I'm on a Train

Okay, so I've been on a train before. A few times, in fact.  And at least one overnight excursion.  But this was my first business trip taking almost two full days and crossing three states.  That's right.  Landon and I took the Coast Starlight to San Diego Comic Con.

What better train to take to a comic convention?

  Some observations on taking the train:

• It's far more civilized than the circus air travel has become.
• There is no TSA to frisk you when you get on board; no cancer-causing backscatter machines, no invasive pat-downs.  Instead of being treated like a criminal, the passenger is treated like a paying customer and guest.
• The carbon footprint for rail is similar to or lower than air, depending on the trip.
• Our sleeper tickets (first class) were comparable in cost to coach air tickets, and afforded us a shared private cabin which converted to dual bunks.  Plus all of our meals were included.
• The seating is far more comfortable than coach air seating, and the overstuffed swivel armchairs in the parlor car puts even first class air seating to shame.
• Complimentary champagne upon embarking.
• Unlimited access to luggage.
• A dedicated steward to administer each car.
• Free WiFi - which was spotty at times but allowed us to work from the luxurious parlor car.
• Said parlor car has a dedicated steward who offers full bar service as well as meal service with selected menu items.  And while the dining car accommodates all passengers, the parlor car is only for sleeper passengers and therefore is less crowded and generally more comfortable to take meals in.
• Showers.
• A movie theater.
• An arcade.
• A pretty impressive menu of excellent food.
• Reasonably unrestricted movement about the cars to stretch one's legs or whatever.
• Amazing scenery.
• Meeting and talking to fellow passengers.
• Wine and cheese tasting.

Parlor car is the shizzlepants

 The only advantage air travel has over rail is speed.  So if you have the time, and slowing down a bit seems like a nice change, I highly recommend rail.  As a nation, I think we should do more of it, and should invest in updated, more modern trains (like Europe and Japan).  That would make it more energy efficient AND reduce some of the time factor.

Work proceeds in the sleeper cabin

So yes.  I'm a fan of the train.

The end of the line was at Union Station in Los Angeles.  From there, we took the Surfliner (commuter train) to San Diego.  We got in at almost 1AM to discover the hotel had mis-booked our reservation as starting the following day, but they found us a room at a local HoJo*.  It was clean and quiet, and a little more comfortable than a sleeper bunk.

Throngs

In the morning, we set out for the trolley, headed over to the Convention Center, and there we encountered 140,000 geeks.  It was packed, both inside the center and within a six-block radius outside.  We killed time waiting for our new hotel room to be ready by wandering up the streets and locating the U.S. Grant Hotel, where my great-great aunts set up shop as public stenographers in 1915-1916.  We talked to a very enthusiastic concierge, took some photos, then headed back to the con to meet up with our contact, the guy who does the film programming.  We secured our passes and headed to the hotel to drop off our luggage, then took the free shuttle back to the con.

San Diego Convention Center

Ended up at the information booth standing right next to high school buddy and fellow filmmaker Mark Allen, and we made plans to meet up for dinner.

A place of honor: following The Princess Bride and leading into JourneyQuest

The Collectibles screening had a small but enthusiastic audience, and the season looked really nice on the big screen in 1080p.

The Collectibles full season screening

We spent the next day walking the main floor, catching up with friends or making new contacts.  By the end of it, however, I was ready to be away from people.  We met up with one of Landon's film friends who now lives in San Diego and she took us out for drinks before dropping us back at the hotel, where Landon and I proceeded to close down the hotel bar.

Inside the Convention Center

View from the Hilton restaurant

Needless to say I felt like crap the next morning, and decided my last day in San Diego was going to be an actual vacation day.  I slept and lounged by the pool while Landon took in the con for one more afternoon.  We left early the next morning and repeated the train trip in reverse.  When all was said and done, Landon and I arrived home safely having spent an entire week together without wanting to kill each other.  That's the kind of camaraderie long film shoots under hot lights creates.

