I’m going to try to keep up with a regular posting schedule. A couple posts a week I was thinking to get things rolling -there’ll be more when I’m working on stuff that’s easier to show off like animations and images. (It’s kinda hard to show notes for a script… also somewhat risky for an online blog that anyone can see -People are less likely to steal an entire story, but individual ideas aren’t copyrightable so it’s not that safe to publish them on a blog before I’ve even finished writing the script.)
Anyways, I thought I’d start off with a production update, and would make this possibly a once-a-month thing or once every two months… we’ll see how it goes… 
I suppose I should start by explaining a little bit about Patriarch first… (I can already tell this is going to be a long post, I tend to do that, feel free to yell at me over length any time you feel like it)
The Last Patriarch is a feature-length film idea I came up with many years ago. It’s been through a lot of script revisions (5 drafts), a self-published Novel, and various work has been done in the form of concepts and Blender models by myself and others (at one point for a short time there was a team of about 6 of us).
In 2008 I decided to step back and take a new approach. Before jumping in to get other people involved I realized I needed to have a really good script/story and also an idea of what the movie should look like. For an animated film there’s innumerable different styles and techniques available, many that haven’t even ever been used before. It’s a HUGE field to study and the possibilities are pretty much limitless nowadays (though photo-realists would disagree with that last statement haha)
So in addition to a good solid script I also needed a “Style Guide” -some visual representation to show people (potential collaborators/investors/etc.) what it’s supposed to look like in its completed form. And also how the animation will flow… (i.e. is it gonna be cartoony and jumpy or more sophisticated and subtler motions)
-For the record I’m going much more towards the subtler side, although its not going to be totally photo-real… I have a really unique idea for how its going to look in my head, so my job now is to get it out of my head and on to paper… which is the same task I have with the script.
So that’s where I stood in 2008…
For the past year and a half or so I’ve put all of that on hold to try and focus on my personal income and financial situation… because I knew that even if I had a good script and direction and a full team of artists to collaborate with, directing a feature film is just not possible while also working at a part-time job, there just wouldn’t be enough time.
So I’ve been working on a “Blogisode” series called THE CAVES. The idea was that it’d be like a weekly episodic series people can read for free online and it’d be ad powered. However, the basic concept I had for that series grew into something way beyond the sort of weekly thing I could just update in a day and make quick money off of. The story premise I have is so compelling and way beyond anything I intended that I had to give it my full attention and focus. I knew I had hit on something really unique and that deserved a year of my life to devote to it, plus years to come.
Over the course of the time I had been focused on The Caves I had also taken a ton of notes for the Patriarch script, so back in September I went to put those into the script thinking it’d be a quick revision and then the final draft would be complete but I immediately realized how far my writing skills had improved. So there’s no way I’d be able to spend a year or more of my life directing a movie based on the script as it was then… A major re-write was needed
But I am desperately in need of income and The Caves is already a good story so now it’s October of 2009. My primary goal right now is to get The Caves online (hopefully within the next few weeks), and then do the re-write for the 6th draft of Patriarch and complete the Style Guide afterwards.
I’m planning to get all of that done by the end of November -but of course that’s dependent on how quickly the script re-write takes and how extensive it is to re-write. I already have a lot of good ideas that are along the right lines so I don’t have any doubts I’ll be able to bring it up to par with my current standards, but it may take a little extra time.
In the meantime, I’m really looking forward to the launch of my Blogisode series. I’m trying to learn Digital Painting so that I can add illustrations to enhance the episodes as much as possible, but we’ll see how that goes. Every day there’s a mountain of notes, research, concepts, and ideas in front of me, but this is a series that I think will have a really broad reach and impact a lot of people so I’m really excited about it.
I’ll be making more posts to talk about the upcoming Blogisodes over the next few weeks and updates on the new direction I’m taking the Patriarch plot. So stay tuned!
(Under 1000 words -Next time I promise there’ll be some pictures, I’m working on some concept art while practicing digital painting.)
