Project Waldo

I have a plan now, but it involves not posting here for a while. I'll be back someday! Thanks for your help, everybody!

Since I received my first round of critiques, I've been doing my best to upgrade the screenplay in piecemeal fashion. About a week ago, I started to bog down. The revisions were improving the script, but I could see that no matter how hard I worked, I'd only be able to gain half a letter grade, at best. Maybe from C- to a straight C. This was a tough pill to swallow, given the time I've sunk into this project. So I've spent the last few days moping. I bottomed out on Sunday. After having a long talk with Jiyoung, I decided to shelve the project. It was an emotional afternoon -- I was angry that I'd flushed such a big chunk of our personal savings down the toilet. I also felt embarrassed to have failed in the eyes of my friends and family. The turbulence subsided a little the next day, and I wasn't as sure about tossing Stareater. I saw that I had three options: Try to salvage Stareater. Take what I've learned and start a new project. Get a real job. Fixing t

Taking a break from drawing.  I got some great feedback from the first wave of screenplay guinea pigs, and here's the general message: It needs work. In fact, I was a little winded by the reaction. Embarrassed, even. Embarrassed enough that if I had a day job right now, I'd probably go back to it.  The situation being what it is, however, I've got no choice but to double back and fix the thing. And here's what needs fixin': The characters are unmotivated, unsympathetic, and identical to one another. At no point are their goals obvious.  The backstory is needlessly convoluted. Long-winded exposition bubbles up and kills the momentum about every five pages. The central mystery of the story is given away about halfway through act one. A girl falls in love with the weakest, least-lovable character in the story, and no explanation is given. Pretentious flashbacks galore There's probably more, but why nitpick?  I'll post again when the story gets out of the hospit

My blog posts have tapered a little as the workload has increased. Now that drawing has started in earnest, it's kind of tough to switch from image mode to word mode. But it's Saturday morning, and I'm waiting for Jiyoung to get up for breakfast. Blog time! Man, this is hard. I thought the writing was going to be the toughest part, but the storyboarding is brutal. I've spent the week trying to figure out the best working method, and I'm still wandering all over the place. Experiments have included: Using an internet-based timer to remind me when five minutes are up. And by "remind," I mean "scare me out of my skin." Man, is that thing jarring. I was only able to stick with this for a day -- five minutes per drawing over eight hours is just about the most exhausting thing you can do to your brain.  Using Painter instead of Photoshop to keep things impressionistic. Alas, it's so impressionistic that I have trouble telling if this or that blob i