Union Station/Santa Fe Depot, San Diego

I've now been to Wonder Con, Dragon*Con, Dragonflight, GeoCon, Gen Con, Comic Con International, every Jet City Comic Show, every Emerald City Comicon, and the first two E3 shows.  At 44, I'm pretty much done with long lines, sensory overload, huge crowds of people and the smells that accompany same, especially in high heat and humidity.  I love visiting conventions and trade shows as a professional and enjoy making contact with fans like at The Collectibles world premiere at ECCC.  But this trip reinforced the fact that I'm really not the hardcore fanboy I once was.

By the power of Grayskull!

And that's probably okay.

*HoJo = this, not this.

The Collectibles Comic Book

We've begun work on the assets for The Collectibles season 1.5 comic book.  Originally we were thinking about shooting actors in costume in front of the green screen and then digitally filtering to get our graphical look*, but then we decided it would be more effective in the long run to generate the characters in 3D.  We can then pose them in any hazardous situations we require, and post-process for a graphical look.

Here's a little sneaky at the cover...

And some peeks at the character models in progress...

* Such as the top banner graphic at www.the-collectibles.com or the faux comic book page we used in the SIFF trailer...

Episode 3: The Views Expressed...

Rob and Joel (Kyle and Jim of Kirby Krackle) are back as guest stars in the third episode.  In a sequence reminiscent of Office Space, the team members of the Power Posse meet with the corporate tools to justify their jobs.  And no, we're not too proud to go for the pee joke.

Episode 2: Tool Time

For this episode, we enlisted the talents of Jim Demonakos and Kyle Stevens of Seattle nerd rock band Kirby Krackle to portray Joel Bradavky and Rob Schufeld, a couple of tools from upstairs at "corporate" (meaning where the actual decisions regarding the Power Posse are made).

Some trivia:

• Kirby Krackle are responsible for the end title track on each episode of The Collectibles.  "I Wanna Live in a World Full of Heroes" is exactly the vibe we wanted for the show, as it's about throwing off the mundane yoke of an office job or flipping burgers for the exciting world of superhero crime fighting.
• Jim Demonakos has done some improv, but has no formal acting experience, and it is his rehearsed delivery that makes him so painfully believable as a corporate manager.
• As the chief songwriter and front man for Kirby Krackle, Kyle Stevens is the literal voice of the band, while lyricist Jim Demonakos stays more behind the scenes.  For episodes 2 & 3 of The Collectibles, we reversed their roles.  Jim does the talking while Kyle remains silent.
• Jim's character, Joel Bradavky - what does it mean?  "Joel" is a reference to Joel Schumacher, the movie director who many Batman fans say ruined the 1990s movie franchise.  Batman the Animated Series contained an episode where an overly-flamboyant kid is fantasizing about how he would tell his Batman story, to which the other kids reply, "Shut up, Joel."  This has become comic book jargon for addressing any bad idea.  Among Schumacher's many perceived sins was putting nipples on the batsuit.  "Bradavky" is nipples in Czech.
• Kyle's character, Rob Schufeld - what does it mean?  "Rob" is a reference to Rob Liefeld, a comic book artist in the 1990s whose hyper-stylized drawing bore little to no resemblance to the human form.  "Schufeld" is an amalgam of Schumaker and Liefeld, two extremely divisive personalities in comic book franchise history.

Weekend Players

No, not referencing the English neo-lounge duo.  I'm referring to the packed weekend in which we managed to be all kinds of productive while not exhausting ourselves.  We were up early Saturday to head to the Lynnwood office location of The Collectibles, meeting a skeleton crew to shoot some promo material for the show, including this:


And this:


And this:


The rest of Saturday consisted of Raechelle and me running errands, Halloween shopping, grocery shopping, and then retiring to the house for Halloween decorating and what ended up being a 5-hour Mad Men marathon.  We're getting Raechelle caught up for the new season.

