A while ago I mentioned I was working on an unusual project with a friend.
Well, here it is:
http://www.redtowergames.com/play/spaceman-prelude
It has come out quite nicely, and although I feel my graphics are a little rough around the edges (the bigger the ships get, the more rubbish they get), they're already being smoothed out in the work I'm doing for the sequel.
This has been a learning experience for both myself and the poor happless friend that comissioned my snail-pace-"artistic"-services that has come out a lot better than I expected.
Additional Notes:
My friend, the ever-talented programmer Mr. Sneeze, has his website over at http://www.cathelius.co.uk and also a flash games portal over at http://www.redtowergames.com which I must warn you, can become a bit of a time sink. I actually find myself playing a lot of these flash games during down time in my Warcraft sessions, which is perverse in its own way: Playing games to pass the boredem in a bigger game...
Showing posts with label Comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comics. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Script Writing
I like to think of myself as a bit of a riter.
I mean that. I know I’m not of a professional standard, I have no real credits to my name and my only real completed projects are half baked essays and a series of underdeveloped comics. I am a riter. Almost a writer, but not quite enough credentials to really qualify.
It is with this in mind that I consider the following might be a pointless thing to say given my lack of experience or even significant effort in the field, but I find writing scripts incredibly difficult. I’m fine in the imagination department and getting ideas for a story and how it will pan out, I’m not bad and improving in the field of characterization, and dialogue, one of the most important things of a script, isn’t a major issue. What I have a problem with is putting it all together.
From a decent amount of experience making comics, I have a rough idea what does and doesn’t work in a narrative sense, largely by doing all the things that don’t work, but I never leant how to write scripts. I always had a plan, but that plan was “I’m starting here, I need to get to here” which in one case took me a whole sixteen page issue longer than I expected. With my current TV script writing project that I’ve set myself, I don’t have the option of crafting it as I go along in the same way that I did with the comics, so I have to start with the script and work it through from there.
It seems that the second you try and mash together the setting, the plot, the characters, the dialogue and the action, things go disastrously wrong. Maybe I’m getting too hung up on formatting the scrip so that it looks professional, but no matter how I write the opening scenes, it comes across as stilted, halting, and generally awful with a real struggle to get the middle ground between fast paced staccato dialogue and longer plodding exposition based dialogue.
What I’m trying to write is the first thirty minute episode for an animated children’s show. I don’t think I have an issue with writing for children, as most of the things I’ve done previously have been of the right sort of tone for children, especially so with only a little bit of tweaking, but I do have a problem with working out how to fit it all together without it becoming utterly all over the place.
Like most things I try and do, I suspect the problem I’m running in to is trying to do it all at once and assume I need to fire out my entire brain into the script in the first few pages, where actually I need to gradually leak it out over thirty, probably leaving plenty more to be deposited over subsequent potential episodes. I also reckon that this instinct of mine to try and do a whole project in five minutes isn’t helped by the fact that the people I’m submitting this to suggest making sure the first ten pages are really tight and gripping because that’s all they’re obliged to read and they’ll only read further if it’s any good, so if I have all the fun stuff happening after the ten page mark, that’s essentially the end of the project.
If anyone has any short sharp hints and tips that I could read and then ignore anyway because I’m not bad at taking advice, just bad at implementing it, I’d be very grateful to hear. Failing that, I’ll try and post some form of update if this goes anywhere.
Additional Notes:
Making mistakes is a fantastic way of learning that I fully advocate and I believe I’ve made a vast majority of them with my comic-projects. If you have the right mindset as well, looking back on those mistakes with a renewed sense of wisdom can be highly entertaining rather than utterly and crushingly depressing.
It’s also quite a kick to see how much you’ve improved from previous attempts. If you take a look at any webcomic and compare the first and most recent entries, chances are you’ll notice a marked improvement. It is incredibly satisfying to see the same thing happen to your own work. I feel really sorry for people who produce vastly inferior creations after they’ve been working in their field for a significant period of time, but that’s enough of that, I promised myself I’d stop complaining about Star Wars and grow up a little bit.
I mean that. I know I’m not of a professional standard, I have no real credits to my name and my only real completed projects are half baked essays and a series of underdeveloped comics. I am a riter. Almost a writer, but not quite enough credentials to really qualify.
It is with this in mind that I consider the following might be a pointless thing to say given my lack of experience or even significant effort in the field, but I find writing scripts incredibly difficult. I’m fine in the imagination department and getting ideas for a story and how it will pan out, I’m not bad and improving in the field of characterization, and dialogue, one of the most important things of a script, isn’t a major issue. What I have a problem with is putting it all together.
