Cast Gatherings

I missed last week's blog, nothing really started to happen until the end of that week, so I figured this blog would be where to talk about stuff.

Storyboards and character designs kinda slowed down last week, but they seem to be getting back on track. I'm very excited. I'd show you some, but the new Choices character models are still stark naked, we're designing their faces and bodies, and then tackling the hair-and-makeup department, and once we have that for all seven heroes and the villain, then we're going back to do all their wardrobes. They're not completely anatomically correct, but enough to be too raw for the blog.

And for those Irregular Fantasy storyboards, eh, not sure at this point what I can display of Irregular Fantasy. DMM is all for going forward with making this project, but displaying it publicly, fundraising for it, earning actual income? In that order, presumably? It's all still up in the air, to be discussed when it's in a more completed state, I suppose. I see no reason to think he won't allow it... but we're not there yet. And... he hasn't answered any of my emails since the end of June, think it might be time to buzz him again...

...to tell him about the musical score! We got some musical score done for the beginning of the teaser. It's excellent. Hm, with everything especially music taking so long, I'm fearing that we'll finish the teaser with absolutely nothing prepared for what comes after. The trailers are so very, very music-based, and... I've never had much luck with getting music made for my projects. Rob's the best we've had, but he's still not exceptionally speedy.

Had some cast meetings this week! The first one, only AJ and Michael showed up, but they were pumped as hell, which just... really, really encouraged me! For over a year now, I've been so confused and annoyed at how so many people claim to be on board but express absolutely no enthusiasm, but this meeting, seeing AJ and Michael on video and hearing them, I realized, okay, maybe I've just been misreading all the text messages I've been communicating by all this time. Maybe at the Choices cast meeting at the end of the week, I'll experience something similar!

I hope so, because afterward I met with Bobsheaux, and I was hoping for a similar party but it was just incredibly awkward. It went well, ultimately: got the job done, prepped for his role, told him a little about the design and upcoming story. He found it comparable to his early livestreams and now, well, I catch Bobsheaux livestreams whenever I can, so, just gotta keep it movin', I guess!

As for The Choices, well, after almost 18 months, those storyboards are done. Got the reel all put together. So, now it needs its proper audio - the real voice actors, some score and sound effects - and then... final art. Now that I have a storyboard that's finished, I gotta comb through it, make a proper shot list, then an asset list! The main characters are in the process of being redesigned, and from there we need to draw up every character, creature, outfit, object, and location appearing in that story! Also, like... a content warning list. Those are in vogue in internet productions and I think it's a fabulous idea, opening with not only precisely why the episode is not for children, but also any visual stimulus or social issue within the episode that might trigger someone, so they know to avoid it or at least brace themselves for it.

The medium of these projects, I've often jokingly claimed that, as it's not quite animation, as it's not quite a comic, you smoosh 'em together and get the word "anemic", but... everybody flinches at that, thinks it's gross. I really didn't think anemia was that unpleasant of a thing, but, the world seems to be in agreement. The term "motion comic" isn't exactly accurate, I wanted to call it a new thing because, well, I've never seen anything like what we're doing here, wanted to give it a new name that reflected how pioneering it was. But... before that, I was all for calling it a "motion comic", I guess we're going with that. Maybe I'll just have a running gag of how I want to call them "anemics" and have whoever's listening get grossed out.

I never saw anything like it until I saw the web show My Pride, which is basically if The Lion King had a culture that operated in the way that real lions do, so, incredibly fucking brutal. Damn good show, and like the currently planned state of TAPAS stuff, only barely animated. Very inspiring. It's an anemic! No? Okay...

DMM got back to me. Apparently, genuinely did not receive the last two emails I sent him over the past few months, thought my email this week was the first he's heard of me in a while. He's okay with the process continuing without too much input from him... seemed to have missed my question about wanting to release some artwork, Stacy made a video of her process for the character renders and we'd like to release it and the art itself... I'll check in on him again next week...

We've had our first writer's room meeting! Mason, Naty, and I got together for some filling in the gaps of the big, big Irregular Fantasy pilot episode script. Next meeting is with the cast of The Choices, very excited about that. Stacy tells me her girlfriend thinks The Choices sounds "cool af".

Okay, I'm back, it's Tuesday, this blog's late. Dang it. Mkay, we had that Choices cast meeting, it was excellent, so happy to see that cast finally assembled! Got another Irregular Fantasy meeting coming up this week, immediately after another writing session. Everyone who missed the first meeting will be there, so, yay! Had to make a couple of cast replacements I hope will be temporary, I was really committed to Irregular Fantasy ending up with the same cast as the original Icewind Dale soundsets.

And... now I'm off to figure out what we need beyond storyboards and voice acting now that we are fully ready to go into and beyond those. The asset lists and whatnot that I mentioned... needs a lot of things prepared. Got Gretchen in as a production manager for Keys & Kingdoms, need another one for the other thing, maybe not right away, but later...