Just a Tad

More of That Girl

Lord knows why, but one of the first things I did with Spryte after I left Disney was to sit down and write a chapter of a young adult novel.  Did I have visions of creating the next Harry Potter?  No, being that calculating rarely works out.  I just wanted to tell her story and came up with this scene from her past. I never edited or polished it but just click on it anyway (it's only two pages). Download Chapter 1

About four years later I did that same scene in comic form. 

 

 
 For the moment, let's ignore the primitive quality of my prose attempt and my lousy inks on the comic page (I'm having a hard time not using photoshop right now to correct the nose in the last panel) and instead talk about my attraction to the three mediums that I explored with Spryte, animation, prose and comic.  

The thing they all have in common, and what I've made a career of, is storytelling.  I'm a storyteller.  I remember sitting on a curb at twilight with my childhood buddy, Kent Smith, and spinning a story from thin air about giant bats invading Priscilla Lane and carrying off our friends.  I improvised campfire tales of Wolf Winds and a hunter who was transformed into a bear from rough outlines and half remembered short stories when I was a counselor at Woodcraft Ranger Camp in Lake Arrowhead.  At Disney I switched to story from animation because I spent more time coming up with new animation tests than actually animating them.  People might not like a given story I'm telling but it doesn't mean I didn't have fun telling it.

First, prose, the oldest medium of the three and the one I've done the least work in.  Writing treatments and full outlines don't count because telling a story in prose is more than recounting a succession of events with odd bits of dialogue thrown in.  Well written prose can focus a reader's brain to an extent that he's oblivious to the world around him.  All five of his senses are somehow engaged in the pages of the book.  The reader may not only be transported into the adventure but even into the brain of the protagonist, hearing his thoughts and emotions.  

This is usually done by including detail: the frayed edges on a dress plucked from a thrift store rack, the mental thread a character strings between a doll and his mother's laugh or the coppery scent of the blood spreading from under a closed door.  My attraction to prose is that it allows a one man band to play a symphony; the author is in complete control of what ends up on the page with absolutely no budget restraints.  Sure an editor may give notes or gentle guidance but at the end of the day the decision is that of the person writing in the notebook or tapping on her laptop. I also enjoy the literary cheats of prose.  For instance, I love how Carbunkle's voice sounds "like gravel going down a drain" as long I don't have to find an actor with that sound.

 So maybe I should return to that chapter above and have Spryte catch a whiff of Grandma's perfume when she huddles under the quilt.  That could trigger memories that give the little girl enough strength to lower the covers and see what happened.  The more I think about it, the more I feel that I could learnt to enjoy that... but I don't now.  I don't want to spend the time describing the way Uncle Greg blended an assortment of feathers to create the perfect fly fishing lure.  Not when I can show it.  And that is why I work with pictures.  

More to come...

The Girl I Can't Forget

Somewhere within 20 ft. of me is a small sketchbook with my first drawing of Spryte/Emmaryn.  It was drawn on top of a plateau in Sedona, Arizona at the end of a trail that almost killed me.  They should install escalators there, it'd make nature easier to appreciate.  Anyway, I'm not going to dig up that sketch now but there was something about it that said, "Hey, I'm a real person."  Curiously, although she's been with me through many incarnations, she's never looked exactly like that sketch.  But she's been a sidekick, a lead, a precocious ten year old, a self conscious teen, a chapter of a novel, a terrible screenplay, a published comic story, an unpublished comic and several pitches for an animated show.

I'll tell you right off that what I should do, what I need to do, is to write a comic story for her, a self contained, done in one, comic story.  Because I've pitched her in many forms but it's only when I put her in a story that she comes alive, enough to say, "Yes, this is how I should be," or "You've made a terrible, terrible mistake and you're taking it out on me."  So over the next few posts I'll share some of the paths I've taken and share some thoughts on them like a commentary track on a movie that was never made.

 Here's what sticks in every incarnation: She's half human and half faerie (on her father's side), something she discovered when she suddenly grew wings.  She is drafted into a sort of Faerie Men in Black organization.  They keep the secrets of what we would term the paranormal world.  She wears an oversized, black leather jacket that belonged to her father.  She rarely takes it off.

