The Questions

1. When does the story start?
2. What is the goal of my character?
3. What keeps my character from his goal?
4. What is keeping my character from giving up?
5. What is the last straw?
6. Does the character or audience know what the last straw is?
7. When does the story end?

These are some pretty basic questions, and one’s that I’m sure I know deep down inside. But for the sake of exercising my mind, and also solidifying my mind, I shall answer them all out.

1.  When does the story start?

The story start 4 weeks after the zombie outbreak happens. No one knows what has caused the outbreak. Be it virus, spell, curse, etc. All that the main character knows is that he doesn’t remember hearing about any zombies on the news. It happened very quickly while he was out shopping with his wife and parents. He has lost touch of everyone and has decided to go back to his shed in his backyard and wait for his loved ones.

2.  What is the goal of the main character?

The main character has lost his wife and parents, not to mention countless friends and other family members. He feels a strong urge to find the ones that he lost touch with on the day of the attack. He is scared to die alone.

3.  What keeps the character from his goal?

The entire city is infested with zombies. The main character hasn’t had much contact at all with living people since just after the outbreak. The sheer size of the city, the lack of help and potential that the loved one’s he is looking for are in fact dead.

4.  What keeps the character from giving up?

The main character is very determined, very stubborn, and also very scared. He really does not want to die alone, or even be alone. He will fight every day if he has to just for the chance of finding his loved ones. In the process of fighting for his life and his family’s, his mind is stilled and occupied with the task at hand.

5.  What is the last straw for the character?

If he found his loved one’s dead, or in zombie form he would be extremely distraught. Enough to probably give up on surviving.

6.  Does the character or the audience know about the last straw?

The character and audience do not know what the last straw is. It will become evident at the moment that it happens for shock value.

7.  When does the story end?

The story will end when he finds his family. Or perhaps it will end after he has found his family and then met some other people that are alive.

 

This exercise has proven to be quite difficult. It has taken me several days to lock down these answers, and in all honesty they might not be as locked down as they are. PLUS! I don’t even know if they are all correct. It’s more about laying it down in full and seeing what needs to be changed to make it better.

The Theme

I am currently working on a questions to some answer post, it’s taking me a long time. I keep second quesing myself because it is forcing me to set some things in stone.  I can’t really continue with unknown variables. For now though, here are some common themes. I got this from here. It’s giving me a lot to think about.

The Great Journey

This follows a character or characters through a series of episodic adventures as they travel.  It may be a sad story or a happy story, or it may even be comedic.  Huckleberry Finn, Heart of Darkness, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and The Odyssey are good examples.  In film, this theme can be seen in Apocalypse Now and National Lampoon’s Vacation.

Loss of Innocence

Sometimes called the “coming of age story,” this most commonly introduces an “innocent” character to the evil or complexity of the real/adult world.  In literature, we might look at David Copperfied or most of the Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway, like “Indian Camp” and “The End of Something.”  In film, we might look at Stand by Me.

The Noble Sacrifice

The sacrifice can be for any reason except self–a loved one, an enemy, a group of people, the whole of humanity, a dog–but the bottom line is that the protagonist sacrifices himself or herself in an effort to save others.  In literature, this is demonstrated in the story of Jesus in the New Testament and King Arthur in Mallory’s Morte d’Artur.  This theme is used is used in the films Glory, Armageddon, The Green Mile, and in just about any war movie where the hero dies gloriously.

The Great Battle

The Iliad and A Tale of Two Cities are classic examples of this theme.  It is about people or groups of people in conflict.  It is sometimes a good vs. evil story like 1984 by George Orwell, but not always. The film The War of the Roses, starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, is an example of a battle in which neither character is wholly good or evil.  In theatre, we see this theme at work in Westside Story and Les Miserables.  We often see this theme in horror or science fiction, like in Alien and Terminator,  where the antagonist–a monster/creature/human/alien/computer/etc.– is trying to kill the protagonist, who must fight to stay alive and/or defeat the antagonist.   Sub-categories would be person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. society, person vs. technology and etc.

The Fall From Grace

This theme shows us people going where only God should go, doing what only God is meant to do, or attempting to do something that human beings should never do.  This is always followed by misfortune, whether it is the direct result of their action or an act of God.  We see this in the tales of Coyote’s theft of fire in the Native American tradition, or in the story of the Tower of Babel and the Garden of Eden in The Old Testament. Other examples would be the Prometheus myth, Pandora’s Box, and the story of Icarus.  Frankenstein by Mary Shelly is another work exploring this theme, and we have seen it at work in the films Jurassic Park and Westworld.

Love and Friendship

Romeo and Juliet is a classic love story, as is the story of Lancelot and Guenivere.  The films You’ve Got Mail and Message in a Bottle are also love stories.  The ending may be be happy, sad, or bittersweet, but the main them is romantic love.  Also included in this theme is platonic love–friendship–like in the movies Wrestling Ernest Hemingway and Midnight Cowboy.  All Romance novels, whether straight or gay, fit into this category.   All “buddy films” like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Thelma and Louise fit into this category.

The Capriciousness of Fate

Greek tragedies fit this category.  Often, there is a major reversal of fortune.  It could be from good-to-bad or from bad-to-good.  Oedipus Rex is a classic work that explores the concept of fate and destiny, having an unhappy ending. Cinderella is also a reversal of fortune story, but has a happy ending.  In film, we have seen this theme at work in Pretty Woman.  The common element is that there is some force guiding the person’s life over which he or she has no control.

Revenge

The subject is obvious, but the outcome differs.  Sometimes the outcome is good, like in the movies Revenge of the Nerds or Animal House.  Sometimes the outcome is bad, as in Macbeth and Moby Dick.  Other movies based on this them are Revenge, staring Anthony Quinn and Kevin Costner, and Payback, starring Mel Gibson.