From a decent amount of experience making comics, I have a rough idea what does and doesn’t work in a narrative sense, largely by doing all the things that don’t work, but I never leant how to write scripts. I always had a plan, but that plan was “I’m starting here, I need to get to here” which in one case took me a whole sixteen page issue longer than I expected. With my current TV script writing project that I’ve set myself, I don’t have the option of crafting it as I go along in the same way that I did with the comics, so I have to start with the script and work it through from there.
It seems that the second you try and mash together the setting, the plot, the characters, the dialogue and the action, things go disastrously wrong. Maybe I’m getting too hung up on formatting the scrip so that it looks professional, but no matter how I write the opening scenes, it comes across as stilted, halting, and generally awful with a real struggle to get the middle ground between fast paced staccato dialogue and longer plodding exposition based dialogue.
What I’m trying to write is the first thirty minute episode for an animated children’s show. I don’t think I have an issue with writing for children, as most of the things I’ve done previously have been of the right sort of tone for children, especially so with only a little bit of tweaking, but I do have a problem with working out how to fit it all together without it becoming utterly all over the place.
Like most things I try and do, I suspect the problem I’m running in to is trying to do it all at once and assume I need to fire out my entire brain into the script in the first few pages, where actually I need to gradually leak it out over thirty, probably leaving plenty more to be deposited over subsequent potential episodes. I also reckon that this instinct of mine to try and do a whole project in five minutes isn’t helped by the fact that the people I’m submitting this to suggest making sure the first ten pages are really tight and gripping because that’s all they’re obliged to read and they’ll only read further if it’s any good, so if I have all the fun stuff happening after the ten page mark, that’s essentially the end of the project.
If anyone has any short sharp hints and tips that I could read and then ignore anyway because I’m not bad at taking advice, just bad at implementing it, I’d be very grateful to hear. Failing that, I’ll try and post some form of update if this goes anywhere.
Additional Notes:
Making mistakes is a fantastic way of learning that I fully advocate and I believe I’ve made a vast majority of them with my comic-projects. If you have the right mindset as well, looking back on those mistakes with a renewed sense of wisdom can be highly entertaining rather than utterly and crushingly depressing.
It’s also quite a kick to see how much you’ve improved from previous attempts. If you take a look at any webcomic and compare the first and most recent entries, chances are you’ll notice a marked improvement. It is incredibly satisfying to see the same thing happen to your own work. I feel really sorry for people who produce vastly inferior creations after they’ve been working in their field for a significant period of time, but that’s enough of that, I promised myself I’d stop complaining about Star Wars and grow up a little bit.
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
The Web and Mini Comix Thing 2009
I have been known to draw comics. I have even published one. I’m not saying they are good comics, but they are undeniably examples of sequential art with dialogue balloons that can not be mistaken for comics.
Just to get the excuses out of the way now, I’ve been working on an overhaul for my comic site for a long time and it’s getting there. I also want to go in to a bit more detail with regards to the things I have learnt through my fiddling with graphics software and to make a mention of all the mistakes I’ve made with format, writing, characterization or the lack thereof and general assistance to anyone who wants to have a go at doing something better. This is all under the ominous heading of “coming soon”, which apparently according to my recent update schedule on my comics, can be anywhere up to eleven months.
I have veered somewhat away from my very short point that I’m trying to make. This weekend sees the return of “The Web and Mini Comix Thing” in east London. If you’re in the area and enjoy comics, the tickets are cheap and the exhibition is at least interesting. I always find the day to be highly inspirational and I frequently come away thinking “I’m going to do it this year! I’m going to churn out high quality comics and nobody can stop me!” before getting home and making the crucial mistake of switching on the television.
Additional Notes:
Maybe this year will be the year I get my act together. The immortal words of Delboy Trotter spring to mind: “This time next year, we could be millionaires” and of course, that way of thinking worked for him, so who knows?
The convention really is a good day. It’s not your traditional convention full of the great unwashed masses rummaging around for that missing copy of Spiderman to complete their collection. At one point I did actually exhibit there and everyone was really friendly. There was of course the one person who was perhaps a little bit too friendly and hung around a little bit too long breathing heavily through his mouth and not saying much. I know that sounds like a clichéd stereotype of my fellow members of geek-dom, and I feel ashamed for repeating it here, but unfortunately, that one actually happened.