She first surfaced as a sidekick to MAGE RAVEN, a full faerie who turned out to be her uncle.  They were aided by a boogeyman named CARBUNKLE who's also gone through lots of changes from comic relief to Machiavellian mastermind trying to keep her safe.  But in that first incarnation he was a gruff guy who gave them their assignments.  I pitched the show at Disney and it was the only piece that I made sure I still had the rights to develop on my own when I left.  

But the pitch was very well received and would have gone into official development had they not just decided to develop AMERICAN DRAGON, a series about a boy who learns he is actually a dragon.  That show had a very bumpy development and was nearly dropped a couple of times but it finally made it to air.

I decided to lose Mage Raven, gave Spryte a cynical attitude and pitched her to Anissa Dorsey, then at Cartoon Network, who really liked the idea of a goth faerie who was the opposite of Disney Princess types that she'd meet in Faerie.  But parts of my pitch seemed thematically close to something they had just optioned.  Even after she left CN, Anissa remembered the character.  She called to tell me to pitch it at Nickelodeon who were looking for strong girl leads with a fantasy connection at the time, a female Harry Potter if you will.  But at the time I was starting what was supposed to be a long line of Hellboy Animated movies so I never showed it to Nick.

The next thing  I did, mostly as a lark, was to write a chapter of it as a book.  I'll have to read that over and decide how embarrassing it is before I post it.   I'll save that and more for next time.  -- Tad

 
 

 

 

Start Saying Yes

After 30 years at Disney the studio switched to a "what have you done for us lately?" policy and I found myself out in the real world.  Previously the policy was to find talented people and keep them.  The transition happened over years and I believe mine was the last term contract to play out.  A term contract signs you for a span of time as opposed to a show contract that signs you for a specific project.  These days, most artists don't have either contract; they're hired when there's work and fired when it's gone.  Actually Disney TV was one of the last hold outs.  Now, like all the studios, animation teams are treated like live action crews.  A director may hire the same crew for all his movies, but he doesn't pay them to hang around between films.  All studios make exceptions for specific individuals, of course.  If a studio wants you bad enough you can get whatever deal you wish...but they have to want you really, really bad.  

Anyway, in 2003 I found myself a free agent.  The downside of working for Disney for so long was that I wasn't well known outside the studio.  I never made all the outside connections that would make for a smooth jump to another studio.  Thank goodness I had all that vacation time saved up that my boss never let me take.  But although little money was made that year, I did find myself taking a variety of odd jobs.  This one was huge for me...psychologically.  I love hiring people much more talented than me to work on my projects.  So when someone asked me to do a piece of  pitch art, I started spinning my mental rolodex.  But then I realized that they were asking ME and that I had to learn to say "Yes, I can do that."

It was just two simple pitch cards that were made to look like comic pages.  I roughed them, got 'em okayed, broke out my "Kirby dots" and delivered on time.  I thing the overall feel is still good but the pages actually played right to a weakness of mine, perspective and mechanical objects.  But the cars were for a younger set than the usual transformers so a cartoonish look was acceptable. The toys,Phat Boyz, had a cool, low and wide, design.  If the project had taken off, I would've been connected in some way, perhaps running the show.  So I said yes.  And these are the results.  I don't think  I would have done them any differently if I tried it today.  I'd just draw them better.

 -- Tad

Filling the Empty Room

Besides creating an interesting plot, memorable characters, sharp dialog and scripting it all in an entertaining way, an animation writer is required to do one more thing, make it easier for the next guy.   If he does it right the final result will be that much better.

Although it’s not my main point, I’ll touch on the production side first.  Somebody has to draw everything that’s described in the script so a production friendly writer will tell his story with the least amount of new characters, props and backgrounds.  Does a scene really have to start on the front porch, continue in the foyer and finish in the living room?  Can’t we pick up the action just as they’re entering the living room?  Do we have to see the bull breaking everything in the China Shop or can we set it up with a look of horror when the protagonist sees where the bull has appeared then pay it off with sound effects?  If there’s an “Around the World” montage, can it be done with locations that were designed for previous episodes?

But there’s a line between efficient and boring that your story editor will draw.  Often he’ll tell you not to worry about it since he’s the one that gets notes from the network and studio who want more for less.  The network might be expecting to see every broken saucer in that China Shop.  (Somewhere a prop designer just woke up screaming.)

