Category: vidHero

Soooo. what did i do today? um. bought some comics. picked up some cash to hold me over until my new check card arrives (i cancelled my current card during PAX, when i thought i’d lost my wallet). spent all this cash on groceries. cleaned up parts of the kitchen. i’d swear i did some actual work work in the morning, but can’t remember for the life of me.

in the afternoon, just before bundling up our comcast modem and taking over to a friend’s house (since he moved out last week and needed the modem to setup his new internets), i blew a bunch of time reformatting my initial storyboards into a word doc that could be edited by my employers. looks great in open office, so i hope they can actually edit it in the word97 export. hmm.

just now i spent a couple hours sorting a big backlog of emails that have been hovering for months. (reducing my hotmail inbox from 190 to 30).

it seems like there is much to do. but I’ve only just come out of the haze of last week’s insanity, and haven’t regained the trains of thought that were piled up before.

occurs to me i need to refine at least 5 story boards, which were basically sloppy stick figures. shouldn’t wait for the employers to call me on them. hmm. but i’ve been kind of mystified by their lack of communication so far. hmm.

also need to work on the “fun funeral” flash game, so i’ll have something to show at the next meeting. came up with an idea on how to circumvent the over-long intro animation (for now). hmm.

but really, i feel like i should be working on vidHero #2. because i’d planned to have it finished by september, and here we are. EEK. i keep thinking about it. at least 3 different times during every day, for a week or three now. many strange conflicting thoughts about goals (dumbed down. action packed. reinventing the flashback. obsessively true to downtown portland building layouts), and arbitrary rules (beginning and ending each flashback with words that cover the transition. handling each moment of violence with at least 3 buildup and 2 aftermath frames, to improve the pacing/reader-thrill. working in more bullet holes that show last and next page artwork).

and part of me recalls jotting down many different specific notes in text files and on artwork and binder paper, while i was cranking out the first issue. i’m kind of dreading the process of digging all of these up and seeing how they all work together (or conflict). In general, the whole idea was just to make the second issue tell the story of a climactic violent fight, and fuck around with flashbacks to work in more “boring/funny” scenes that i cut from the first issue. It doesnt’ do much to sum up my thoughts on joey shoemocker though. which became the point. at some point. hmm.

anywho. that is where i am today. just thought i should post for posterity.

that headline was another alternate title for issue two (been fiddling around with various goofy/bad phrases).

in related news, Issue one is officially done. sent it off to 2 pals for thoughts. will print out on my crappy printer for other friends to review/comment on.

But really, i think it’s close enough. Only planning to entertain advice about glaring typos. All other feedback can be applied to issue2, cuz this bitch is cooked.

Next up is the cover (color! eek!), and then prepping extraneous pages to flesh out the print run (letters, copyrights, sketchbook, previews, etc.).

So I want to be excited! but instead i’m kind of exhausted and defeated by the process. woof. more later.

well, two good friends have commented on the “final” revision of issue one.

a little disconcerting that it appears the issue “works much better” now. but is also totally derailed from what jonason was thinking of when initially helping me write the script. it’s no longer about two movie geeks going to the movies. now much more of a rumination on Joel Schumacher and his movies (to a fault? is it too much Schumacher for any audience to enjoy? or not enough? wha?) and it’s pretty dense with text again.

i’m a little bummed at the moment, as I’d hoped to put it to bed happy. so i’m thinking i’ll go back and try to work in more of jonason’s dialogue where/if i can, to preserve some of the character. not sure if this is possible but will try. and then i’ll put it to bed angry. Hope it works despite the total change of tone.

It’s like turning Clerks into Daredevil. Kinda worried that it’s just massaging the worst of both genre’s (failures?) and not nearly daring enough.

Hoping strangers will be able to pick it up and enjoy it. that is the only remaining goal. urgh. And vaguely praying that it will indeed get better in the remaining two issues. and that Jonason won’t just jump ship completely because it ain’t his style of story anymore. eek. urgh. sleep. work.

 

that title is one of many alternate titles for issue two. wee.

I’ve reworked the first issue. hopefully much improving it. hmm. just sent off 72dpi versions of each page to trusted confidants for the final critical review. Very exciting to think it might finally be done!

and by done i mean : something i could manage to be vaguely proud of.

which would be a big step forward. I’ve been working all night. so maybe it’s the mid morning optimism illusion. maybe i should have slept on it. I can already think of a couple things to add in. but, at some point you have to shoot the engineers and barrel into production. that’s a paraphrase of some advice my dad likes to give me everytime i see him.

mostly i keep thinking “I can live with rough art, and i can live with a cliche story. but i can’t live with confusing art or a badly told story.” woof. anywho. progress. a bit late for the Olympia show this weekend. probably. but progress feels good. i’m eager to put it to bed and move on to the multitude of other aspects to this vidHero project. And eager to put some more time in on the various entertainment time sinks. crack crack crack.

right now, its time to sleeeeep.