Eli Evans

I always wanted to work in cartoons.

My day job is as a software designer for a software and media company called Faithlife (all opinions my own, thankyouverymuch). The “media” portion of that includes a production company called Faithlife Films, which produces Christian content for kids and adults, for the company’s online streaming service, Faithlife TV. Bible Agent 7 is the first full-length cartoon short the company produced. It’s sort of like Kim Possible meets Get Smart meets Sunday School.

The head animator/director happened to know that I went to (some) school for music and that I compose for fun. He wanted a retro-modern feel. My first attempt was a little too “corderoy pants and long sideburns” as they put it.

I went back to the drawing board, took out a little bit of the Mancini and put in a little bit more 70s and 80s Saturday morning cartoon vibes, and it was a hit. Then I made themes for each character. In the end, I chose a different ensemble and genre for each one. Bible Agent 7 herself is mostly bass guitar and Hammond-esque organ. An older dog-in-a-trenchcoat character’s named The Nose comes with more experimental jazz — an upright bass, flutes and saxaphones, and a vibraphone here and there. The sock-puppet pirate (don’t ask) brings sea-inspired shanties and ditties with piccolo, pipes, strand piano, concertina, jaw harp, and hand claps. The computer usually comes with marimba and strings. Finally, the comic relief character, a robot bird named Spark, has glitchy 8-bit themes that I built on top of Commodore 64 and Super Nintendo chipset emulators. Every episode has a couple of big story cues, usually Bible story stuff, and then I get to try my hand at ancient desert stuff.

Musically, it’s pretty silly, but then again, it’s a kid’s show. It’s a lot of fun to work on!

UPDATE: The series was canceled and I don’t think episodes are online anywhere any more.