The “next guy” I was talking about up top is the storyboard artist.  He has to fill in all the action specifics that the writer leaves out.  The writer isn't expected to detail every punch and dodge but he has to lay out some basics.  Coming up with interesting action will be a lot easier if the writer gives some extra thought to set design.

What’s being stored in the warehouse?  If you were writing a Batman comic in the early Silver Age, most likely it would be a giant parade float or oversized advertising prop.  In the example below, Batman and Robin can launch themselves off typewriter keys, tie up thugs in typewriter ribbon or be knocked out by an unexpected carriage return.  (I add this Wikipedia link for those who have no clue about what I just described).  Maybe your warehouse is a little more “real world” but the basic idea is the same whether you’re writing comedy or drama: fill it with stuff that will help or hinder your characters.  Spilled powders can start people coughing or form a cloud to conceal or cover the floor to make tracking easier.  Spilled fluids may be flammable or extra slippery.  Pipes or barrels can be rolled or fall loudly to give away a hiding place.  Think of anything that is a problem to one of your five senses and fill a crate with it.

But don’t just think of what’s in those crates.  Think about how those things are moved.  There are forklifts to be driven.  Maybe conveyor belts, either automated or covered in rollers - both excellent for classic "running like hell but not getting anywhere" gags.  Some warehouses are automated with shelving units two stories high.  More height = more potential jeopardy by falling or being fallen upon.  Of course, automated systems can be commandeered and turned into lethal weapons, at least they do if you design them that way.  Is there any sort of chain hoist hanging from the ceiling, maybe with a heavy, dangerous-looking, iron hook on the end of it?

Some of this sort of thinking should be done at the premise stage.  You know there’s an action set piece in the third act.  At that stage you can set it anywhere.  Brainstorming powers activate!  

Land, sea or air?  Zoo, ship or zepplin?  Let’s say “ship.” Try to think of every option at every step of the way.  Is the ship docked or under way?  Civilian or military?  Surface or submarine?  Working or abandoned? Is the weather, time of day or sea life a factor?  How might the environment affect the five senses of the characters?  Every combination of the above brings different action potential. 

So now that you’ve trapped your characters in the airpockets of a sunken cargo ship with the only exit point being patrolled by hammerhead sharks while a fierce storm at the surface erases any chance of rescue, you are a long way toward writing an exciting sequence.   Just put yourself in the place of your character.  You’re no longer in an empty room.  You’re in a specific place with specific stuff around you in a specific situation.  It’s now much easier to come up with action or comedy beats because you know what would logically be around you and what you might instinctively reach for.  You also know the dangers you face and, as the writer, know how to make it worse.  If only a pocket of air is keeping you from drowning and or being eaten by a shark, you simply let the action create a leak.  Air escaping, water rising, sharks closing in.

Cant’ wait to see how you get out of that one.  --Tad

 

BRAINSTORMING

Brainstorm, blue sky thinking, spitballing, whatever you call it, there is no more important an activity for an animation writer or storyboard artist than the free associating of ideas.  If you’re not good at this, you can train yourself and I'll give some ideas at the end of the post.

In the summer of my junior year, knowing that it was the last chance to try anything different before “real life” began after graduation, I spent every day creating and trying to sell gag cartoons.  Okay, maybe I should have hitchhiked across Europe but chaining myself to a drawing board is what I did.  Every day, like I was punching a clock, I tried to come up with single panel gags.  I quickly filled a bulletin board filled with rejection letters.  Got close twice.  The Saturday Evening Post, the last of the great magazines that printed gag panels, kept one for further consideration before they passed.  Then in a letter to my girlfriend, a doodled a gag cartoon of a parent holding the hand of a child at Disneyland who was floating along, being lifted by a Mickey Mouse balloon.  The next month I saw the exact cartoon without the Disney overlay.  It wasn’t theft, but it showed I was on the right track.

 Maybe I was carving new wrinkles into the lobes of my brain.  All I knew was that my the end of the summer I could generate all sorts of gags on about  any situation.   The bulk of them were lame but it was something I couldn’t manage at summer’s start.