Sunday morning consisted of me shopping and cooking brunch while Raechelle cleaned.  I made a nice brunch and we watched the first half of the Seahawks game (which was the team's first victory in the east in 5 years), then Brian Beardsley and I roughed out the second half of Airship Daedalus chapter three while Rae cheered from the living room (not us, the Hawks game).  Then Dan Humphrey (aka The Quick) and I went over some editing notes for The Collectibles.  Then Dan Heinrich called and we ended up heading over to Dan & Trish's for dinner and another couple Mad Men episodes.  When we got home, I colored and lettered today's Daedalus strip, uploaded it, then turned my attention to editing the PSAs for The Collectibles.

I've been really inspired to write recently - not just throwing stuff into the blog, but real screenplay material.  I did a writing pass on The Collectibles episodes 4 and 5, and have made a start on the Daedalus script for chapter 4.  Also been thinking more seriously about Green Light.  Tomorrow we rehearse Sorry Wrong Number with our Foley guys.

Exciting times.

A Life if Its Own

Funny how Dan & I were just chatting about doing a project during the summer to keep our filmmaking chops up and stay relevant in the Seattle indie scene.  The Collectibles has begun to get traction.  The traction is turning into views on some of the promotional videos (like those below).  And the views are building a fan base.  This has led to a strategic alliance with Zombie Orpheus Entertainment and Ben Dobyns' Fan Supported brand to help maximize exposure.  Our local media sneak peek happens on Sunday, with the website and funding campaign going live on Monday the 26th.  Here are some of the recent teasers we've released:







Meanwhile, Brian Beardsley and I did some research and altered the Airship Daedalus publishing schedule to a Monday-Friday model to better reflect our readers' viewing habits.  We will have a table at Jet City Comic Show this coming Saturday, and a limited run of single issues for Chapters 1 & 2 of the Daedalus comic.

 Also meanwhile (meaning concurrently with the above activities), we cast the fall show for Twelfth Night Productions, a limited double feature of classic suspense radio programs for Halloween weekend done in the same format as It's a Wonderful Life last year.  Actors in period costume performing the plays on a stage set like a period radio studio with live sound effects and, in our case, live music on a 1929 Mighty Wurlitzer.

My favorite poster design in a long time!

So, as always, incredibly busy, but working on stuff I actually enjoy and creating business opportunities along the way.  Still honing and tweaking the Ordinary Angels pitch with my buddy in LA as well.  Back to that in a bit...

Sunday Comics

As the printed newspaper goes the way of any other extinction, the funnies have naturally migrated to the web.  Brian and I are having a blast creating the vintage pulp adventure Airship Daedalus, published twice a week.  It's an homage to the great pulp comics masters like Will Eisner and Alex Raymond.

We're also on Facebook and Twitter.

Wednesday Means...

...a new episode of Airship Daedalus!

The Collectibles

This is the new webseries being co-produced by Dan, Landon, Cherelle, Jonelle and myself.  If you like awkward docu-comedies like The Office, Modern Family, Arrested Development and Parks and Recreation, or costumed superheroes, or both, you'll want to check this out.

We just locked in our main cast, and we're currently in preproduction for a mid-August shoot.

Meanwhile, I'm revising and honing the OA pitch.

And I finally got a new phone (after carting around my slider for a couple years).  Loving the Android.

Busy as a Triple-Booked Bee

As you can see, the schedule has been a bit full as of late, and it shows no sign of letting up any time soon.  Between coloring and lettering a couple Airship Daedalus strips a week, there have been almost nightly Skype teleconferences with production partners and advisers both near and far, a new web series project, revisions to the OA pitch, and end-of-year school events/family plans. 

Kayleigh, Raechelle and I performed our first "gig" as Heartsick on Saturday, as per Raechelle's post.  It was a nice, low-pressure way for Kayleigh to unveil her guitar skills in a public setting.  Afterward, we went to Steve & Steph's to celebrate Steve's birthday and serenade him a bit as well.