Just to get the excuses out of the way now, I’ve been working on an overhaul for my comic site for a long time and it’s getting there. I also want to go in to a bit more detail with regards to the things I have learnt through my fiddling with graphics software and to make a mention of all the mistakes I’ve made with format, writing, characterization or the lack thereof and general assistance to anyone who wants to have a go at doing something better. This is all under the ominous heading of “coming soon”, which apparently according to my recent update schedule on my comics, can be anywhere up to eleven months.
I have veered somewhat away from my very short point that I’m trying to make. This weekend sees the return of “The Web and Mini Comix Thing” in east London. If you’re in the area and enjoy comics, the tickets are cheap and the exhibition is at least interesting. I always find the day to be highly inspirational and I frequently come away thinking “I’m going to do it this year! I’m going to churn out high quality comics and nobody can stop me!” before getting home and making the crucial mistake of switching on the television.
Additional Notes:
Maybe this year will be the year I get my act together. The immortal words of Delboy Trotter spring to mind: “This time next year, we could be millionaires” and of course, that way of thinking worked for him, so who knows?
The convention really is a good day. It’s not your traditional convention full of the great unwashed masses rummaging around for that missing copy of Spiderman to complete their collection. At one point I did actually exhibit there and everyone was really friendly. There was of course the one person who was perhaps a little bit too friendly and hung around a little bit too long breathing heavily through his mouth and not saying much. I know that sounds like a clichéd stereotype of my fellow members of geek-dom, and I feel ashamed for repeating it here, but unfortunately, that one actually happened.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Film: Watchmen
This film didn’t stand a chance.
I want to qualify that in all actuality, it did better than I expected and is probably as good as you can get as an adaptation of what is very obviously an incredibly difficult thing to bring to the cinema. Not only that, but it was a good film and one that I would recommend to fans of the book as well as people who have never heard of it before. Despite this, there was something that just niggled ever so slightly and there were moments when I wasn’t sure that I was actually enjoying the film.
Watchmen is the big screen adaptation of a much loved graphic novel of the same name written by the eccentric visionary, Alan Moore, a well known writing entity in the comic book world but probably only really referenced to the rest of the world through film adaptations of some of his other works which have, in their making, missed the point or otherwise lobotomized the original subject matter. The story is dark, brooding, cynical, and has such a rich attention to detail as to make the world feel very real and concrete. One of the things I can remember thinking when I was half way through the book for the first time is that it would not only be impossible to film, but that the film would miss everything that made it what it was.
The story follows a team of masked vigilantes that are coming to terms with their forced retirement from fighting crime, set against a world on the brink of nuclear war and inevitable Armageddon in an alternate version of 80s America, with the USA and the USSR squaring off against each other with comparable nuclear stockpiles. The characters are all massively flawed and well rounded with the story being just as much about them and their struggle to fit in to normal life as it is about a pending apocalypse and the book manages to convey massive amounts of detail about them and the history of the masked vigilante in the world as an idea. If it feels like I’m struggling to explain this, then I’m not surprised; it's the main reason I couldn't see the thing becoming a film. The only real way you can understand what I mean is by going and buying the graphic novel and reading it. I’m sure everyone will be reading it on the train at the moment anyway, so no one will laugh at you or think you’re a child for reading comic books, so do it, if only to see what the fuss is all about.
Any book-to-film transition is a difficult one to make. If you’re going to the cinema to see a book that you enjoyed turned into a film, you are going to be disappointed most of the time, because you just can’t cram it all in to a two or three hour film. I am therefore incredibly impressed that for the most part, the background and history and small touches remained in tact and not compromised to any great extent. A lot of the scene-setting was covered by an artfully paced opening sequence, and even some of the smaller details of the book made their way onto the screen if you knew what to look out for.
Visually, the film was stunning. The actors they had chosen were almost identical to their comic-book counterparts in looks, the costume department had remained faithful for the most part, and the look and feel of the world in general was for the most part a faithful reproduction of Dave Gibbons’ artwork. Not only this, but the story, for the most part, also remained solid and for the most part I can forgive the changes. You will notice an overuse of the phrase “for the most part”, which is entirely deliberate as there is just something that doesn’t quite fit. The only way I can explain this is the analogy of the “Uncanny Valley” in that the closer you get to something being an exact replica, the more jarring the differences are. Watchmen came so close to ticking every box that the fact that it didn’t ended up resulting in this slight discomfort that I got through most of the film that something-just-wasn’t-quite-right.