 About two years later I was at Disney and moving into the story department.  The Rescuers was finishing and Fox and Hound was getting underway.  Back then, there was no script to work from.  Animators and Storymen read the source materia then batted around ideas until the clothesline of a story emerged.  Then a storyboard guy was handed a sequence, like the meeting of the kit fox and the puppy. 

The idea was that they’d start out as friends.  Side note: without a script, every storyboard artist was a writer, a “storyman” if you will.  Anyway he’d brainstorm ways they could meet: fox curious about the chicken coop, puppy falls out of the hunter’s car and gets lost in the woods or the two decide to play games.  Kids make friends instantly.  The sequence should feel natural to a human but not ignore the animal traits of the characters.   Most of these options would be talked out with the director before drawing starts.  Of course, everybody knew that the more visual the choice, the better.  If “playing” is picked, it was up to the storyboard guy to brainstorm all sorts of possibilities and do it with drawings.  After he had a 4’ x 8’ bulletin board covered with sketches, there’d be another meeting with the director and key animators.  Everything is considered but the job is to narrow it down to a single direction.

So they picked a game of “Hide and Seek” because it’s a familiar kids game and it will show off the abilities of the animals, the cleverness of the fox and the scent tracking of the hound.  These abilities would be mirrored when they meet again as adults and when the stakes are much higher.  This process is repeated: brainstorm then narrow it down, brainstorm then narrow it down.  It keeps things entertaining, it constantly considers fresh directions and it keeps the film visual.

There’s an old animation trope that development execs parrot all the time, “Why does it have to be animated?”  In the age of cheap CG, it has become BS.  It was true once, but any of the Disney animated features can now be down as live action films with similar sensibilities.  Tim Burton is working on Alice in Wonderland even as we speak and the line between live action and animation was forever blurred by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and of course the Star Wars movies.  What IS important is to keep the storytelling and entertainment based in strong visuals.  “The animation is better without dialogue,” another ancient saying, also BS.  Clever and character defining dialogue adds more entertainment.   Yes, great animation can be silent but it can also be talky as all get out.  Doubt me?  Go rewatch the creation of Robin Williams and Eric Goldberg in Aladdin known as “Genie.”

But I’ve digressed.   My “Summer of Bad Gags” was great prep for that kind of visual story development.  And it’s paid off in scriptwriting too but I’ll save that for the next post.

 Brainstorming is mental improv.  The basic rule when brainstorming with others is the same as in improv: “Yes And.”    You accept what is given and build on it.  Picture two actors side by side on folding chairs.  If Actor A says, “I’m really happy driving my new car,” Actor B should NOT deny that idea by saying, “Car?  This is your Dad’s spaceship!” or "Are you deranged?  These are folding chairs."  That denies the premise and the scene must start over.  Possible yes statements:  “Wow. This must have cost a lot.  Oh, is that a scratch?” / “It’s beautiful… and this gun says it now belongs to me!” /  “Yeah, it’s uh, certainly unique.  I’ve never seen a car customized with both flames and polka dots.” / “Is that a voice I hear coming from the trunk?”  All of those statements accepted the idea that the two were in a car then added new information that offered a story direction.  When brainstorming, consider every idea and explore it.  What can you add?  What are some visual possibilities?  Listen.  Don’t be so anxious to add your idea that you don’t give other ideas a fair investigation.  The trick is that you often have to do this within your own head.  You need to free associate before you pick a path.  Otherwise, you’ll just be choosing the most obvious route.

 Here’s an exercise:  Find a webpage with a bunch of objects.  Try an eBay search for "antique" or look at Amazon gift suggestions.  Make a quick list of about ten objects, as varied as possible.  Then you need professions.  After you've listed ten jobs, list ten character types; clichés are fine.  Bully, femme fatale, slob, know it all, shy girl, good ol’ boy, over-achiever, whatever.

