• Erica Pitt Interviewed on Friendship is Madness Podcast

    One of the animators during Season One, Erica Pitt, recently jumped on the Friendship is Madness podcast for a quick interview about all things pony. 

    For those looking some behind the scenes pony action, this is definitely  one to listen to. 

    Check out the interview here!

    45 comments:

    1. Ahhhhhh were are my headphones wgeb u need em ib school! >.<

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    2. I told you Derpy was Ditzy but no one believed. ):
      Oh yeah, I've been checking that troll blog list...

      That one is true then.

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    3. Everytime there is an interview with someone from the production team, one of the questions always is "Are you / were you aware of the brony phenomenon?"

      QUIT PATTING YOURSELVES ON THE BACK, GUYS, AND ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SHOW!
      You are eating the valuable time that can be used to ask about the inspirations, about the animating process, about the story, about possible constraints and the like by basically running around and screaming "Look at me, mum! Look at me! YOUR ARE NOT LOOKING!"

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    4. I can´t dig through this.. there are so many talking over eachother.

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    5. I agree Delichon.

      It's cool they got this interview with an animator, but they kept interrupting her and chiming in way too much. It was honestly annoying and hard to sit through.

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    6. Interviewers are basement dwelling douchebags. Stop interrupting her. 10:20 was really pathetic. If this is what the average fan is like then I do not want to be associated with them.

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    7. Yeah I agree there were too many people in the call. Regardless, there was some nice stuff in there.

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    8. Erica Pitt was very kind and informative, nice of her to give her time and answer those questions.
      There were a tad too many people in that call, but what can you do.

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    9. Sorry guys, but you need to practice your interviewing skills. And you need some new microphones.

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    10. I've not listened to it yet but "And Ditzy Doo was Derpy's real name!" has really pissed me off. I have often ranted to other bronies that they are idiots forcing that name on Derpy. I mean, they clearly recorded that line before Derpy's character had even been made by the fans. The first time they actually had time to do anything Derpy-related was 3 episodes after the name "Ditzy" was mentioned. There is no way Derpy was ever meant to be Ditzy. Anyway I'll listen before posting this...

      And I just got to the part where she says it. So, she claims that Ditzy was going to be her name originally... Now it's been mentioned before that she did have some old names, like Bubblehead or something. So I think that she is actually just assuming that Ditzy was one of her old names and is unsure. We'd have had confirmation before by now otherwise, but no-one else has stated any such connection between Ditzy and Derpy.

      Also Ditzy is just such a much worse name.

      This was also pretty good to listen to in general.

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    11. The interview reminded me of this Autotune The News clip where they show the flaws in multiple interviewers Link

      Hey I figured out how to link stuff :O

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    12. I couldn't listen to this for too long. Geez, every answer she gave she was talked over, LET THE WOMAN SPEAK.

      No one cares about "Are butterflies made of dark matter," or other nonsense like that. I felt bad for her that she had to listen to the hosts constant small talk and referencing.

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    13. So Ditzy Doo was her original name! Nice :3 Now it's confirmed, we can end that debate once and for all.

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    14. @Delichon

      Co-sign.

      At this point, its like asking Grateful Dead band members if they know about The Deadheads. lol negro please

      @taffy

      well clearly their gripping tales about the perils of wearing FIM shirts in public are more interesting than a interview with a FIM animator

      btw, i don't believe in sarcasm tags

      @Jone Andre

      Sheeeeeeeeeeiiiit...with sound quality like THAT, I *HOPE* this was recorded on a smartphone.

      Dammit, if you're gonna run a website dedicated to podcasting, plz spend the very modest amount of cash necessary to do it right. Lexicon Alpha audio interface is $60. Get a microphone that isn't that thin wand thing that shipped with your mom's Dell computer in 1997. You don't even need a DAW for this.

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    15. there was debate over whether or not Derpy was Ditzy?

      Ditzy would imply scatterbrained, which is what
      Derpy is....

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    16. She had some interesting answers but the interviewers kept interrupting her. I understand the excitement but if you interview someone, it should be much better structured and organized.

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    17. Was that a Yu-Gi-Oh abridged reference? "Super special awesome special."

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    18. I like the name Ditzy-Doo far more than Derpy Hooves. While Derpy may have been the original fan-dubbed name, the actual term 'derp' still has many negative connotations to it. Especially if you look at how it's used in alot of mmo's and forums.

      Ditzy, or Ditzy-doo, has much less of a chance of being taken the wrong way, and I would love it if they decided to actually assign that name to the character.

      And I'm super grateful for the podcast. It's phenomenal that they got ahold of Erica Pitt for the interview. Although I do rather agree, there were too many chiefs and not enough indians (buffalo?) for that interview. There were a few times were she was about to say something, got cut off, then just abandoned what she was about to say. But I'm still thankful for what Friendship is Madness did for us, and hope they keep at it.

