THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Moved on to the Halloween show this week. At this point in the week, I’m not sure I’ll get what I was assigned done.  I’m going to try my best to finish. It’s my professional pride to finish what I’m given. I don’t like giving back scenes I didn’t get to. Especially since I know I only have this week to work on the this show.  Next week I start on Storyboard revisions again.

FAMILY

Dante turned 3 years on Monday.  We took him to Travel Town at Griffith Park.  It’s an old train yard converted to a park/museum.  Dante is train obsessed.  He’s into Thomas and Friends.  He was so excited to be going into the trains.  He loved it.

I did too. Trains are cool.  There was an enormous one that had wheels taller than me.  It was a giant train engine. Amazing.  We rode on the mini train they had there and I ended up buying Dante a James the tank engine from Thomas and Friends.  We then drove to the other side of Griffith Park were Dante’s Godmother was. There, we took him to ride a pony and another little train. My parents met us earlier in the day at Travel Town, so they were there too.

Dante was dying to go home mid way through the day, not because he wasn’t having a good time, but because he so desperately wanted to go home and play with his trains. Unfortunately we had a party to go to that day and we went there instead.  Lucky for Dante, there where toy trains at that house for him to play with, so it was all okay.

When we DID get home, he took his new toy train to bed and slept with it.  The next day, he spent a few hours playing with it.  Every day when we get home, he plays with his trains. He’s been doing it for almost a year now.

WEBSITES

Gamification  is the concept that you can apply the basic elements that make games fun and engaging to things that typically aren’t considered a game.

I became aware of this concept a while back, but I really didn’t put much attention to it.  Then I read an article on Purple Pawn that made me a bit more curious, so I decided to find out more about it. It was an article about a new website that allows you to “Gamify” your site called Gamify.com.

This kinda gave me a more concrete example of what Gamification meant. Not only that, but it made it accessible. I then made my way to the Gamification Wiki where I found these videos explain things a  bit more:

All this has got me thinking about how I could “Gamify” my blog, or any comics I make, or any cartoons I create. I’d love to have people get into anything I do because it’s not only fun to read or watch but because it also has a meta element, like a game, to keep you coming back for more. That way you can get a longer lasting experience out of what I do.

As a gamer (and by gamer I mean I like playing table top games, as well as video games) I find this really fascinating. Especially since it would combine the things I love. What do you think?

WRITING

(For those of you coming in late to these posts, if you want to read what my project is about, CLICK HERE to learn about the general world the story takes place in, and CLICK HERE if you want to know the story itself.)

Below is an excerpt of what I wrote from a few weeks ago, as set up for what I’m writing about THIS week, in case you’re interested in following along with more depth:

Right now, the theory of story that I like to use to flesh out my plot is the DRAMATICA theory.  Unfortunately the DRAMATICA theory is so complicated and convoluted, that I can’t really sum it up in a nut shell. If you want to get an idea of what DRAMATICA is all about, click the link below:

What is DRAMATICA?

In order for you to be able to understand it fully, you would need to download and read the FREE book on pdf. Click the link below:

Free DRAMATICA pdf book

or listen to the FREE audio book podcasts by clicking the link below:

Free DRAMATICA audio book

or read the FREE text of the book directly from  their site by clicking the link below:

The DRAMATICA book readable on the net for free.

As I did the last two weeks, I’ll put up the DRAMATICA Table of Story Elements in order for you to understand what I’m talking about and so you can follow along.   For a clearer pdf version of the chart (download chart now):

Alright, last act. As I wrote this one out I realized I’m going to have to make a few adjustments to Act 2 (more about that below) but that’s exactly what this process is about. Adjusting the structure of the story until you get the pieces in the right places.

Act 3

OVERALL STORY THROUGH LINE

• Innermost Desires – The Lead Sorcerer stomps on the Hot Dog the main character so desired thereby demoralizing him. The Main Character sees his hot dog as a representation of the peace he longs for. Seeing this, the Sorcerers rejoice in the fact that they have can potentially attained the one thing no other Sorcerer so far have been able to do. Namely, kill the Main Character. They relish in the anticipation of the glory they so desire.
• Innermost Desires ======> Contemplation – Having lost his Hot Dog and having nothing left to lose, the Main Character truly fights back. Giving into his desire to get revenge for the peace that was taken from him. He beats the Sorcerers senseless.  This causes the Sorcerers to realize their mistaken impression of themselves.
• Contemplation – A moment at the end there where the Main Character could have taken the Lead Sorcerer’s life but didn’t, makes the Sorcerer rethink who he is, what he does, and what all the other Sorcerer’s say about the Main Character. This leads to a generous act on the part of the Lead Sorcerer, who buys the Main Character two Hot Dogs to replace the one he destroyed. This makes the Main Character thinks that there still might be some hope for peace left.

