Story & Plot - Star-crossed lovers in a delicate balancing act

It took reading some very blunt advice to realize that I'm good at creating plot (what happens), but not at story (what it means).

Plot is the action, the thing that happens to the characters.
Story is characters, and their reactions to the plot.

Both are critical, and interwoven. They inform and drive each other. They are inseperable, and if either has too much weight, the film falls apart. The plot drives things forward, but the story gives the plot meaning, purpose, value.

So, I continue pushing, pulling, revising, and rethinking Fathoms until the river flows freely with emotional gold. I'm not quite there, YET!

Things that are old, but not dead

These are some thumbnail sketches for deep sea dive suits for one of the characters in Fathoms. Courtesy of master mechanical designer Mike Doscher. I can not say enough wonderful things about him and his work. These are old, but the new story still includes scenes with the dive suit. So this is still relevant stuff.

I will be posting more artwork, including things that will never be used in the final film in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Keep on swimming...

On Storytelling

I have been drawing since I was a wee child. I have been working on my visual language for all of my (short) life. Finding the right imagery and stylistic choices for the art and animation of Fathoms is not an easy choice, but, it is a choice I am much more comfortable with than the story. But, the story is the critical thing, it's the backbone, and the heart and soul of Fathoms.

It's the reason I stopped production half-way through completion of the original Fathoms, and it's the reason I am still revising my script. It may take me 5 or 6 years to complete this, but this is my baby, and I will finish it, but I also want to be happy with it. I'm not going to pump something out just to say I finished it. That works when I'm making things for paying clients, but not when it's for me. If I'm the client, and I'm not satisfied, what's the point?

The art style (for me), is just the skin, the hair, the nails. Sure, we will all judge these things first, because they take the least work to address, but, these things do not make a success (unless I'm making a demo reel).

Anyway!

I admit, I am not a good storyteller, not in the midst of conversation anyway.
I find that I stumble in live performance situations, including telling stories.

But, I am good at planning. If I have time to sit with my thoughts, and write something out, and let it sit, and stir, for a week or two, then I have a chance at addressing my lack of innate storytelling abilities.

I believe I have stories in me, unique, universal stories...maybe even interesting stories. And no, these stories don't include the main character finding out that they had a split personality and they were really the villain (as well as the hero) the whole time.

I have lived a little, through good and through bad. I don't always know how to connect with others, but, I think that adds to my unique perspective as a story teller/writer/auteur/director/artist/whatever.

Basically, I'm saying this: I'm very comfortable with my visual vocabulary, but I'm very uncomfortable (and unpracticed) with storytelling (and writing).

The focus of Fathoms is, at its core, a story about people and their internal struggles. So, I am still focusing on refining my story until I am absolutely satisfied that it has an air of emotional authenticity...before I start doing the 'easy' part, the visuals...again.

Also, when this is all over, I will be making an art book that includes all the original art work and storyboards for the version that sits dead on my work table. And, hopefully I will be making tiny real life models of the Scavenger Arken to give away to a few kind souls.

Proof that FATHOMS is still alive

so, I am rewriting the script for the billionth time. I know what I want now, it's just a matter of getting it in the writing (the hard part for me). My goal is to project emotional authenticity within my scifi setting..........anyway, that's a style frame from the recent past

Still Alive, Seriously...

Happy 2010! We are living the future!

There will be more in the second half of the year on this project, but it's on hiatus right now, as there are more profitable ventures in the immediate future.

However, Fathoms will be finished. It is on my very short to-do list for this life.

Quietly creeping forward, still...

One day at a time, but long before I die...

A (very dear to my heart) professor told me in my last semester as an undergrad that although he did not think my current body of work was in any way bad, he did not think I had yet created my greatest work. He described my work (me?) as a beautiful and exotic flower that was showing a petal here and there, but that had not fully bloomed, not yet revealed all of its secrets.

It's nearly five years later....and I don't feel like I'm making or have yet created my life's greatest work.

I don't even know what that phrase would mean to me. I would think that all my future work would build off my previous and current work, making every new work the greatest work of the moment...it's a strange to me.

It depends mostly on what the viewer or artist sees as valuable. Is my greatest work the one that makes me the most money? or recognition? or critical praise? Is it a work that defines me (as an artist or a human being)? Is it the work that I will be remembered for (being conceited, and assuming I will be remembered by those other than my immediate family)? Is it the work that changes the world, or the world of one individual? Or is it the work that I am proudest of, that means the most to me, that was my greatest struggle, my darkest hour, and my most opaque triumph?

Or is it the work that is the most therapeutic for the artist? ...is it about a work that finally frees me from the constraints of this world, and all it's simple and burdensome truths?

These kind of things weigh heavily on my conscious: late at night, riding the train, or whenever the weather in my head is clear, because I do consider myself an artist, and because I am conceited as well as ponderous. Will this be my greatest work? Will any work be my greatest? And will I know and deem it so, or will it be bestowed upon me by some unseen phantoms, or will it be some thing prescribed well beyond my short time on this earth. Or will there be any of my works worth deeming great? or memorable? or important? or valuable?

If this is my life, will it be my death?

if I am a failure as an artist, then am I also a failure as a human being?

I suppose, I am starting to worry that the daylight is beginning to dwindle, and the days are rapidly accelerating towards an infinite plane just beyond the horizon...and I worry that I will never make it in time.

Slowly, so slowly...

Did I mention?

Did I mention Fathoms is in the midst of being 2.0'd??? Well, it is...and it will be completed (eventually). It will just be made of different trees from the same forest.

Into the abyss...

Style frames abound...