Friday, March 20, 2009

“Bitsa This, Bitsa That”

Unbalanced preproduction continues to chug along.  We have a modest handful of volunteers and low-cost laborers assembling various aspects of the show that will, I hope, bring some of the script’s ideas to life.  We’re tackling two of the most challenging bits right now: character/costume design, and set design for Wendy’s fantasy world.

I hired Greg Miller, a talented young illustrator, to read the script and sketch out Mongor and Carl, our two fantasy creatures.  His challenge was to create characters that would look menacing at night but comical by day.  I think he succeeded:

Mongor the Heart Gouger

I love the yellow orbs, which evoke a kind of ragged clown-suit.  My challenge is how to implement this design in the real world with a micro-budget.

Through the magic of eBay, I found a custom leatherwork shop, who quoted me a totally reasonable price for this custom work.  I think their customers primarily come from LARPing circles; check out their gallery on flickr.  Dealing with them, even across the Atlantic, has been a pleasure, and they send me progress reports every so often:

Mongor’s front, raw leather

Mongor’s front, partially treated

A horn from eBay.  I do not condone the slaughter of cows for film projects (only for meat and revenge).

I’ve also got a wonderful pro bono seamstress who has agreed to work on some of the other costumes.  It’s fun to see pieces slowly assemble, and our basement looks like a defunct Halloween shop.

As for Wendy’s fantasy world, we still haven’t figured it out yet, but the working idea is to slide-project fantasy images onto the apartment walls in order to evoke a different world without actually having to create the world.  Shoestring, people!

If you are bored you might enjoy these projector tests, created with my camera, a Kodak Ektagraphic III (generously donated by Matt McLaughlin), and a 150W cheapo fresnel.  If you are not bored, I recommend you utilize your time for something more productive or fun.  Life is short, the internet is forever.

Friday, February 20, 2009

It’s like a terrible comic book

At the moment, Jeremiah, Jason and myself are divvying up the “Unbalanced” preproduction script for the purposes of storyboarding.  In my experience, storyboarding is a weird mixture of excitement and reluctant resignation; it’s great to “see” the words on the page in rough imagery, but committing myself to a single visual interpretation is scary.  In a worst case scenario, where we don’t have the luxury of shooting good coverage, what I draw is what the final product will be.

Given lots of toys, tools, and a budget, I can imagine storyboarding to be totally awesome, a protean graphic novel that’s as evocative as it is precise.  I get fired up over Watchmen storyboards, which have the luxury of being derived from a graphic novel/script combo, but which also tell a story of their own:

Here are some glimpses from the trailer….

(I can’t wait for this f’ing movie.  If you haven’t read the graphic novel yet, do yourself a favor—hold off on seeing the movie until you read the original.)

Anyway, our modest sets/budget/timetables and my devolved drawing skills pale in comparison.  Here’s an excerpt from one of my storyboarding chunks, a quick walkthrough of an office aftermath:

Script:

INT. OFFICE
Ian walks through an empty office to his cube. Evidence of calamity is everywhere - overturned plants, papers and boxes strewn about, empty rooms…
Ian notices a queer motivational poster on the wall. It depicts a cat riding jet-skis, and it reads: “’America is another name for opportunity,’ Ralph Waldo Emerson.” Ian absorbs this, gets an idea.

Storyboard:

It’s no aerosol flamethrower, but… it’s a sequence!

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Unbalanced

Last fall, I realized that my artistic output thus far has been heavy on improv and sketch comedy, and while those are fine stepping stones toward a career in the entertainment industry, I didn’t really have anything to show for my hard work, at least to somebody in LA.  Improv lives and dies in the moment it’s created, and stage projects like The Wasteland Comedy Hour don’t “archive” well as little embedded Google videos.  There are some film sketches I’m proud of, but with the collapse of SuperDeluxe—which we used to host our standalone sketches—most of those bite-sized bits have disappeared into the ether.

So, like a good aspiring writer/producer/showrunner, I decided to write a script with the intention of producing it this summer.  Put my money where my mouth is, organize the pieces, recruit the people, and make it happen.  Six months and countless drafts later, I’m entering into preproduction for this same script, an independent television pilot that I hope will tour a few festivals.  It’s called “Unbalanced,” it’s a comedy, and it’s all I can think about—and thus, all I can write about.