The Northern Empires book has been submitted to Amazon for POD, and pending a minor issue with the spine text, should be available soon.  The first proof looked gorgeous.  It's a good addition to the Arrowflight Second Edition line.

Screened The Whisperer in Darkness during SIFF with production partner Landon.  There was a lot to like (especially the lighting and photography).  There were also some questionable choices made (the bane of being a filmmaker is having an opinion on everything).  But overall, another achievement for the HPLHS.

The next few weeks are heavy on the preproduction for the aforementioned web series, as well as nailing down the OA pitch a bit more.  Mad props to high school filmmaking buddy Scott, for his patience and amazing insight on said pitch.  We're fortunate to have his assistance, and grateful for it.  On the web series, we're joined at the producer level by the Gore Sisters, with whom I've worked twice previously.  They did costumes, makeup and props for my music video "On and On", and costumes and props for Darlene Sellers' "Second Season".  They are crazy good at what they do, and their spirit and enthusiasm is infectious.  Really looking forward to doing this project, which I will fill you in on as is appropriate.

Until next time...

Checklist.

Arrowflight - Northern Empires sourcebook: done.  As soon as Gavin gives the pdf a pass, I'll be putting it up for sale online, and arranging the POD run through dtrpg.com and Amazon.  Next up, Shriek X, Star Legion XPG and The Mystic East supplement for Arrowflight.  I also have gear splatbooks for Arrowflight and RADZ started, but they're victims of work-on-'em-when-I-can syndrome.

Airship Daedalus: is it in you?  Are you following it?  Are you decoding the ciphers?  For a secondary learn-as-we-go webcomic project, this thing is proving to be a blast and a half, and has led to a few expansions of the property.  Firstly, we've been given ten pages in the next edition of Mash Tun.  So that's cool.  Then I have the script for a ten-page one-shot story in the following issue.  We also are happy to count actress/singer/producer Wonder Russell (Rogue in the "On and On" film I directed for Kirby Krackle), who has put in a bid to play the character of Doc in any screen venture we attempt with Daedalus.  Although I'm a bit gun shy to go all out on a Daedalus film just yet, Ms. Russell did indeed encourage a teaser/trailer/proof-of-concept project which we could showcase at ECCC next year, as well as using as the basis for a Kickstarter campaign to fund a web serial.  In the meantime, I've already translated Chapter 1 of the webcomic into an old-time radio drama.  We'll set that up this summer and post it to the website.  There's also an RPG of the property in the works (with plenty of legwork already done from the first time I tinkered with the setting back in the late '80s).

Ordinary Angels: We got some incredibly helpful feedback from an old high school filmmaker buddy who now works at Disney.  I'm adjusting the pitch this week.

Spent Raechelle's birthday being sick.  Possible ulcer and a sinus infection.  Recovered enough to co-host our combined birthday bash at the Mop & Bucket, and promptly relapsed.  Spent my own birthday in the doctor's office, but bucked up enough to go see opening night of Thor with the fam and some friends.  Finally went on antibiotics and both issues seem to be clearing up just fine.  But now Raechelle and Kayleigh are both sick with what I've termed The Snot Monster - so much so that we had to skip the trip to Bellingham for May Birthdays.  We're rescheduling for June.

Tyler turns 17 tomorrow.  I don't feel old enough to have a 17 year-old son.  Hopefully I never will feel old enough. I will say that Tyler has undergone an evolution, emotionally as well as physically.  It's such a far cry from where we were just last year (and especially 2008-2009).  We're all breathing a huge sigh off relief and are very hopeful about his future.

It's amazing that I found the time to put up this post, but now I need to get back to the checklist...

Emerald City and Beyond

Once again, Real Life caught me by the ankles, turned me upside down and demanded my lunch money.  Many times over the past couple weeks I wistfully reached for my browser link to compose a blog post, only to have Real Life smack my hand away.  Real Life is a bully, but we must face him.

