Back on the Halloween show. Treatment of Scene 3. CARTOONISTA cartoons. My birthday fumble.

February 24, 2011 in MY WEEK, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEOS, WRITING

THE SIMPSONS NEWS
 
I started board revisions on the Halloween show this week. I was given Act 1 which had the least amount of re-writes while my partner got stuck with the much heavier Act 3. It has a lot more re-writes and it’s much more complicated.  It’s also the act the layout crew is starting on.  It’s very funny and it had me laughing so much I was tearing up when we watched the screening.
 
VIDEOS
 
I’ve got some videos from fellow CARTOONISTAS I want to share this week.First up is Jim Lujan‘s latest cartoon HARD CRUMBLER.  A story of a man searching for what he’s lost. Very funny. Jim has a way of making his cartoons seem so serious but they are sooo not. Great stuff:
 
 
 
Next is Raul Aguirre Jr‘s Act 1 animatic for a project he’s working on for El Padrecito Ministries. It’s a cartoon based on the HOMIES and MiJOS line of product of gumball machine toys, you might have seen. It’s amazing. Raul is the man. He obviously did all the voice work and put together an animatic single handed. Fantastic stuff. So much work.  The project needs some stimulus money to continue so you might want to think about pitching in a few bucks, it looks worth it. Have a look:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYyFwDAjGF8 
 
 
WRITING
 
 
Scene three is very short. The most significant thing about it, is that I officially pass the “antagonist baton” from the Lead Sorcerer to the Other Male Sorcerer (the guy who has his face covered by his hair). The Lead Sorcerer is no longer both the Antagonist AND the Impact Character. He is just the Impact Character. The way I’ve been writing him kinda forced me to split the role onto the other character. I’m just glad I had another character to give the role to.
 
 
As I have been doing, I’ll put the synopsis of the scene and then I’ll expand on it:

Scene 3 (Speculation/Inequity)

    • Rob hands over his weapon believing the Sorcerers will keep their word leaving him out numbered and without protection.The Sorcerers laugh at the weapon and throw it in the bushes.Just as he’s about to cut the hot dog they attack him. (First Act climax)
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued

The Lead Sorcerer takes the little hammer and thinks it’s some sort of joke at first. Then he senses that the thing has power. The others think it’s a trick, until the Lead Sorcerer tells them otherwise.  The other two Sorcerers laugh at the puny thing.  They both wonder that anything that small could do anything to anyone.  They laugh at it and at themselves, wondering how anyone would be afraid of it. 
 
hammer-and-sorcerers.jpg
 
The Lead Sorcerer doesn’t like holding or touching the thing any more than he has to, so as his companion laugh at the little hammer, he tosses it as far away from himself as he can. All the while pretending that he thinks the thing is laughable too. The little hammer lands in some bushes a few yards away. The Lead Sorcerer is relieved, knowing that they just barely managed to dodged that bullet. He hadn’t anticipated such power.
 
Everything being settled, Rob feels relieved that he’s at least going to get ten minutes of peace to eat. His stomach hurts from hunger so much he doesn’t really care anything about what the Sorcerers are doing. He takes his knife and is about to cut his hot dog again.The Sorcerers look on. The other male Sorcerers looks on as Rob is about to cut into his hot dog and hatred erupts in his belly.  He sees no reason to give this monster any mercy of any kind.  Before the Lead Sorcerer could stop him, he fires a volley of fire balls at Rob.
 
END OF SCENE
 
That last bit with the fireball was new. I didn’t know he was going to do that until I wrote it. I haven’t really worked out the Sorcerer’s magic system yet. Which means I kinda making it up as go. What I DO know, is that they get their powers by creating unions with “spirits”.
 
 
I find it interesting that, the more I write the more excited I get about it.
 
 
MY WEEK
 
 
It was my birthday on Sunday. I’m now 36.
 
For the first time in a very long time, I decided that I would actually voice what I wanted to do for my birthday. Most birthdays I sit back and let people do things for me for my birthday. This was fine for a while but I’ve gotten to the point where I would actually like to do something I really enjoy. Now a days, what I want to do consists of one thing: playing games.
 
Things haven’t really changed much since many MANY years ago (high school days I think), for my birthday, I invited a bunch of friends over to play video games with me. Things have changed only in the type of games I like.  They mostly consist of tabletop games now.  Well, I thought my wife knew what I wanted. When she asked me earlier this Month what I wanted, I told her,”You know what I like”. Thinking that she’d noticed I have a lot of boardgames around and I’m always asking her to play with me (which she mostly doesn’t do).  I figured she’d think that I might want to invite some people over to play games for my birthday (because she knows I like that).  Well, I found out Friday morning that she didn’t have that in mind at all.  She thought I wanted to go to the park for some reason.  I don’t know why.
 
I corrected that assumption and told her what I wanted. I wanted a game day and I thought it would be best to do it on a Saturday since people didn’t have to go to Church and some people had to work on Monday.  So at the last minute, Alesha started contacting people about coming over on Saturday to play games. 
 
I got very excited.  Not only that, but I started to get a little worried as people started confirming that they were coming.  It was going to be about eighteen people or so. This is a bit of a problem since most of my games average about four players, and I only had ONE table. My parents said they weren’t going to make it and my brother and sister-in-law weren’t either.  I was counting on my parents coming to bring some extra tables, but in the end, I went over to their place to pick them up. 
 
We cleaned up the house and rearranged the furniture to have the most space possible to have three gaming table ready. Then came the tricky part, what games to put out for people to play. I knew I was going to spend a lot of time explaining games because the games I have aren’t mainstream.  Most people hadn’t even heard of them.  So I thought hard and came up with some solutions. One table would have the game GYPE which requires you to read three sentences of rules before the game begins. It’s a fun fast game and I would just be able to point to the table and people could get started. It also plays tons of people.
 