I had an issue with the soundtrack. I’m not too sure what it was as there were some fantastic choices on it, it was just that they seemed thrown in for no real reason at points, or thrown in ham fistedly at others to drive home a point. The thing that makes me realise that this was a problem for me is that I even noticed. A soundtrack for me normally sits firmly in the background and is something I only notice the second time I watch a film.
I have to mention the subtle changes to the story. On the outset, it looked like a big change that happened near the end, but the overall effect to the story wasn’t that major, so I can forgive it. I can also see that sticking to the original would have been a lot more work and would have required an extra wing added to the budget, but at the same time I would have liked to have seen it. The penultimate scenes were somewhat of an anti-climax for me, and although they were still visually stunning, they weren’t the stunning visuals I was expecting or wanting to see and in some way, that came across as quite lazy.
I would complain about all the things they missed out as well, but I don’t want to. They missed out small details that flavour the book but that would have taken up far too much time on the screen. Not only that, but some of the small details were referenced for those of us that were looking out for them and I’m still much more impressed by all the things that they did manage to get in.
As far as a “pros and cons” list goes, that’s not very long. They did incredibly well. They did much better than anyone was expecting, of that I’m sure. That it wasn’t quite right is a general condition of anything that goes from book to film or book to TV, not an intrinsic problem with Watchmen itself. The film was good and it’s something I will end up watching again, and I’m really hoping that the DVD has lots of extra special features that bring in more of the book, but there was still something about it that wasn’t quite right. I recommend this film, but if you know and love the comic, know that it will do what every other film-of-a-book has done and disappoint ever so slightly.
Additional Notes:
It's been very tempting to make the "Who Watches The Watchmen?" reference in some clever way to say I have watched Watchmen, but I think everyone that has written about this has probably already done so. For this reason, I just want you to be aware that I thought this and am aware of the clever inherrent pun that lies within and it was a concious choice not to use it.
I find it difficult to offer an opinion on films without spoiling stuff. I’m not sure how you’re meant to do this. I have a horrible feeling I’ve said this before.
There was an incredibly awkward sex scene in the film that probably went on for just slightly too long and showed just slightly too much. I know that makes me sound like a terrible prude, but if you see the film, you’ll probably understand what I mean. It was another moment where the soundtrack made me cringe a little too.
In seeing this film, I also learnt what sort of people buy premiere seating. It’s the people that get confused by the online booking system and do it by accident. I felt positively defiled at the fact that we ended up in premiere seating, which in all honesty, wasn’t very comfortable and wasn’t any different from a regular seat apart from the location in the cinema itself. I feel this is another bubbling rant for another day that would be better directed at Odeon itself than the internet at large, for fear of lumping myself in with other mad ramblers.
UPDATE: I've just read the comment by Becks in my earlier post stating "tis flawed but awesome". That pretty much sums up the gist of this entire post. We'll call that the succinct version.
I want to qualify that in all actuality, it did better than I expected and is probably as good as you can get as an adaptation of what is very obviously an incredibly difficult thing to bring to the cinema. Not only that, but it was a good film and one that I would recommend to fans of the book as well as people who have never heard of it before. Despite this, there was something that just niggled ever so slightly and there were moments when I wasn’t sure that I was actually enjoying the film.
Watchmen is the big screen adaptation of a much loved graphic novel of the same name written by the eccentric visionary, Alan Moore, a well known writing entity in the comic book world but probably only really referenced to the rest of the world through film adaptations of some of his other works which have, in their making, missed the point or otherwise lobotomized the original subject matter. The story is dark, brooding, cynical, and has such a rich attention to detail as to make the world feel very real and concrete. One of the things I can remember thinking when I was half way through the book for the first time is that it would not only be impossible to film, but that the film would miss everything that made it what it was.
The story follows a team of masked vigilantes that are coming to terms with their forced retirement from fighting crime, set against a world on the brink of nuclear war and inevitable Armageddon in an alternate version of 80s America, with the USA and the USSR squaring off against each other with comparable nuclear stockpiles. The characters are all massively flawed and well rounded with the story being just as much about them and their struggle to fit in to normal life as it is about a pending apocalypse and the book manages to convey massive amounts of detail about them and the history of the masked vigilante in the world as an idea. If it feels like I’m struggling to explain this, then I’m not surprised; it's the main reason I couldn't see the thing becoming a film. The only real way you can understand what I mean is by going and buying the graphic novel and reading it. I’m sure everyone will be reading it on the train at the moment anyway, so no one will laugh at you or think you’re a child for reading comic books, so do it, if only to see what the fuss is all about.