A real movie prop!  Just like in the movies!

I have really good people working with me to help make this pilot a reality.  Jeremiah Jordan is bringing his expertise to the Director’s chair.  Jason Haas is bringing his vision to the role of Director of Photography.  I have an amazingly talented core cast—almost entirely volunteer improvisers—with only a few supporting roles left to fill.  I’ve called in favors and gotten some amazing help with everything from crewing to costuming.  These are the elements that give me hope.  The rest of the moving parts—schedules, locations, sets, props, lights, audio, makeup, fx—are insomnia fuel. 

It comes with the territory, so I’m not complaining.  On the contrary, there’s a kind of energizing zealotry to overseeing so many elements, and being charged with bringing many of them together into a unified whole.  That’s what drew me to Producing in the first place: a frothy mix of control and collaboration.  I trust my team, and I’m excited about where we’re headed.  This is going to happen, and regardless of the final product, it’s an project worth pursuing.  It’s sure to surpass “educational” value (which is one of my safety phrases when thinking about failed or disappointing projects), and be a thing that really does appeal to more than friends, family, and collaborators.  In short: it’s not the production or the producing that makes me restless.  What really keeps me up at night are my old, tired, persistent insecurities about writing.

I believe that the story we’re trying to tell is interesting, fun, and worthy of becoming an episodic tale.  But I won’t know that for sure until I’m looking at living, breathing, edited footage.  In the meantime, all we can do it put faith in the story, and improve it on the fly as we see need.  Insomnia fuel!

Another movie prop!  It almost looks real!

Journaling is supposed to be therapeutic, right?  I think it was John August’s blog that exposed me to the term “process geek”—somebody who geeks out over how a thing gets done (even if they have no investment in the final product, which is not the case for “Unbalanced”).  I am a process nerd, and I want to document this project in case it’s useful to anybody else, future self included.  I’m going to try and share as much of my process as I can, without spoiling the finished product or trumping my own publicity.  I am an advocate of open source, and most of my blog readers have already been exposed to one draft of the script or another.

This was the first draft of the script I shared, then titled “My Sister’s Psychosis.”

At some point I’ll post the final draft, which is very, very different.  The story has evolved for the better, thanks to the feedback of Jeremiah, Sarah, Jason, and a roundtable of trusted readers.  I’m keeping that draft internal for now, just so not all of my cards are on the table.

Maybe it’s interesting, maybe it isn’t.  In any case, it’s how I’m kicking off the official blogging of the “Unbalanced” television pilot: a glimpse into the story’s prototype.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Bolt Blog

I’m currently on my fourth Bolt Bus journey between Boston and New York in as many weekend-days.  The in-bus wifi is slow, but steady, and before I plunge into another week of Boston-area chaos I thought I’d recap some notables from the last two weeks…

-Code Duello: Hamilton & Burr had a blast at The P.I.T. NYC.  Friday night’s theme was Separation of Church and State.  Saturday night’s was Shipwreck & the Underwater Kingdom.  Oh improv.

-Caught Three Hole Punch in their Wednesday night slot at ImprovBoston.  Four very talented ladies perform a longformy mix of improv, improvised songs, and sketch.  This Wednesday is your last chance to see the show, so get your butt out to see them.

-Bolt Bus is the Boston->NY commuter’s new hero.  As I mentioned, it has free wifi.  It also has extremely cheap fares and efficient travel times.  But best of all, it has consistently sassy drivers.  I can’t even summarize the amount of (playful, lighthearted) sass I’ve witnessed or been subjected to.  They certainly seem to be in better moods than their Greyhound/Peter Pan counterparts.

-I put the finishing touches on the production draft of “Unbalanced,” the teleplay we’re gearing up to shoot over the summer.  I’ve got a lovely team of talent comprising the core cast, and some solid, dependable visionaries on the crew.  There are still roles left to fill, both behind and in front of the camera, but we have enough of a foundation to get the production ball rolling.

And thus, the first month of 2009 speeds to a close.  If January is any indication, this year is going to be busy but very, very exciting.