On another table, I set up the game FORBIDDEN ISLAND. This is a very simple cooperative game for four people. It’s very pretty and easy to teach. Since it’s cooperative, it would be perfect as an intro to gaming, since everyone at the table is working together. I also wanted to hook up two TVs. One hooked up to the Nintendo 64 running MARIO PARTY. The other hooked up the my PS2 running DOKAPON KINGDOM (both are boardgame video games). Unfortunately I couldn’t get one of the TVs to hook up well, so that left only one. If I needed another one, I’d unplug the one in my office and bring it down.
 
For the “big table”, I wanted to put something I really wanted to play. Something a little bit heavier that I can really sink my teeth into. I wanted to play AGRICOLA, but I also wanted to go with COSMIC ENCOUNTER since it was silly strategic fun. I just couldn’t decide. 
 
I forgot to tell you that the day before, Alesha had gone over and picked up her friend Rosetta who slept over. She’s one of Alesha’s best friends and she is one the few who LOVES playing boardgames with us. When she heard we where having a boardgame party, she couldn’t wait to come.
Everyone was suppose to come at two but by two o’clock, no one had come.  Alesha, thought we should start playing something while we waited. So I chose DOMINION. I explained the game to Rosetta and we got started. We had fun, in spite of the fact that the kids kept interrupting the game. I was hoping to have other kids or people there already to keep them distracted but…oh well. By the time we finished the first game of DOMINION, we had found out that one group of people wasn’t going to make it because they were having car problems.  That was okay, there were more coming. We started another game of DOMINION and finished the game much faster but still had lots of interruptions. Especially since Alesha was cooking as she played. By the time we finished the second game, we had received two more phone calls telling us the rest of the people who were coming weren’t going to make it because of car troubles. EVERYONE had car problems. Crazy.And so ended my big game day. We eat dinner after that. I was sung happy birthday and we eat cake.  Rosetta had to go home (forty five minutes away) so Alesha took her home promising me that when she got back, she would play some more games with me. I stayed and played FORBIDDEN ISLAND with the kids (we lost twice) and then we played a game of TABLE GYPE (only using the flame side up).I love playing with my kids because it lets me spend time with them and they enjoy it so much. That said, I don’t actually enjoy any of the games I play with them. I mean, I really can’t be serious about playing against them or anything.  They are just little kids. The games aren’t very satisfying and I was really in the mood to play satisfying games. After all, it was my birthday party.Well, I put the kids to bed soon after we where done (since it was their bedtime) and I was left all alone with three tables of games that no one used.  I began to put everything away. I must admit, I was heartbroken. I knew it was my fault for not speaking up earlier and letting people know sooner. Still, it really sucked.

My family was going to hold a birthday party for me the next day. Unfortunately, games are almost never played at parties held for me at my parents house. In fact, Alesha even suggested that we should hold the game night at my parent’s but I told her I didn’t like that idea, for a few reasons. 1) It would mean I wouldn’t  have access to all my games, since I couldn’t bring them all. This meant I couldn’t cater the games I brought out the specific group that sat to play a game. 2) It wouldn’t have been about the games at my parents house. It would be about the food and the socializing.  Socializing would come first, then food and if we had time (which we almost NEVER do) we would play something.  The game day, as I had planned it, had NO finger foods (no chips or anything you eat with your fingers), and the food was secondary to the gaming.  It was meant to be unimportant. Also, you could socialize all you wanted and not play a game but if you wanted to socialize with me, you had to play a game with me because I wanted to be playing something all the time. I wouldn’t have gotten that at my parent’s house.

Anyway, Alesha came home about three hours later, completely beat.  She’d been stuck in traffic for hours in rain and sleet. She was in no condition to play anything anymore and I was emotionally drained and sad so I didn’t really want to play anything either.

The next day was my birthday, I went to Church with Elizabeth and got ready to go to my parent’s house. I brought my games with me along with all the tables and chairs I borrowed.  As I usually do, I pack up very specific games that I think the people at the party will like to play. I do this every time I go to a party (just in case someone says to me, “Let’s play a game”).  When I got to my parents house, I left the games in the car. I do this because we rarely ever play them so why bother taking them out. Like I said, I bring them just in case.  I kinda had the impression that I was expected to bring games since they didn’t come to my game party.  I knew better though.

The birthday party was nice.  The food was amazing.  Eduardo, my Compadre, barbecued the most awesome stakes. I couldn’t stop eating them. I mean, these things were sooo good. They had this fantastic smoky flavor. Yum. The food was great and the kids had fun.

Everyone left early because it was Sunday and no one mentioned games. My games stayed in the car.  We left soon after.

When we got home we put the kids to bed, Alesha asked me if I wanted to play something. We played a game of the CATAN CARD GAME and two games of DOMINION. We had a great time and I was very happy and grateful to her.

But here’s the thing. I might be self centered, walking around feeling sorry for myself but in spite of my flaws, something really good happened in spite of my disappointing game day. Alesha’s friend Rosetta had an INCREDIBLE time with us.  She couldn’t stop thanking Alesha on the way home for being invited to come.  She had been going through a lot of bad things and having come over to spend time with us and playing games had been the highlight of her year so far.  She was so happy.  So all this birthday stuff, it wasn’t about me. It was about her and what SHE needed. Sometime you have to stop thinking about yourself and see the big picture. I didn’t NEED a game day. I just wanted one. She NEEDED what we ended giving her and you know what? That makes it a great birthday.

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