Any book-to-film transition is a difficult one to make. If you’re going to the cinema to see a book that you enjoyed turned into a film, you are going to be disappointed most of the time, because you just can’t cram it all in to a two or three hour film. I am therefore incredibly impressed that for the most part, the background and history and small touches remained in tact and not compromised to any great extent. A lot of the scene-setting was covered by an artfully paced opening sequence, and even some of the smaller details of the book made their way onto the screen if you knew what to look out for.
Visually, the film was stunning. The actors they had chosen were almost identical to their comic-book counterparts in looks, the costume department had remained faithful for the most part, and the look and feel of the world in general was for the most part a faithful reproduction of Dave Gibbons’ artwork. Not only this, but the story, for the most part, also remained solid and for the most part I can forgive the changes. You will notice an overuse of the phrase “for the most part”, which is entirely deliberate as there is just something that doesn’t quite fit. The only way I can explain this is the analogy of the “Uncanny Valley” in that the closer you get to something being an exact replica, the more jarring the differences are. Watchmen came so close to ticking every box that the fact that it didn’t ended up resulting in this slight discomfort that I got through most of the film that something-just-wasn’t-quite-right.
I had an issue with the soundtrack. I’m not too sure what it was as there were some fantastic choices on it, it was just that they seemed thrown in for no real reason at points, or thrown in ham fistedly at others to drive home a point. The thing that makes me realise that this was a problem for me is that I even noticed. A soundtrack for me normally sits firmly in the background and is something I only notice the second time I watch a film.
I have to mention the subtle changes to the story. On the outset, it looked like a big change that happened near the end, but the overall effect to the story wasn’t that major, so I can forgive it. I can also see that sticking to the original would have been a lot more work and would have required an extra wing added to the budget, but at the same time I would have liked to have seen it. The penultimate scenes were somewhat of an anti-climax for me, and although they were still visually stunning, they weren’t the stunning visuals I was expecting or wanting to see and in some way, that came across as quite lazy.
I would complain about all the things they missed out as well, but I don’t want to. They missed out small details that flavour the book but that would have taken up far too much time on the screen. Not only that, but some of the small details were referenced for those of us that were looking out for them and I’m still much more impressed by all the things that they did manage to get in.
As far as a “pros and cons” list goes, that’s not very long. They did incredibly well. They did much better than anyone was expecting, of that I’m sure. That it wasn’t quite right is a general condition of anything that goes from book to film or book to TV, not an intrinsic problem with Watchmen itself. The film was good and it’s something I will end up watching again, and I’m really hoping that the DVD has lots of extra special features that bring in more of the book, but there was still something about it that wasn’t quite right. I recommend this film, but if you know and love the comic, know that it will do what every other film-of-a-book has done and disappoint ever so slightly.
Additional Notes:
It's been very tempting to make the "Who Watches The Watchmen?" reference in some clever way to say I have watched Watchmen, but I think everyone that has written about this has probably already done so. For this reason, I just want you to be aware that I thought this and am aware of the clever inherrent pun that lies within and it was a concious choice not to use it.
I find it difficult to offer an opinion on films without spoiling stuff. I’m not sure how you’re meant to do this. I have a horrible feeling I’ve said this before.
There was an incredibly awkward sex scene in the film that probably went on for just slightly too long and showed just slightly too much. I know that makes me sound like a terrible prude, but if you see the film, you’ll probably understand what I mean. It was another moment where the soundtrack made me cringe a little too.
In seeing this film, I also learnt what sort of people buy premiere seating. It’s the people that get confused by the online booking system and do it by accident. I felt positively defiled at the fact that we ended up in premiere seating, which in all honesty, wasn’t very comfortable and wasn’t any different from a regular seat apart from the location in the cinema itself. I feel this is another bubbling rant for another day that would be better directed at Odeon itself than the internet at large, for fear of lumping myself in with other mad ramblers.
UPDATE: I've just read the comment by Becks in my earlier post stating "tis flawed but awesome". That pretty much sums up the gist of this entire post. We'll call that the succinct version.
Friday, 6 February 2009
Living for a Challenge
A lot of people know whether they are the sort of person that pushes themselves or if they just coast through life. I’m never sure which is better. For interview speak, once you’re sitting in front of an interviewer, I think everyone is someone that likes a challenge and is constantly pushing themselves because we’re told that’s what employers want from us, but some people just aren’t like that. I’m not too sure which is better either. On the one hand, you have someone that’s driving forward and attempting persistent innovation and are constantly on their toes, yet on the other, you have someone that knows their limits and capabilities and will reliably stick to them. The latter obviously sounds a lot more boring, but the problem with innovation and attempting new things is that there is an inherent risk attached to that.