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    19. Sheesh, I could barely hear her over the sound of them backpatting.

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    20. Sadly this seems to be a waste of an interview. Erica Pitt was lovely, and the bit of info that she was actually allowed to get out was interesting. However, the constant over talking, interrupting with stupid comments and patting themselves on the back was actually kind of insulting to her.

      Dear Princess Celestia,

      Could you please send these interviewers to the moon for not showing proper respect and processional interviewing dedication to someone who deserved it.

      Yours in Friendship,

      Earl Grey of Great Bit-ain

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    21. Stop interrupting your gods.

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    22. The header pic reminds me: we need more pony anime art.

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    23. I agree with the above. Let's stop the fanboy "squeeing" and get in some constructive questions. It's a good thing some of those guys on the podcast were at least attempting to stay on topic, while the other half of the interviewers were derailing the whole thing...

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    24. this was informative, but they were terrible hosts. much respect for her working on the aquabats super show.

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    25. This was hard to listen to,

      She was interrupted way too much.

      Please learn to properly do an Interview.
      I feel sorry for Erica Pitt.

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    26. Wow. I feel sorry for Erica Pitt. I couldn't listen to all of it 'cause of the constant interrupting. The hosts could of at least tried to be somehow professional about the interview.

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    27. Sorry about the quality of this, guys. We had a hard time organizing this, and we admit that it was all a bit rushed. We had to flex our schedules quite a bit and we didn't have too much time to organize.

      My mic was lagging quite a bit, too. I didnt realize I was talkign over her until it was over. We're workign on it.

      -Pio from Friendship is Madness

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    28. We know the interview wasn't some awesome professional thing. It wasn't meant to be. First off, good luck trying to get a member of the crew into an interview now. Hasbro's pretty much locked it down, and we were lucky to get her at all.

      Second, there was some serious mic lag going on. I tried to keep everyone quiet so we could hear her, but it was really tough.

      Third, that was fewer members than we'd had in previous episodes, to CUT DOWN on how much overlapping we had. If I'd let on all the member who wanted on in that interview, there wouldn't BE an interview. It would all be crazyness.

      Be thankful that we at least asked her some questions, and managed to get some answers. Something like this is incredibly rare, and the chances of it happening again are nearly nothing. As I said before, Hasbro is locked things down because of our huge community, and they sent out an email pretty much saying "If you get approached for an interview, say no first and talk to us about it."

      And yes, I'll admit that it was crazy, and can be hard to listen to. We're trying to better ourselves, and hearing all of you badmouth it really doesn't help. If you're going to criticize, please try and be constructive about it. Simply bashing us makes you sound like trolls.

      - Hawk Johenson, host of Friendship is MADNESS.

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    29. @Hawk Johenson

      I can (and I think most here would agree) understand the difficulty involved in such a thing as conducting an over the airwaves interview with technical problems. That being said, saying "It was really hard" and "it's rare cause Hasbro so just like it" is an unacceptable response if you are trying to defend your competency.

      Many things in life are hard. I can understand and emphasize with this... but a lackluster job is a lackluster job regardless of the difficulty involved. I hope that you will take this feedback without getting too very personally offended and use it as an opportunity to positively improve your product.

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    30. Wish she was interviewed by the bronyville guys, these dudes were a trainwreck.

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    31. @Hawk Johenson

      Yes you are right, bad mouthing you does not help, and I am sorry for the tone of my comments.

      However, most fans and random Bronies, like myself, are not in the media industry, and are unlikely to understand or perhaps even consider the technical difficulties behind what you do. All we can base our comments on is the finished product, and unfortunately in this case, it is rather poor.

      I do have to agree with DJB123, you cant hide behind the fact that it was hard or the fact that Hasbro are cutting down interviews.

      But, lets see what we can put to you constructively -
      Lag: Right well this is not an easy fix since the internet is the internet, stuff happens, I suggest maybe doing a pre-interview sound off to check lag, then at least you are aware of it at the start.
      Talking over each other: Scripting perhaps? Even as basic as just listing questions down and then asking them in turn. This may make it seem dull to you after the free forming that has gone on before, maybe do a bit of free form at the end for additional questions to keep it interesting?
      Talking over your interviewee: Well we've covered lag, but maybe waiting for a response to a question before ploughing on.

      I know criticism can be hard to swallow, and being in the public eye, or I guess in this case, ear, you're going to catch more flack than most, but people can only give you their opinions and snap reaction to your product.

