Mike King

star wars revelations update

Yesterday I finished animating the opening shot. Complete with “A long time ago…,” the opening crawl, and a spaceship flying by. Awaiting director’s comments. Setup a scene file for the next shot, but didn’t get much else done. Tomorrow through the weekend I won’t have time to work on it. So I’ll pick it up again next Monday.

Three more shots to animate, then I’ll have lighting and compositing to do. The next shot is mostly done, actually, since the animation is similar to the first shot before I addressed the director’s comments.

The big shot of the group includes a ton of other ships, which I’m a little worried about rendering, since my machine is already choking on just one ship. That’s what I get for having an ancient PC. I haven’t ever really needed anything bigger. So it’s a little slow and I put up with crashes. But I think I’ll survive until the shots are done. If anything it’ll force me to be efficient in putting these shots together.

odds & ends of the day and about ideas

Today was not a good day to stay on schedule. But still, I did get a lot done. Sort of.

Got a haircut, worked on some story notes for my daughter’s book. Some hundred odd words or so. Not a lot of progress, but better than zero words. Spent the morning doing email, which took a little longer than expected (and I still haven’t caught up on everyone I should be writing to). Straightened up my work area. Which, if you could see it, is actually quite a daunting task. Didn’t make much headway, but I did sort things into various piles for further sorting and purging.

Wandered through Neil Gaiman’s site some more. There’s a great essay here about where ideas come from. Here is one of the best parts:

Every published writer has had it – the people who come up to you and tell you that they’ve Got An Idea. And boy, is it a Doozy. It’s such a Doozy that they want to Cut You In On It. The proposal is always the same – they’ll tell you the Idea (the hard bit), you write it down and turn it into a novel (the easy bit), the two of you can split the money fifty-fifty.

I’m reasonably gracious with these people. I tell them, truly, that I have far too many ideas for things as it is, and far too little time. And I wish them the best of luck.

The Ideas aren’t the hard bit. They’re a small component of the whole. Creating believable people who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder. And hardest by far is the process of simply sitting down and putting one word after another to construct whatever it is you’re trying to build: making it interesting, making it new.

screenwriting website

Finally had a chance to explore the Screenwriter’s Voice website. At times I wish it were more nuts-and-bolts about the craft. But overall I found it to be a nice read. The thing that bothers me most is that there are more typos and misused words than I would like to see in a writers’ website.

quick links

another interview with Angel writing duo

interview with James Marsters

interview with Wes Craven

schedules and structure

The weekend was relaxing and gave me time to think. Get organized. I’ve finally decided to schedule my days. It’s strange, since you’d think having no schedule would be more relaxing. But it turns out that not having a schedule makes me feel like the minutes are being wasted. Having a schedule, even if I don’t stick to it religiously, actually helps me to ease stress. Who’d have thought? Not me. But the schedule seems to be working.

It’s already helpful in making me feel like things aren’t all out of control. It’s let me set aside time for correspondence, which I’m notoriously bad about. I’ve allotted time to work on the Star Wars fan film shots. And I’ve scheduled some daily formal writing time instead of the impromptu writing sessions I’d been attempting. My main writing projects right now are a fairy tale book for my daughter (with illustrations) and a novel that’s been kicking around in my head for a while.

The weekend was wonderfully relaxing. My wife and I went to see “Into the Woods” performed by the Pacifica Spindrift Players. Turns out Cinderella was played by a lady who attends the school where my wife works. Love the music — I’ve had the soundtrack for a while ever since seeing the Broadway performance on TV. Seeing the musical again got me inspired to do some fairy tale stories for my daughter. I’d been toying with the idea of writing a personalized children’s story for her for a while. So this gave me a little extra push and some ideas to play with.

Spent a lot of time talking with my brother about his screenplay. I’m not doing all the heavy lifting. But I’ve been able to contribute a lot of story and plot points, refine characterizations, and suggest little details here and there. It’s been a lot of fun. Tough at times though, like when we plot ourselves into a corner.

But overall, it’s stuff like this which really convinces me that I want to be involved creatively on projects, work on stories with people, and write my own stuff too.

another week

How quickly these days pass. This week was particularly busy. A couple of birthday things. Plumbing problems. Water damage. And some more Star Wars fan film shots to work on.

My writing these days mostly consists of helping my brother work through various roadblocks for his feature screenplay. My own stories are in limbo at the moment. I just haven’t had the extra energy to work on them. The worst part is that I feel bad for not working on them! Which makes me tired and not feel like writing. A bad feedback loop. After I sign off here, I’m going to sit down and try writing something. Anything. Try to kickstart the ol’ writing part of my brain.

It doesn’t help that I went to sleep at 2am and got up at 7am. Maybe I should take a nap.

My brother’s movie trailer reviewed.

Moviepoopshoot.com did a review of the trailer for my brother’s film, Favors. The review is in the middle of the page at this link.

Tim Minear radio interview

You can find a radio interview with Tim Minear, showrunner for the now cancelled Wonderfalls, over at WGN’s website.

hope this works

I added a comments feature to the blog. Hopefully I didn’t break the page. All I can say is that I tested it and it worked for my browser.

hope for Wonderfalls?

E! Online’s Watch With Kristin gossip column has some great snippets from James Marsters and Amy Acker regarding the end of Angel. At the very end of the column, she mentions that the WB is reviewing a few episodes and the pilot of Wonderfalls. Which means it’s in consideration for the fall season. Let’s hope.