I find I regularly challenge myself and hate just coasting along, but sometimes I end up crippling myself in the process. The challenges I give myself aren’t always reasonable, are frequently things I know I can’t do, and even when they are things I know I can do, I also know that I can’t do them well. It’s fine to say that you want to improve yourself and develop skills or learn new things, but there are some things that we as individuals just aren’t good at and we all naturally have a feel for our own strengths and weaknesses. As an example, I have spent a long time working on various comics, even though I’m not a natural artist. Admittedly, I’m a lot better at it than I was, but I’ll never have quite the same flare that my contemporaries in the same field will have. I seem to deliberately try and do things that I just have very little aptitude for.
I think an intelligent person would challenge themselves in an area that they could truly excel in. Any expert in any field of expertise is probably a person that pushes themselves and at the same time has identified an area that they have a certain amount of natural ability in. I was always criticised when I was younger that I was running the risk of becoming a “jack of all trades and master of none”, and whereas I still prefer the idea of being jack of all trades, I am starting to see how people become true masters.
I’ve mentioned before that people definitely have different levels of tolerance when it comes to failure and the trial and error approach to learning, especially when it starts with a lot of error. I am often very stubborn and don’t give up easily, but I do still get despondent and disillusioned if I don’t make the progress I want to, especially if it’s something I think I should be good at, or assumed I’d already be able to do. For this reason I sometimes suspect that I may be more of a coaster than I would think and again, I’m still not sure which is better. I think in my next interview I will describe myself as reliable and consistent with moments of flare and creativity, because maybe that’s the closest to the truth.
There’s a fantastic line from the Simpsons where Lisa is asked “but I thought you wanted a challenge?” and she replies by saying “Yes, but a challenge I can do!” and I think that’s how I tend to live my life, only occasionally not accurately assessing what I can and can not do.
Additional Notes:
The problem with innovation and attempting new things is that there is an inherent risk attached to that. Anyone that has seen Dragon’s Den will have a better idea of what I mean. Sometimes there’s a very good reason for why something hasn’t been done before.
I’m not trying to make excuses for not being a world class anything. It would be nice to say “I could be amazing, but I’m just not that kind of person” and for people to believe it, but I acknowledge that my general disposition is not the reason for me excelling in any one particular area, that would probably be due to my short sharp bursts of laziness and procrastination. I think my motto for a long time was “Procrastinate now”.
I find I regularly challenge myself and hate just coasting along, but sometimes I end up crippling myself in the process. The challenges I give myself aren’t always reasonable, are frequently things I know I can’t do, and even when they are things I know I can do, I also know that I can’t do them well. It’s fine to say that you want to improve yourself and develop skills or learn new things, but there are some things that we as individuals just aren’t good at and we all naturally have a feel for our own strengths and weaknesses. As an example, I have spent a long time working on various comics, even though I’m not a natural artist. Admittedly, I’m a lot better at it than I was, but I’ll never have quite the same flare that my contemporaries in the same field will have. I seem to deliberately try and do things that I just have very little aptitude for.
I think an intelligent person would challenge themselves in an area that they could truly excel in. Any expert in any field of expertise is probably a person that pushes themselves and at the same time has identified an area that they have a certain amount of natural ability in. I was always criticised when I was younger that I was running the risk of becoming a “jack of all trades and master of none”, and whereas I still prefer the idea of being jack of all trades, I am starting to see how people become true masters.
I’ve mentioned before that people definitely have different levels of tolerance when it comes to failure and the trial and error approach to learning, especially when it starts with a lot of error. I am often very stubborn and don’t give up easily, but I do still get despondent and disillusioned if I don’t make the progress I want to, especially if it’s something I think I should be good at, or assumed I’d already be able to do. For this reason I sometimes suspect that I may be more of a coaster than I would think and again, I’m still not sure which is better. I think in my next interview I will describe myself as reliable and consistent with moments of flare and creativity, because maybe that’s the closest to the truth.
There’s a fantastic line from the Simpsons where Lisa is asked “but I thought you wanted a challenge?” and she replies by saying “Yes, but a challenge I can do!” and I think that’s how I tend to live my life, only occasionally not accurately assessing what I can and can not do.
