Production Memo: Pilot Pre-Production Program (4P) – January 2025 – Asians in Animation
Proudly introducing our fanTEAstic cast on ‘TEA,' alongside sketches from our Art and Story teams.
We're still using codenames publicly for now, but will introduce you to the characters soon!
CAST
“Outsider” - Maxine Serna
“Noble” - Rebecca Danae
“Artisan” - Kelsey Jaffer
“Pirate” - Zoe D. Lee
“Pet” - Jon Lu
“Tourist” - Saira Umar
Maid Servant - Stephanie Sim
Servant #2 - Madeline Dimuyaga
“Outsider Parents” - Cheryl Chong & Allen Chan
“Noble Parents” - Mimi Chen & Marlon Dance-Hooi
Crew Members - Elijah Kim, Jon Lu
Soldier - Marlon Dance-Hooi
“Warrior” - Preston Yeung
“Idol” - Alex Bui
In the Booth with Maxine Serna, Marlon Dance-Hooi, Kelsey Jaffer, Kim Quach, Saira Umar & Stephanie Sim
As we mentioned in our November update, we reviewed over 120 talented applicants blindly to find the perfect voices to bring our characters to life! With our incredible voice actors taking the mic, we also started piecing together their performances to shape the audio foundation of our story through editing!
Which brings us to another huge milestone this month: our amazing team of Editors (Jon Dorais, Lucy Hoa Skrypzak, Sophie Martinez, Dorian Saisse & Trainee Anna Maria Folsom) went through thousands of takes of lines, and exported 400+ files to create our Radioplay (an audio version of the animatic with all the lines that the board artists can work to)!
With Visual Development officially wrapped, our artists have jumped straight into Pre-Design. As usual, some summary stats first!
8 new artists onboarded
140+ new submissions
8 rounds of reviews
30+ new approvals
During Pre-Design, our artists built on the approved vis-devs, included turns, facial expressions and details of characters, front-back/4-angle layouts of backgrounds, turnarounds for props, and added color to the clean designs.
Story Team had a big milestone as well! This month, we launched our 8 board artists and 3 trainees on their sequences. Our journey of storyboarding began at the second week of January. From then, we’ve had our thumbnail pitch, 4 rounds of thumb/rough reviews, and are amazed by the wonderful efforts our artists put in their sections from the very first round of submission!
Thumbnail Boards by Vivian Le
Meanwhile, our 7 Revisionists started on their own exercises of drawing and posing the characters. From our VA announcement video above, you can already see their work in action! These sketches are bursting with life and charm, capturing the essence of each character and setting the stage for future storyboard revisions!
More
Our work doesn’t stop here! Here’s a look at what the rest of the team has been up to—
Music - We’ve locked in our character motifs, composed by Sarah Linyao Feng and you can get a sneak peek below! 👂Stay tuned—there’s plenty of beautiful music on the way!
Production - Our team structure just got a boost! We’ve officially onboarded trainees, refined our workflow with clearer divisions, and introduced a pairing system to keep things running smoothly. While production work isn’t always at the front, we want to give a huge shoutout to the team working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep everything on track!
This month, our total crew & cast size reached 93, with 4000+ total working hours logged. It hasn’t been the smoothest ride, with wildfires and storms in LA and Southern California affecting many of our team members. But through it all, we’ve looked out for each other—sharing shelter updates, news, and support to get through the challenges together.
Despite the extra hurdle, we’ve been making sure to keep the fun. Crew hangouts are still happening regularly, with Tea Personality quizzes, travel tips, and hobbies like sewing and calligraphy keeping the vibe lively. The TEA crew fosters a collaborative environment where both creative energy and friendship thrive. We’re eager to see what comes next.
See you next month!
