Juggling

So I'm currently juggling multiple projects. Currently I'm working on 3 projects and thinking of adding a 4th.

The Directionless Pilot is in the storyboard stage. I've decided on a simpler animation style simliar the Simpsons or Family Guy where frame by frame will only be used for big motions. Since it's a 8 minute video, my first round is storyboarding is extremely loose. Once the storyboard is complete, I'll re-edit the script(since storyboarding will surely reveal new dialogue, pacing, and things unseen right now) and do the final voice overs with the actors. I'm aiming for within 2 weeks.

The Way West (commonly referred to as the Winter White video in previous posts) is also in production. I started animating it even though the storyboard isn't complete.

The other project on the table is actually a commercial I am animating for television.

And I am considering animating a Cat Stevens song.

This is a lot of projects I am juggling and I would like to release something in March. It looks like "The Way West" will be done sometime in March, or at least that's the goal.

Hello

Since I finished writing the pilot episode now I move into the storyboard/animatic stage. There will probably be another rewrite that occurs to make everything funnier during this stage but I am excited to get it started. It's been a long time in the making.

It will be more limited animation than my previous cartoons, so I will be focusing on staging and posing the characters to compensate for the lack of frames. Music is also extremely important for the series. I will try to get in contact with some bands I like and ask for permission to use their music ( primarily Relient K, The Dear Hunter, and possibly others). I will be composing all the other music for the series. There will be some other musical treats for the series where entire songs will need to be written, but more on that later.

Plot spoiler, Jeff doesn't find his direction over the course of these 6 episodes (maybe he doesn't I actually haven't written episode 6 yet :o ). But I will say, the journey is much more exciting than the destination.

Vocal talents will be supplied by various people I know.

When I have more material complete I still plan on starting a Kickstarter account to help fund the project.

Directionless Update

Writing a pilot is very difficult. I've been struggling to write the directionless pilot for over a year now. At the beginning of this month I finally sat down and wrote a pilot episode from start to finish. A big aspect of my writing style is rewriting. Starting over and keeping what worked and getting rid of what didn't work. It also means if I am not careful I will end up in an endless loop of writing and never finishing.

Currently with Directionless, I've rewritten the first episode twice and I am on my third rewrite now. Hopefully this will be the last one. Each of the episodes following the pilot are much easier to write out so they aren't giving me the same amount of trouble.

Hard to believe that around year ago I was just starting up Directionless - Job Hunt. There was also a ton of snow on the ground so all the comics were snow related. In fact a year ago I was just putting the finishing touches on Directionless Anime Intro. Directionless was inspired to have wacky stories like Ranma 1/2 which is why I made the fan video.

I finished the first part of the story for the Winter White series(the previous post was referring to that video). It's a lot of fun to write.

Card in Sleeve + Lorem Ipsum

So I started storyboarding a music video/story. I like how it looks. It gives me something very different than "Directionless" to work on and think about. The video is currently untitled but the song titles are Card in Sleeve and Lorem Ipsum. Slowly as I am writing it it's becoming a story with the music as a backdrop. It's possible down the line I may cut out the music in favor of sound effects but I don't think that is likely.

At this point it's looks like Night Life won't be made anytime soon.

Whenever I work on longer projects I always have an "exhaust" project. Something that deals with simliar themes to the big project but is something I work on to give my mind something else to think about. It's basically like if I come up with one story, another one appears. This one looks like Directionless's exhaust story. This is a much shorter term project though. We'll see what happens.

I'm also hoping to make a short 30 second animation. Since both these projects are pretty long term, I'd like to release something by the end of the month.

Directionless

I've decided to put all further Directionless updates onto this blog. I was already splitting the Directionless posts between my two sites but I think it will just be easier to use one. The first episode is written and I've started writing the next few. I have not decided on my animation style.

Directionless Full Cast

So I put all the characters from Directionless in this nifty drawing. Head over to the Directionless. Most recent designs are on the left. After the punk-ish looking girl the designs are from over a year ago.

Majority of the characters in the comic/existing animations won't be appearing in the animated series.

Some Wallpapers

Kitty

So the kitty idea has been expanded and changed. Here is a style frame I put together. It is now called "Things my Cat Does". It will be a somewhat random series of funny stuff that this cat does(with or without the owner). I want to try to come up with a story throughout too. I would like to tie all the random events together somehow. That is all.

Duck