Additional Notes:
The problem with innovation and attempting new things is that there is an inherent risk attached to that. Anyone that has seen Dragon’s Den will have a better idea of what I mean. Sometimes there’s a very good reason for why something hasn’t been done before.
I’m not trying to make excuses for not being a world class anything. It would be nice to say “I could be amazing, but I’m just not that kind of person” and for people to believe it, but I acknowledge that my general disposition is not the reason for me excelling in any one particular area, that would probably be due to my short sharp bursts of laziness and procrastination. I think my motto for a long time was “Procrastinate now”.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Fighting Cliché in Creativity
Even when I was at primary school writing stories as part of our education in English, part of me knew that “It was a Dark and Stormy Night” was the default way to set a dramatic mood. The rest of me knew that you never rely on the defaults for these sorts of things unless you want it to look like everything else. This sort of cliché can take a lot to break out of and you can find yourself slipping into it by mistake; after all, the reason it’s a cliché in the first place is because everyone else has done it first.
Nobody expects the cliché
I have had experience in the field of doing-things-everyone-else-has-done-first. For a long time now, I have run a webcomic as a hobby. It’s a fantastic method for teaching one how to draw and how to make websites and see what does and doesn’t work with compositions. I’ve learnt a huge amount from updating my comic over the last two years, even if I haven’t kept up with it on a regular basis, but I think I have also inadvertently created a complete catalogue of every single webcomic cliché out there.
In no particular order, there is an author self insertion character, the main female character tends to be violent, the predominant subject matter is a group of friends living together, it has a mad-cap inventor character, it has ninjas and relatively two dimensional characters with minimal development beyond things happening to them. For the uninitiated, that is a description of pretty much every single webcomic out there, with the only exception being that mine doesn’t have a constant discussion of video games.
I didn’t sit down and design it this way. I didn’t think carefully about what to put in. It just happened. Of course, not thinking about what to put in is exactly what landed me with the samey-mess in the first place. My only excuse is that I’ve never really taken my comic seriously where others do and that there is a certain degree of work that goes into it, as I very rarely copy and paste images and everything except the formatting, lettering and coloring is done by hand. Upon writing that, I can see that might make it seem like my comic is entirely digital, but the drawing and design is all done by hand which is still the significant part.
How to Avoid it
This could sound preachy, but I feel I can offer this advice because I’ve made the mistakes already.
1) Be aware of existing clichés and stereotypes: Study other ideas, creations or whatever it is you’re trying to do and try to identify common trends. I didn’t really notice the similarities between several different webcomics until they were pointed out to me and had I realized before, I would have taken a conscious effort to avoid them.
2) Don’t be afraid to abandon an idea even if you think it was a good one: There’s nothing wrong with a cliché if it’s done well, but you have to realize that your work will be judged against work that is already out there and will be judged harshly as a result.
3) Don’t be afraid to try something completely different: I’m repeating the point above really, but don’t be scared to shake things up a little. Sometimes you can shake things too far, so keep it within the realms of your genre, but don’t be afraid to experiment.
4) Plan things through: My inner youth cries out in pain as I offer this as advice. Everyone tells you to plan things through, and no one listens, and I do include myself in that definition of no one. I always used to write in a freeform manner which came across as rambling and directionless. Not only that, but when you don’t plan, you accidentally fall back on all those tried and tested ideas automatically and your creativity is completely stifled.
I’m repeating myself again, but there is nothing wrong with a cliché. Some people manage to make a formula work exceptionally well for them. You look at the Simpsons for example: That took the very standard and basic premise of a family sitcom and turned it into something that had never really been seen before, even when you consider that it’s heavily influenced by the Flintstones, which in turn was influenced by the Honeymooners.
There are, of course, no new ideas, but there are some incredibly over used ones.
Additional Notes:
When I was writing stories at primary school, my first book was how I learnt to spell the word “suddenly”, as it was the only way I could convey action, and all action happened suddenly throughout the book. It was fast paced in the way that arrhythmia is fast paced, haltingly and unhealthily.
Whilst writing this, I really struggled to find another way of saying cliché. Ironically enough, I seem to be working to turn the work cliché into a cliché itself.
I always used to write in an incredibly rambling way. Now I just write in a rambling way. A subtle difference, but you would notice if I abandoned my planning phase again.