Brian Beardsley & Todd Downing show off copies of Mash Tun #1

So, Emerald City Comicon was a success all around.  The Airship Daedalus booth was on the side wall of Artist Alley, in the prime strip anchored by Mike Mignola.  Brian sold some original Daedalus pages, and for the first time I actually thought of marketing myself as a writer.  Ended up selling a few of my personal Red Dwarf RPG collection, which was nice (as well as some Ordinary Angels DVDs).  Steve & JD both did very well.  Landon and I shot a bunch of material for the con - mostly panels and events.  Raechelle minioned (verb: to minion), and the kids came down with friends, all on their own.  Rae actually has a more concise rundown of the weekend, which I highly recommend reading.

One of the cool things to come out of the con was the reaction to Mash Tun, Brian Meredith's pulp comic anthology magazine.  Airship Daedalus had five pages and got some momentum from that, and afterward we asked Brian if we could have ten ages in the next issue, and he said "sure!"  So I wrote a ten-page one-shot story, which Brian Beardsley roughed out for artist Ryan Potter to do the finished inks.  As with the twice-weekly strip, I will do the colors and lettering.

The day after Emerald City was over, Dan, Trish, Landon and I finally buttoned up the Ordinary Angels series pitch and sent it to Landon's contact at Fox.  There are more developments on that front, but I can't really say more at the moment.  Fingers crossed.

And I have Arrowflight: Northern Empires in layout.  It's gonna be a nice, hefty tome.

Daedalus Aloft!

www.airshipdaedalus.com went live with the first strip/episode ("stripisode"??) at 12:01AM.  Of course there's only one strip up so far, but we will release a new one every Wednesday and Sunday.  I'm really looking forward to it.

It's also my dad's birthday.  He would have been 67 this year.  He'd just turned 61 when he died.  Time marches on.  I still miss him.

Brian Beardsley came over to meet about the site launch and ECC yesterday.  He brought the table banner, which looks awesome, all six feet of it.

After Brian left and Tyler went with his uncle to their Arrowflight game, I took my girls out to pick up a few household and party prep items.  Raechelle decided to host an Oscar party tonight, and dang it, if she ain't just cute enough to get her way.  She was a manic twister of cleaning frenzy last night, which I actually love about her.

Anyway, didn't sleep much.  Might crash out this morning for a while.  Don't want to be dozing through the Oscars.

Counting Down...

It's T-minus five days to Daedalus, and counting.  The site is coming together (although not finished yet), and we've got the Twitter account up and running.  Brian and I have the first month and a half in stockpiled strips, a table at ECC and a 5-page preview in Mash Tun #1.

Tick tick tick...

Emerald City is a-Comin'

Things have been crankin' here at the CerebraMill.  Turns out we're much closer to our Ordinary Angels pitch than we presumed, and preparation continues on the Airship Daedalus property which launches officially the Sunday before Emerald City Comicon. 

In brainstorming promotional ideas for Daedalus, Brian Beardsley and I were chatting about getting some cheap plastic secret decoder rings made, a la the classic pulp radio & television serials.  But then I had the idea of taking the secret code element and merging it with a collectible postcard...

Character bio on the front:

Cipher wheel on the back:

Every Sunday we'll release a new strip, and include an encoded message for our faithful readers.  It might be a clue to future story events, or it may be some hidden background elements.  In any case, I can assure you it will never say, "BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE."  Unless Ovaltine suddenly decides to sponsor the site, in which case all bets are off.

Olde Time Radio Show

Our production of It's a Wonderful Life opened last Friday, and the show has gone really well so far (despite the double indignity of whacking my skull on the control room door on my way to the stage on Sunday, followed immediately by my involuntary power slide from the second step onto the floor, knees first (of course).  The Wurlitzer is like a whole character unto itself, and doing my best Hugh-Beaumont-meets-Walter-Cronkite-meets-Orson-Welles while wearing a tie and sweater vest is really putting me back in the period.  My one complaint is that my jaw, which has not been naked in a good four years, is really cold right now.  And the stubble is really annoying between shaves.  Fortunately this weekend is the last three shows, and Friday morning should be the last razor-shave for some time.