MAIN CHARACTER STORY THROUGH LINE:

• Doing – Unfortunately the Lead Sorcerer destroys his Hot Dog, which forces him to pick up his weapon and fight them off or die.
• Doing ======> Understanding – After dispatching all the monster and the other Sorcerers, he has the Lead Sorcerer in a weakened and vulnerable state.  Understanding that the only way to show the Sorcerer that he’s mistaken about who he thinks he is. He chooses to let him go free.
• Understanding – Rob realizes that it’s possible to change the minds of the Sorcerers and that gives him hope, that the attacks might stop and he’ll get the peace he wants. He also knows that every time he uses the warhammer, it gets more and more difficult to control himself and it.

IMPACT CHARACTER STORY THROUGH LINE:

• Playing a Role – Rob begins striking down the Lead Sorcerer’s monsters and friends, making it easy to prove his point. He drives it home by  showing Rob how easily he would strike down a helpless person, by NOT fighting him. Playing the role of victim to Rob’s predator.
• Playing a Role ======> Changing One’s Nature – Rob shows the Lead Sorcerer that he HADN’T been as consumed  and rage as he let on. Rob surprises the Lead Sorcerer by not attacking him when he has a chance.
• Changing One’s Nature – The Sorcerer is deeply moved by this example and becomes very impressed.  The Lead Sorcerer, makes a gift of two Hot Dogs for Rob out of respect, leaving Rob with a new perspective about the Sorcerers as a whole.

MAIN CHARACTER vs. IMPACT CHARACTER STORY THROUGH LINE:

• Future – The Lead Sorcerer insists that the Main Character will enslave the world whether the Main Character says he will or not.  The future is set, according to the prophesy.  The main character insists it’s wrong, it’s false, it can’t happen.
• Future ======> Present – In order to prove to the Lead Sorcerer that he’s not what the prophesy of his future says he is, he forces the Lead Sorcerer to notice how he acts here and now, by NOT treating him the same way the Lead Sorcerer treated, him.  He doesn’t kill or hurt him once he’s down and powerless.
• Present – Because of the way the Main Character treated the Lead Sorcerer, for now, the two characters end up, not as friends but not exactly enemies.  There’s a type of mutual respect for each other that exist for the moment, that wasn’t there before.

Act 3 Themes (Truth/Falsehood, Suspicion/Evidence)

Scene 7 (Desire/Ability)

• Ignoring the Sorcerers, Rob goes for his hot dog only to have the Lead Sorcerer step on it, leaving Rob stunned for a second. Rob becomes angry and his Raven flies from the bushes with Robs little weapon in it’s talons.  He drops it on Rob’s hand were it magically grows large and he begins to fight off the monsters and Sorcerers in an almost out of control bezerker rage.

Scene 8 (Thought/Knowledge)

• Seeing the might they have unleashed on themselves the Sorcerers are shocked and two of them are incapacitated by Rob. The Lead Sorcerer seeing this, thinks he’s proved his case and does the crazy thing of putting his guard down to prove to Rob who he really is. Rob sees this and fights to bring down his rage. The Lead Sorcerer expects to be struck down, only Rob surprises him by NOT doing so. (Act 3 climax)

Scene 9 (Thought/Actuality)

• Rob puts down his weapon, walks away. He helps the other Sorcerers up and then starts picking up his things, which are now all over the destroyed area they fought on.  By the time he’s done, the Sorcerers are gone. When he begins to walk away, the hot dog vendor calls out to him. He has two hot dogs for him, seemingly bought by the Lead Sorcerer. (Resolution)

And that’s that.  I’m thinking about putting the “hot dogs getting stepped on” bit in Scene 6.  I think it will fit better there.

I think Scene 8 will need to be the trickiest one, mainly because there needs to be a moment of inner conflict for Rob in order to be climactic and showing it visually will be difficult.

Now that I have a quick synopsis of what will be in each scene, I can star writing the treatment. Once that’s done, I will start writing the dialogue (which is the part I dying to write).

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