Livestreams that feature television show characters are generally best left to the respective program’s diehards. But this Monday evening’s live YouTube chat at 4:30 PT / 7:30 ET with Marco Diaz, of Disney XD’s Star vs. The Forces of Evil, offers something that might be worth watching whether you – or, more likely, your kid – are an avid viewer of the hit cartoon or not: the chance to see an animated character talking and responding to fans in real time.

Occurring each Monday this month leading up to the show’s season finale on February 27, the Star vs. livestreams find Marco, the best friend of protagonist Star Butterfly, recapping the previous week’s episodes in between directly responding to questions left by viewers in the comment feed below the video. While the recap segments are (mostly) pre-planned, the answers to fan questions are mostly improvised, and all the audio, whether semi-scripted or not, is delivered by voice actor Adam McArthur on the spot, and in the moment.

The first #MarcoLIVE installment, seen above, commenced on February 6, and drew more than 35,000 comments during its 30-minute duration, which averages out to about 1,167 comments per minute.

“It was like a waterfall of comments,” said John Ewart, design director for Disney XD, and the driving force behind the project. Working with an Adobe program called Character Animator, Ewart’s team first tested the waters of a Star vs. livestream last November, launching an online conversation with StarFan13, a character from the series who is voiced by show creator Daron Nefcy herself. Ewart had been looking for a chance to try out the new technology, and StarFan13, a blogger within the world of the show who is obsessed with the protagonist, was “a perfect medium for us to use character animator,” he said.

Now focused on Marco, production of the weekly animated livestream begins in Harmony, another animation program in which the show itself is created. There, Ewart’s team finds scenes that might transfer well to the live environment, then “deconstructs them” before rebuilding them in Character Animator, importing elements such as Marco’s eye positions, mouth positions, eyebrow positions, and “lip-flaps” that can express a grand total of two modes of expression: normal and angry. It all sounds overly simplistic, but the combination of the eyes darting left and right and blinking, the eyebrows raising, and other minimal but suggestive details, as well as McArthur’s skillful voice work, creates a live experience that “looks seamless to how the show looks,” Ewart said. “The kids feel like it’s an actual little scene coming from one of the [episodes].”

While the livestream is happening, Character Animator responds in real time to the human actor’s performance.

“As the voice talent speaks, the animated character speaks,” Ewart said. “As he blinks his eyes, so does the animated character. If he puts his face right up to the screen, the animated character will do that as well.”

To keep things interesting, Ewart’s team throws in so-called “incidental gags” that can be triggered with keyboard presses at any moment. In the last livestream, these included blasts of silliness such as a marching band that crosses the screen to and fro, and a spontaneous gang of puppies. McArthur was expecting the incidental gags but he didn’t always know when or where they would occur.

“Those are random gags that we can trigger to keep it fresh and alive,” Ewart said. “Hopefully, they give Adam moments to be himself, try to catch him off guard and to get that personal moment in there. People like it when it’s not so squeaky clean and polished.”

Excited by this new form of technology and engagement, the Disney XD creative and marketing teams have banded together to be the control room for the livestream productions. For instance, as Ewart monitors the visuals, none other than Jill Hotchkiss, VP of Disney XD marketing and creative, heads up the scripting duties, taking questions off the chat feed and typing them up on a screen for McArthur to read off.

“Adam is a great actor,” she said, “and he knows the character really well.” His in-the-moment responses are so smooth, and the corresponding animation so precise, some of the commenters “don’t believe the segments are actually live,” she continued.

But rest assured, #MarcoLIVE delivers what it promises, and could be ushering in a new era of animated series marketing. After all, what’s more exciting for a kid (or anyone really) than getting to talk to an actual cartoon character?

“They love the engagement,” Ewart said. “I saw one girl [in the comment feed] go, “Oh my god – Marco just said my name!’”

#MarcoLIVE Credits

Jill Hotchkiss

John Ewart

Kerri Anne Lavin

Ryan Clark

Jacob Morgan

Steven Shrago

Cody Leach

Robert Smith

Pearl Davenport

Nicole Corletto

Julian Gray

Talent

Adam McArthur (Marco Diaz)

Show Creator: Daron Nefcy

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