Meanwhile, I'm editing the first world resource for Arrowflight, entitled Northern Empires; I'm outlining Ordinary Angels season 1 episode 4; and I'm coloring and lettering the Airship Daedalus comic strip.  It's going to be a busy new year...

2011: A Geek Odyssey

First of all, I'm happy to announce that 2011 will see not only our pitch-ready materials for the Ordinary Angels television series, but I'll be joining artist Brian Beardsley to promote Airship Daedalus at Emerald City Comicon in March.  Coinciding with ECC with be the a four-page teaser of Airship Daedalus in Brian Meredith's new pulp anthology comic magazine, Mash Tun.

And then there's stuff like this that makes me all kinds of happy:



As one of my Facebook buddies observed, "Indiana Jones and James Bond in one movie..."  With Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Steven Spielberg producing.  And Jon Favreau at the helm.

Yes, it will be an effects-laden sausage fest.  But it will be an AWESOME effects-laden sausage fest.

That, plus the Thor and Captain America films (still not sure about Green Lantern) will make 2011 a good time to be a geek!

More Pulp

Last month when I went to check out my buddy Brian Meredith's new comic show, the aptly-named Jet City Comic Show, I chatted with another indie comics buddy, Brian Beardsley of Night Rail Press and Studio B Media.  We've known each other for about ten years, and have often chatted about collaborating.  This time, something clicked, eyes widened, plans were made.

The project is based on an old pulp property of mine from the late '80s.  Of course it had its origins as an RPG, but being pulp, it's perfectly suited for the comic book, podcast (radio serial) and web series (film serial) media.  Brian's character studies are already coming in, and I've written the opening 24-page salvo.  Our goal is to deliver a classic two-fisted pulp adventure serial, complete with evil occultist proto-Nazis, zeppelins, ape men and rocket zombies.

Meanwhile, Ordinary Angels series development continues apace.

Stay tuned...

Post Haste

In an effort to get something up before August is completely over, take a gander at this:




The guy who put it together has made "premakes", or retro-style trailers, for a bunch of well-known sci-fi and genre films, including The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Ghostbusters.  With all the recent hype surrounding the upcoming Avengers movie, I thought it apropos to start the discussion with something a bit more off the beaten track.  So there you go.

I will get an honest-to-gawd post up soon... no, really.

Howdy, Stranger.

While I'm not back from vacation in the hot & humid hills of West By God Virginia, the music video for Kirby Krackle's single "On And On" just went live on the interwebs yesterday and I wanted to share it.  This is the project we were breaking our asses to get done before this last weekend so we could have a vacation with a clear conscience.  For those of you who aren't Wolverine or X-Men fans, the song is about the character Logan (aka Wolverine), who is one of the most overworked comic book characters ever.  It deals with the exhaustion and monotony of being a nearly immortal character whose sole existence is either preparing for or recovering from a fight.



It was shot over four days (two weekends) using two Canon DSLRs (a T2i and a 7D) and an awesome cast and crew of professionals working on tiny stipends and coffee.  I'm really proud of my cast and crew, even prouder of my producing partner Dan Heinrich, and extremely grateful to Kirby Krackle for the opportunity to do this project.  I'd been joking with JD Green for ten years that I wanted to do a Wolverine fan film once he was age-appropriate (because as much as we all love Hugh Jackman, he's sure not an authentic physical representation of the character, whereas JD exudes Logan-ness from his every pore).

Anyway, we finally did it, and it's a piece we're proud of.  Feel free to re-post and forward to your comic book geek friends.

I'll be back in a few days with more regular posts.  For now, I'm enjoying the slow pace of a hillbilly vacation.  Where's my banjo??