic time in Korea thanks to everyone's incredible hospitality. But now that the conference is over, I am left with quite a few materials that would otherwise collect dust in the innards of my hard drive.


That said, I thought it might be fun to share these in hopes that it could be interesting for anyone who has never seen what goes into a pitch for an animated TV show, and get a sense of how it works. If nothing else, I'm at least happy to have these drawings see some light of day beyond the conference.

The following this the pitch I presented ( The images correspond to the text below them).

 

This is Leroy Dorsalfin 

half shark

half man

Leroy lives on the tourist island of Walawaki,

Along with his best pal in the entire world, Andy "Sharkbait" Anderson.

Now normally, when speaking of a Shark-man, images such as this may come to mind.

But Leroy is quite the opposite

He is more your average every day “poorly smelling, stinking up the hammock” type of shark.

Although his bloodline is unique at best, he is really just like any other fun loving kid, minus one unshakable shark-like infatuation...

an incurable obsession, for succulent fresh fish.

This may seem perfect for a part shark who is surrounded by the ocean,

only this poor fellow got the bum end of the genetic mix, when he was diagnosed with clinical aquaphobia.

an immobilizing fear of the water.

Steadfast on a tasty meal, Leroy is constantly devising new and ridiculous ways to obtain the cuisine he craves, without going anywhere near the water he fears.

This urge can lead to all sorts of unruly predicaments

of coarse, the predicaments I speak of are usually influenced by his adventurous pal Sharkbait, who often goes beyond conventional logic to help his best friend chase the fish he so badly craves

like the time he suggested heading into the “Mount Never Return Volcano” for the fabled hot n' spicy Albacore who swims in the lava

or the time he hypnotized Leroy to love water and despise of fish instead of the other way around,

Boy did that ever turn out different than they had hoped!
Sometimes they have success, sometimes not...

But we can always bank on them getting into all sorts of preposterous fun along the way. Now as I mentioned,

Leroy and Sharkbait live on a small tourist island a few kilometers off of the mainland.

The natives of the island know and love Leroy. He is simply one of its quirky residents.

along with the spunky El Nino'

the anti-genious Bjorn Bjornson, who’s family moved to the island from Finland.

and their great friend Edna Earth, who is the Island’s local tour guide to name a few.  ALL the Island’s inhabitants love Leroy, minus one very important citizen.

Enter the very short, very short tempered, unruly ruler, EL PRESIDENTE.

see, El Presedente owns and runs Walkiwaki island (his ancestors run aground were trying to reach the moon by boat), and he has two overpowering traits...

his love for money and power

and his hatred for Leroy Dorsalfin.

You must understand that El Presidente's island's revenue is based on tourism,

so you can imagine what a walking, talking shark would do to a group of tourists seeing him for the first time.

every frightened tourist leaving the island, is money out of El Presidente's pocket. So he would like nothing more than to rid the island of this sharky menace

unfortunately, he has no legal grounds to do that,

so he is forced to come up with usually poorly planned, and utterly ridiculous plots to capture the shark man and banish him forever. So in reflection....

Leroy is after fish

But he hates the water!

his best pal Sharkbait pushes him WAY of his comfort zone to help him get it,

And El Presidente looks for any cockamamie scheme he can to rid the island of the pesky tourist scaring nuisance.

These are the escapades of Leroy Dorsalfin