The tagline for Sarah Polley's directorial debut, Away from Her read, "It's never too late to become what you might have been." While I liked the film a great deal (one of the better films of 2007, surely), that is, of course, not true (its relevance to its film is dubious, too). Sometimes people get cancer or lose limbs or get shot or something. However, sometimes you actually do get to take care of something you suspected you'd never get another crack at.
Two years ago, I was set to direct a short film that was postponed indefinitely when the majority of my cast dropped out last minute. "Indefinitely" frequently means forever, but here it turned out to be two years. Over the weekend, my crew and I shot a little film called The Importance of Tolerance. It turns out that this may indeed be one of those oft-mentioned "blessings in disguise," because the change in cast (the first time I've collaborated with high school friend William Stewart in six years) and our overall advancement in technical and artistic abilities have given this film a kick that we just wouldn't have had in 2005. It feels good to resurrect and complete a project long thought dead.
Currently, I'm entrenched in editing this project and coordinating an edit with editor Patrick Svensson on The Interconnection of Mr. Daily (disturbingly similar titles for back-to-back projects). Post-productions rocks!
The Importance of Tolerance is something of a formal send-up of videos produced for and by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (those rascally Mormons). There's a peculiar aesthetic flavor to these Church-sponsored productions and we've done our best to ape it, as evidenced by the first official production still below, included by popular (i.e. cast member and collaborator Joseph Schlegel's) demand.
While preparing to shoot this, I tried to dig up as many of the videos I was once subjected to in numerous Sunday school and seminary classes. Alas, the Internet would seem to prefer people lip-syncing and clumsily gyrating to Justin Timberlake songs over ham-fisted, modern morality fables devoid of irony. I've culled what I can from YouTube for reference:
Pride: Something kind of bold for seminary videos: science fiction!
Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration: Apparently, since I've stopped paying attention, the Church has gone more Christian rock. However, this highlights the visual flair of Church productions wonderfully.
What Mormon Theology Is Really All About: Okay, this cartoon is a far cry from something the Mormons would produce (surprisingly, I don't think they'll ever attempt to debunk themselves), but it's a riot. Check out that sleazy God-strut.
If you stumble across any other fantastic bits of Mormon video (I'm looking for one in particular, which I believe is called The Joy of Missionary Work) on our favorite series of tubes, please let me know in the comments!
Effective as of a couple days ago, I've put to rest my pseudonym, Vincent Elliott. Henceforth, I shall be signing my work John D. Moore, much like I did two years ago before I adopted my silly and pretentious pen name.
What happened? As time went on, I came to hate it even more than my own boring, stale, and somewhat embarrassingly Anglo name. Enoch Allred and I have begun trying to sell a script; when it came time to sign our names to a query letter, I found I couldn't sign that name, so I signed it as John Moore. I figure that there will be less headache overall in the future if I don't continue to publish under a false name.
Hopefully, revoking the name will clear up more confusion than it will cause. I'll be systematically removing it from various materials here and elsewhere online over the next couple weeks.
The "within the week" I mentioned in my last post ended up being today. Dear readers, I submit to you my first animated short in seven years, "The Frog Prince."
Work has begun on my next animated short, to be titled "Prince Charming." It'll be a lot more intricate than this one. With luck, it'll only take about another month to finish.
UPDATE: August 23rd, 2007 This is actually a newer version. The audio sounds much cleaner on this version and I think the video may have rendered better as well.
So, the idea of a "dark and mature" reboot of the Darkwing Duck franchise got into my head. Then this happened:
Frankly, I still occasionally entertain the fanciful notion of one day resuscitating the Darkwing Duck franchise. I probably wouldn't want to go all Batman Begins on it, but I'd love to helm a movie one day. Which is just silly talk.
Meanwhile, I think "The Frog Prince" actually got some genuine laughs when it debuted on the 15th at Open Mic Night. It should be online in some form within the week.
Okay, Internets. Really, it pains me to do this, but I'm afraid it's time to bring out the chart again.
Got it? Let's try to do better in the future, please. Minding your p's and q's is all well and good, but it's apparently the vowels that are tripping you up.
There are few things worse than having the creative process stymied by technical difficulties and restrictions. Far too much of my time over the last couple days has been spent fiddling with video codecs and compression, trying to get various programs to do what I want them to do. Yet, finally, I have arrived at a satisfactory cut of The Frog Prince, provided I can properly get it onto a DVD. Once it premiers on Wednesday, I'll post a copy online. So, ahem, stay tooned current with frequent returns to this website.
As I mentioned in my last post, there are a couple other film projects underway. Additionally, I've returned to preproduction work on my next animated short, untouched since I last did some character design and rough storyboards over a year ago, though I'm currently touching up what I think is likely my final draft of the script. It, too, is a re-interpretive spin on a classic fairy tale. Ideally, I'd like to produce a third short in this vein, effecting a trilogy. That third idea just hasn't come, though, which is all the more impetus to read more fairy tales, as I always mean to do.
Once this next short is wrapped, I'm going to return to working on the animated series WiL in earnest. The project began nearly four years ago, stopping and starting in several bursts over the years, and needs some story issues resolved before I can move too far with it. The first episode of the planned ten episode season is almost fully animated, though. With any luck, I might be able to start getting them online by the end of the year. We'll see, though.
In working on The Frog Prince, I thought it might be fun to put it under a Bombdotcom Animation label in addition to/instead of the usual Bombdotcom Productions. I worked up a logo and began animating a studio tag for it. However, I ultimately decided it was too frivolous and perhaps a mite pretentious (Bombdotcom Animation Studios is a name bigger than the actual "studio"). I did like what I drew for it, though, so it's below:
For a couple of years now, I've been fumbling around in Flash, trying to convince myself I was something of an animator. Well, very soon I may be able to lay claim to that very title: my first animated short is nearly complete and should be premiering within the next week.
It's entitled "The Frog Prince," loosely based on a popular mutilation of the ill-understood story collected by those rascally Grimm Brothers. I started work on it something like eighteen months ago, producing most of the animation and a rough draft of the script. Then, as happens all too frequently, it just kind of got put away, stuffed thoughtlessly in the back flap of my wallet of projects, lost among a wadded mess of ticket stubs, postage stamps, and the souls of my enemies.
But, with the encouragement of a few friends to whom I read the screenplay, I decided to finish it. Frequent collaborator Enoch Allred came in and recorded one voice while I provided the other. In the last week, I've learned much about what I can do, what Flash can do, and what we just can't do together. Now, though, I'm putting the finishing touches on it in preparation for what should hopefully be its premiere at the Tower Theatre's Open Mic Night on Wednesday the 15th.
It's going to be a special kind of nerve-racking to watch my drawings projected onto a silver screen in front of hundreds of strangers. It'll likely be as anxiety-inducing as when I premiered The Mustache there last December. Still, I can't wait.
Also, just an update: The Interconnection of Mr. Daily wrapped production last month. It's currently in post-production, editing duties in the hands of the illustrious Patrick Svensson. We're hoping to have a a final cut within about a month. Meanwhile, there's a weekend shoot scheduled for the end of the month for a very short film I'll be directing.
It looks like we just might finally be getting off our lazy asses here at Bombdotcom.