Nobody expects the cliché
I have had experience in the field of doing-things-everyone-else-has-done-first. For a long time now, I have run a webcomic as a hobby. It’s a fantastic method for teaching one how to draw and how to make websites and see what does and doesn’t work with compositions. I’ve learnt a huge amount from updating my comic over the last two years, even if I haven’t kept up with it on a regular basis, but I think I have also inadvertently created a complete catalogue of every single webcomic cliché out there.
In no particular order, there is an author self insertion character, the main female character tends to be violent, the predominant subject matter is a group of friends living together, it has a mad-cap inventor character, it has ninjas and relatively two dimensional characters with minimal development beyond things happening to them. For the uninitiated, that is a description of pretty much every single webcomic out there, with the only exception being that mine doesn’t have a constant discussion of video games.
I didn’t sit down and design it this way. I didn’t think carefully about what to put in. It just happened. Of course, not thinking about what to put in is exactly what landed me with the samey-mess in the first place. My only excuse is that I’ve never really taken my comic seriously where others do and that there is a certain degree of work that goes into it, as I very rarely copy and paste images and everything except the formatting, lettering and coloring is done by hand. Upon writing that, I can see that might make it seem like my comic is entirely digital, but the drawing and design is all done by hand which is still the significant part.
How to Avoid it
This could sound preachy, but I feel I can offer this advice because I’ve made the mistakes already.
1) Be aware of existing clichés and stereotypes: Study other ideas, creations or whatever it is you’re trying to do and try to identify common trends. I didn’t really notice the similarities between several different webcomics until they were pointed out to me and had I realized before, I would have taken a conscious effort to avoid them.
2) Don’t be afraid to abandon an idea even if you think it was a good one: There’s nothing wrong with a cliché if it’s done well, but you have to realize that your work will be judged against work that is already out there and will be judged harshly as a result.
3) Don’t be afraid to try something completely different: I’m repeating the point above really, but don’t be scared to shake things up a little. Sometimes you can shake things too far, so keep it within the realms of your genre, but don’t be afraid to experiment.
4) Plan things through: My inner youth cries out in pain as I offer this as advice. Everyone tells you to plan things through, and no one listens, and I do include myself in that definition of no one. I always used to write in a freeform manner which came across as rambling and directionless. Not only that, but when you don’t plan, you accidentally fall back on all those tried and tested ideas automatically and your creativity is completely stifled.
I’m repeating myself again, but there is nothing wrong with a cliché. Some people manage to make a formula work exceptionally well for them. You look at the Simpsons for example: That took the very standard and basic premise of a family sitcom and turned it into something that had never really been seen before, even when you consider that it’s heavily influenced by the Flintstones, which in turn was influenced by the Honeymooners.
There are, of course, no new ideas, but there are some incredibly over used ones.
Additional Notes:
When I was writing stories at primary school, my first book was how I learnt to spell the word “suddenly”, as it was the only way I could convey action, and all action happened suddenly throughout the book. It was fast paced in the way that arrhythmia is fast paced, haltingly and unhealthily.
Whilst writing this, I really struggled to find another way of saying cliché. Ironically enough, I seem to be working to turn the work cliché into a cliché itself.
I always used to write in an incredibly rambling way. Now I just write in a rambling way. A subtle difference, but you would notice if I abandoned my planning phase again.
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Reclaiming yourself
I recently embarked upon my long abandoned webcomic project. For ages, I had my homepage on my home computer set to my webcomics page, and for ages, every time I opened it I was confronted by the cold, harsh, embrace of the "Cannot Find URL". I think every time this happened, it chipped away at me and made me chew my lip a little more.
Finally, I managed to draw a few new pages, and get my website up and running again and up to scratch, allbeit in a fairly skeletal state. If you're interested, which I'm sure you are, it's at http://www.dingbobikcomics.co.uk/. It's incredible how much of a good mood creating something can put you in.
I've also been trying to register for Google Adverts to try and sell out a little bit. The thing that people always forget to mention about selling out is that you get money from it.
Additional Notes:
Upon writing this, I have decided that skeletal state would make quite a nice band name, although it would lend itself to a band that was not very good...
Finally, I managed to draw a few new pages, and get my website up and running again and up to scratch, allbeit in a fairly skeletal state. If you're interested, which I'm sure you are, it's at http://www.dingbobikcomics.co.uk/. It's incredible how much of a good mood creating something can put you in.
I've also been trying to register for Google Adverts to try and sell out a little bit. The thing that people always forget to mention about selling out is that you get money from it.
Additional Notes:
Upon writing this, I have decided that skeletal state would make quite a nice band name, although it would lend itself to a band that was not very good...
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