The Big Trick

In this one, someone or some group of people intentionally trick someone else.  Rumplestiltskin and Little Red Ridinghood are in this category.  Stone Soup is an old story in which several men trick the inhabitants of a village into providing them with food.  This theme was evident in Snatch, starring Brad Pitt, and The Sting, staring Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

The Big Mystery

Something unexplained happened and it is the protagonist’s job to find an explanation for it.  The story of Sherlock Holmes are good examples, as are the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries.  In film, we have seen it Silence of the Lambs and The Maltese Falcon, and it took a comedic turn in Clue and The Pink Panther. Almost all police and detective dramas work within this form, as do most espionage and spy thrillers.  Agatha Christy and Tom Clancy work within this form.
I’m playing with “the great journey”, “loss of innocence”, “the noble sacrifice”, “the fall from grace”, “the great battle” and “love and friendship”. I think if I apply myself I can fit all of these into the story. Not that it really needs to, but I think they all apply in some small way. I just really don’t want the story to seem under worked, or even over worked for that matter. It’s a delicate balance and it’s something I’ll need to play with.

Animatic Clips

I got the entire animatic done. That is, only the images in order and timed out suitably. I’ve written out all the dialogue and I’m pretty happy with it. Next up I will do a temp monologue track to further hammer out the timing. I have put in some sound effects for the first half of the first act. It adds a wonderful sense of atmosphere. All in all, it’s looking good. Here’s some snipets!

Opening with sound:

Fight sequence, no sound:

Boards DONE!

The boards are all done, scanned and cut up into individual JPEG’s. When I started at Nerd Corps, I had the luxurious position of PA (Production Assistant). If you know anything about the entertainment business you’d know that the PA is a versitile tool. My main job besides phones, food and dishes was scanning story boards. It was a quite a monotonous job. You scan in 50 or 60 pages, cut out a single panel, size it, rotate it, crop it and save it. Then you grab another panel, place it over top, rinse and repeat several thousand times a day. I chose to do this method for my boards. It turns out that I haven’t lost my groove of dooing that, why not? It’s only been about 4 years since I’ve done anything like that It’s great, I have my full pages scanned in for reference and screen directions, I have individual named panel JPEG’s for the animatic AND I have a larger PSD file with every panel on it’s own layer that is sized, rotated and touched up.

I placed all the first act in a time line in Final Cut Pro and timed them up pretty good so there is some sort of flow. I think my next job will be to do the last two acts and time them up similarily, then I’ll add some sounds. Eventually I would like to record all or at least most of my own folly. I’m tired of the same wind and door creaks that are all over the internet. However I did find a few interesting sites that have some good, fairly original sounds.

So far I feel very good about this project. I’ve gotten it farther than anything in the past (not saying I’m lazy). I think it’s because so many of my previous projects have been to large in scope and I’ve always been unsure, mainly because I don’t have anyone to really bounce idea’s off of. It’s pretty hard to mess up a zombie movie, and I’m not trying to scare people to death. I just want to tell a realistic story of a guy trying to survive.

Oh, I got a title too. I’m going to try to tie it in with some other story’s I have.

Hope B.C.

Because it will take place in a little town in British Columbia (made famous by RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD) called Hope. It’s an awesome quaint little town. The quaint little town you pass through when you go camping in the summer. They have good ice cream and stuff.

Here’s some of my awesome boards, I’ll post a silent scene of my animatic soon:

(Click to biggenate)

A good drawing

Crowbar = Essential

Gun @ Cam

Crew

Even though I consider myself a fairly creative (note: I didn’t say artistic) guy, and even my friends would say so, I like help. Some may say that I don’t need help, heck, I’d even love to say I don’t want help, but the fact of the matter remains: Help is good. Creative criticism coming from the right people, will make the quality insurmountable.

I would love to say that I can do everything that is needed for my production, however, I would rather not. I would rather break apart the work and give it to someone more qualified or even to someone who has more time and a little bit of ambition. Thus I need crew to take up the “tedious” jobs that don’t necessarily need my direct and immediate attention.

At the moment, I have a prop maker and set builder. Tucker is the guy that builds stuff for me. Be it props (proton packs!) or sets or even a camera crane and a dolly, Tucker is an artist with any kind of constructing tool (the Vincent van Gogh of Miter Saws) and is willing do something on his off time that is separable from his day job.

I have appointed Chris my production manager. Basically, Chris is my assistant to the director, or even assistant director. Chris and I work closely with every aspect of the film and he helps me to keep track and make sure everything will work for what we need it for. If I need a set, he’ll work closley with Tucker to make sure that it is done to whatever specific specifications we have previosly laid out, track the progress and make any on the fly decisions that I would otherwise make.

Amber has volunteered to be the caterer and also costume designer, which is really nice. The props that the Ghostbusters use are one thing, but the actual costumes are a whole other character in themselves. Getting the right fitting, colour and patches is extremely important to the authenticity of the franchise. Food is a nice thing to have when working hard. But good food is just plain awesome and that is what Amber will be able to bring.

Devon has agreed to be my creature designer, which is technically the first job I filled on the production. Devon and I worked together a few times coming up with ideas and designs for different types of ghosts. Originally we had a certain technique on how our ghosts FX would be done, but now I’m experimenting with more practical puppets and “green screen” techniques that have limited some of our design choices and extended others. So the hope is that Devon will be able to design and build a working practical puppet character to be shot on a “green screen” and composited into some shots.

As of now, that is all I have for definite crew. Actors and other technical jobs will be filled eventually, maybe even by the existing crew. But we’ll see how everything goes in the future.