      There were things of value in that interview, but it was hard to sift it out, and some people won't have the patience to sit through it. It did also seem that Erica Pitt was struggling with it too, though was lovely enough to stick through it (though this is just my perception of what was going on, and the impressions I got, though that's my opinion and may well be wrong).

      At the end of the day we are glad to have more stuff from people like Erica, from people who have the ability to do so, like you guys, but we are disappointed when the quality is under what we wanted/expected.

      Please no hard feelings guys.

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    32. What's upsetting is how unprofessional the interview was. People wanted to chime after every question. Erica's responses were almost always pushed back 30-45 seconds while she had to wait for the nerdgasm to end. For the diamond dog question she was half-way through her sentence and someone talks over her with a quote. That's not an issue of lag because no one should have said anything until she had responded in full.

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    33. *Podcast gets tons of criticism, it's still rated 4.5 stars*

      ...I'm gonna call shenanigans on all this critique and give this a shot.

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    34. I've been seeing this a lot in audio interviews lately.

      People have GOT TO STOP trying to butt-in when the interviewee is talking. Let him/her finish, then when it seems like he/she is done answering or is getting bored, that is when you continue on with the interview.

      Another thing, an interview is supposed to be professional, this doesn't include trying to throw every meme you possibly can and see if the interviewee will get it. It's okay to have a laugh during the interview to make it a little more formal, but don't go completely overboard and end up forgetting you're doing an interview.

      I've only had one class in Journalism Class in MIDDLE SCHOOL (we didn't even learn anything since we got a permanent sub after the first week due to personal problems) and even I know that this interview was completely unprofessional and gives bronies a bad image to the FiM Staff. If I was doing the interview, it would be at least 220% better than how these guys did it.

      Please try to do better next time guys; stop derping and giving bronies a bad image.

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    35. @Maltese_Scale
      I really appreciate hearing from the production staff behind MLP:FIM, so a warm thank you to Friendship is MADNESS podcast crew. Although asking the production staff if they were aware of the rising wave of fans is akin to asking the Greatful Dead about Deadheads, it opens an opportunity for the production staff to talk about an event that touched them as much as MLP:FIM has touched us. I doubt they're tired of it already, so good (although predictable) question.

      I think that the talking over each other, the quips and shenanegans are the result of people (a) trying to be funny, (b) emulating morning shows on commercial radio where multiple hosts make asses of themselves (c) too many people trying to be "spontaneous". That poor audio and the lag didn't help the hosts work as a team. Since it seems none of them were in the same room, they need some soundless way to communicate to share cues as to who talks next. They also need to be patient and give the person they're interviewing time to expand on their answers, like when Ms Erica Pitt was talking about the time she was animating Rarity getting smacked by a Diamond Dog.

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    36. As I said before, Hasbro is locked things down because of our huge community, and they sent out an email pretty much saying "If you get approached for an interview, say no first and talk to us about it."

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    37. The biggest thing that needs to happen in these interviews, is get rid of EVERYONE except for one (maybe two) interviewers. There is absolutely nothing to gain and so much to lose by having that many interviewers. It seems ridiculous that you would even do it at all with more than 2 people.

      Seriously, take a listen to Seth's, Phoe's and Cereals's interviews. Keep on topic, have a list of questions with you to ask (get them from fans, and the other would-be interviewers).

      Yes the technical problems were a pain, but again, almost all of that could be avoided by doing a traditional interview, not with 8 guys.

      Keep it professional, or YOU will be the ones scaring off any future interviews. Seriously. This is constructive criticism. Stop frigging around and smarten up, or they will end up hating us as fans.

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    38. I shared my thoughts with one of the guys from the podcast on DA. This was a terrible interview. :(

      Still, I felt awful for Erica! I personally would have lost patience with the interviewers pretty soon into the interview. Erica handled herself very well. Still, I can't help but feel she was a bit frustrated and disappointed with the interview. :(

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    39. I wish they would let the girl talk, they kept interrupting

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    40. Seemed very rushed, questions were not thought through, a lot of periods of silence, awkward responses from several of the 'interviewers', and almost constant interuption. This should have been a one-on-one thing, perhaps with one or two others sitting in if they wished to speak to the staff -that- much. But honestly, if I was Erica I would have been embarrassed and overwhelmed during that half-hour period. We barely got to hear anything from her, and when she did speak she got cut off by some brony hurling stupid quotes and references at her.

      I hope that somebody else will interview her at some point and do it properly. In an interview you're meant to let the person being interviewed talk.

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    41. @Heolix

      Derpy and Ditzy are two different ponies according to Lauren Faust. Lauren said Derpy might become Ditzy if Ditzy was ever shown on screen, but she seemed hesitant to do this due to Derpy's popularity. As far as I know, this merge never happened, and Derpy now serves as a 'Where's Waldo' type of character.

      Lauren on Derpy

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