Restart

Where this blog once contained detailed descriptions of all my wild and crazy plans, I'm now rebooting it as an actual chronicle of those ideas and the work I'm putting toward making them happen. So, an introduction to the projects I'm actually currently working on.

Let's Play
I've known for some time that I want the very first TAPAS project to be a playthrough of Icewind Dale, one of my favorite old computer games. I have the game, I have the software for recording my screen while I play, but I'm not quite ready to start yet because first I need to put together soundsets for my custom-made characters. I'll need some local actors and a good recording space. Then after I play the game I'll add, not only my own narration, but also more actor performances to bring the game's silent text-based dialogue to life. Then after that I'll do the same to Icewind Dale II, and its companion games, Torment, Baldur's Gate, and finally Baldur's Gate II.

Comic Fandubs
Another small project involving bringing actor performances into a voiceless medium, in this case webcomics. A lot more editing is going to have to go into these, but I'll figure that out later. For now, I've pinpointed two comics I want to get to work on right away:
 -- Phoebe and her Unicorn
This charming comic about a girl and her unicorn launched in 2012 and made the transition from webcomic to newspaper comic in 2015. I've scripted out a three-season adaptation of the strip's online run. The biggest production hurdle, apart from actually editing the strips together into video form, is that I want to get my little sisters to play some of the prominent roles, so we'll have to get them to take the cross-country trip into our quality recording space.
 -- The Order of the Stick
A comic strip running since 2003 that started as a series of Dungeons & Dragons jokes before slowly evolving into one of the most epic fantasy stories I've ever seen. Hysterically funny, brilliantly written and plotted, and illustrated in an adorable and expressive stick-figure style, it's been my dream for years to breathe some life into the story and art, and the complex characters might be the acting role of a lifetime for whatever cast I rope together.

Theatrical Recordings
These are the big ones! Writing plays, performing them for cameras, and putting them online. This is what TAPAS will be all about.
 -- Drizzt and the Companions of the Dance Hall
A musical comedy of my own composition that spoofs the Drizzt Do'Urden novels by R.A. Salvatore. Performing it as an actual play is out of the question, since the script is about five hours long, but since everything I've ever written before has been too short, I can't help but hang on to every tiny bit of my one project that turned out twice as long as it should have been. It's just such a thrill. Anyway, my current goal is to release a video of a performance of the first scene, and recordings of the first four songs, to promote interest in the rest of the production, which I figure will be filmed and released scene-by-scene. And I'm still hoping to get at least that promo thing out by the end of this year, but if that's not possible, I'm not complaining, because I'll have all this other stuff to work on.
 -- Better Yet?
A dramatic play written by my friend Mason. As it's a short, realistic play, I figure it will work better as the first major TAPAS production than my oversized, costume-heavy musical. Could be put together faster, at least. It's a compelling drama and it'll be very gratifying to put together someone else's project instead of mine.