Okay, take one from each column and write down as many gags that come to you.  I’m not talking one-liners, I mean funny situations or a visual gag.  Push yourself to actually make it a complete gag.  I’m not going to do the math but those three columns can be mixed up in all sorts of ways to give you a fresh jumping off points.  You could end up generating a full length feature idea from this sort of exercise.  Revisit the list everyday.  If you’re in a studio or class with others, try it as a group.  It’ll get easier and easier for you.  Dive in and don’t come out until your brain is all pruny and wrinkled.    -- Tad

 

 

Taking the Test

An extended visit by a charming two year old and her baby brother, a storyboard assignment, Halloween, a snail slow computer connection and a storyboard test… all things that kept me away from this blog. Well, those and a lack of inspiration but one of those lame excuses is worth talking about here. 

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been writing or drawing or how much experience you’ve racked up or how many millions of dollars you’ve made for some company, sooner or later someone is going to ignore all that and ask you to do a test to prove that you can do a job you’ve been performing for years. 

In my case, I had no hesitation. I’ve done plenty of storyboards throughout the years but usually bits and pieces or thumbnail roughs to let storyboard artists know what I wanted. This test was for a prime time animated series and, rightly or wrongly, the producers want to make sure the artists aren’t going to board it like some kids’ cartoon series. Again, we can debate the idea that the script and budget dictate the way an artist boards but we allow producers their insecurities. 

Tests like these are invariably done for free. I don’t think there’s any union rule against it. If the industry is short of artists, you might not get away with it but now there are plenty of artists looking for work and more pouring out of art schools all the time.

 As soon as I read the cover letter in the PDF, I knew I was screwed, at least potentially screwed. All tests had to be completed in Photoshop or ToonBoom Storyboard. No pencil or paper was to be used in the process. I flashed on my early days of story editing. 

Just a few weeks after chipping their ideas into rock walls with chisels made of other rocks, screenwriters used these big metal things called “typewriters” to write their scripts. After you had written your masterpiece you usually retyped it, slowly, trying to make as few mistakes as possible because if you made a mistake you had to start the page over, or cross it out and write the correction over it by hand or use the white gunk that made Michael Nesmith’s mother rich to blot out the error and delicately type over it. This usually resulted in the white gunk chipping off and you’d restart the page anyway. If you came up with a better way to describe something or an improved scene, you’d try your best to talk yourself out of it. If you failed you’d restart the page again. The physical act of writing was much more tedious than it is now. Although, because it was a pain, you tended to think things out in more detail before committing them to page. 

I moved from features to television animation just as personal computers were creeping into the work place. Soon every story editor had some sort of word processor on his desk but not every free lancer did. Story editors began to expect rewrites at computer speed while the poor writer was still pounding on the backbone of a Smith Corona dinosaur. Writers had no choice but to sacrifice their next paycheck to the high priests of KayPro, Atari, Commodore 64, Tandy and Apple. Actually Apple came later. Technology changed the time allotted for a rewrite, a polish and suddenly executives didn’t feel as restrained about giving major notes late in the process. It’s all “Find and Replace” isn’t it? 

This same sort of sea change may be happening to artists right now. Nickelodeon Studios is a paperless studio. More and more Cintiqs are popping up on desks that no longer have a light table on them. Some of the top storyboard artists travel from studio to studio toting tablet laptops like the Toshiba M700 using programs like Sketchbook Pro. On the Hellboy Animated movies, we had one artist who didn’t send us boards at all. He sent an animatic that was generated as part of his digital process. 

I do not have a Cintiq or a Toshiba or a Macbook turned Modbook (duhrool, duhrool). I’ve had a wacom tablet for years but rarely sketched on it. I used it for cleaning up art or coloring. Recently I started sketching on it but nowhere near enough to get my hand/eye coordination ready for my test. But I had no choice and dove in.

 I survived. By the end of the week long test I was mostly comfortable with it. In fact I forced myself to do my storyboard revisions for my WB work assignment on the computer, printing them out and taping them to my existing pencil boards. There were just a couple of panels that I felt I needed pencil and paper to complete. 

So if you’re not already, start practicing with your Wacom tablet, pen on table, eyes on screen. If you can afforded it, upgrade your tech so you can actually draw on the screen. If you need to be portable, there’s some decent options on the PC side and only the Modbook on the Mac side. Yes, I know the real “MacTablet” will be here any day but none of the rumors I’ve read talk about it being artist friendly. For now, I’m going to keep up my sketching, eyes and hands working on different planes, saving my pennies and hoarding my metaphorical bottles of White-out.