Day 234 – Natural Highs

Posted: 27th March 2013 by Mike Gasaway in writing
1

I went to college and did my fair share of…studying.  Well, not too much of that.  I was in architecture so we basically lived at the studio.  Sometimes, there was extra-curricular activities going on to “expand your mind”.  What do dumb architecture students know, right?

Now that I’ve gotten (much) older, I have shied away from the magical herb and looked to more natural ways of having out of body experiences.  Beer.  No, not beer.  Although I like it and even brewed it for a while.  I’m talking about the creative process.

Something weird happens when you are in the middle of creating.  I think it’s switching over to the right side of your brain or something but you become transported into a different world.  I know that when I’m writing, I don’t hear anything else (except for salad eaters in the QUIET ROOM).  My fingers blaze on the keys (I’m a pretty fast typer, yeah.  Wapner’s on at seven) but my brain is somewhere else.

It’s odd.  Time stops or flies, depending on your perspective.  I can sit down and start writing or animating and then look up and the sun is down.  Well, I can’t write for THAT long.  I’m afraid I would die from enhancement overload.  My turns are usually about two hours at a time.

After that, I’m in a haze.  It’s weird.  It’s like I’m stoned again (sorry, mom).  My feelings are in a state of euphoria and it seems as if I’m walking on air.  That makes the drive back from the office (the local library) a little difficult.

but interesting…

I can just see getting pulled over.  Sir, I’m going to have to cite you for driving under the influence of creative endeavors.  What would that sobriety test look like?  Okay, now read this passage from Longfellow with one eye shut…

oh literary humor.

Anyway, I’m not sure why I decided to write about this today.  I think I’m coming out of a haze right now.  Yes, Dr. Strangelove, I agree with you.  In every way.

now where is that beer?

Day 233 – The Importance of Collaboration

Posted: 25th March 2013 by Mike Gasaway in agony, writing
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Living in a bubble wouldn’t be too fun.  You can’t hear what’s going on outside.  The visuals get distorted.  There isn’t much air.

But most of all, you are alone.

I’m not talking about the rare and very unfortunate souls who have to live in a real bubble, freed from the allergens and diseases of the world.  I mean us creative type o’ folks who can’t have our work just our own without any input from others.

Working on the various television shows, I craved the days when about four or five of us would be in a room and try to come up with funny ideas or interesting story beats.  The energy that went around those rooms was so infectious, sometimes we didn’t want to leave.

Nowadays, I’ve been writing a little isolated.  It’s just me and 84 keys with different letters on them.  Unless you count the voices in my head (which you can read on other posts), I’m all alone.

That isn’t the best when it comes to bouncing ideas around.  I’d like to think I’m pretty strong at story.  Not the best but I do know a little about it.  What I do miss is that little word called collaboration.

Missing it came to a head today.  I’ve written this first book with a pretty good idea of what I was doing.  The story was solid and the characters were working.  There was ONE little part that I glossed over and it came to bite me in the buttocks.  One of my new collaborators found it and screamed the fact out loud.

I couldn’t ignore it – even if I wanted to.

Also, because he was right.

I outlined the crap out of this story before and this one issue didn’t go away.  Part of the problem was because I didn’t have anyone to bounce it off of.  Now that I do, I’m a little back to square one.

Well, not square one but out of a hundred squares, I think I’m in the thirties or so.

The good news?  NOW it is ironed out.  It’s a little different and a LOT simpler.  It all makes sense and will make for a much better story.  All thanks to collaboration.

The best news out of this is that it is a different story for agents to reject…always finding a silver lining…I came up with that one all myself.  No collaboration needed.

Day 232 – Killing your Babies

Posted: 22nd March 2013 by Mike Gasaway in agony, planning
2

Man, do I hate that saying.  Sounds completely awful and it is.  Well, I’m not asking you to commit murder by any means.  I’m talking to the artist or anyone else out there that has a project or an idea or whatever and you just can’t get it done.  There is something about it that is stopping you.  I like the square peg, round hole theory.  You can’t put a square peg into a round hole.  The other saying I agree with is Einsteins, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Hence Kill Your…let’s use another word there…how about…idea that just doesn’t work.

That’s much better.  Say it again with me.  Kill your idea that just doesn’t work.

That happened to me this morning.  I set out writing this novel a few years ago.  I had a cool germ of an idea and it just grew and grew.  But there was one part that just never materialized.  I didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t completely nailed it so I glossed over it.  I know…I know…it goes against everything I’ve said about PLANNING and not going to step two before step one is done…I hear you.  BUT, I’m human.

My kids don’t believe that but I am.

I wanted to get to writing!  I thought this was a minor thing.  You know, logic…

Well, I completed the book and had a few readers read through.  One smacked me over the head last night and really made me think.  I had a huge logic problem for the book.

Not little.  HUGE.

So I turned basketball off and dug in deep.  Thought how I could fix it.  My problem was, I was holding on to an idea that I LOVED and couldn’t let it go.  Finally, after sleeping on it, I let it go.  By little baby…I mean…idea.

After that, it was liberating.  I dug even deeper and found out what the problems were and went to solving them.  Have they been solved?  I’m not quite sure.  If not, I may have to kill a couple more…ideas.

(I’m not a serial killer nor do I ever plan to so send all hate mail to Brian Williams, c/o NBC)

(That last one was for any Daily Show watchers…if you don’t watch it…DO!)

Day 231 – The Characteristics of Characters

Posted: 21st March 2013 by Mike Gasaway in writing
1

There’s a major problem I have when I do any public speaking or talk to my students – especially when it’s a little off the cuff.  I hate repeating words.  I’m not sure if it’s a mental problem but I don’t want to sound dumb.  I mean, besides the normal way I sound dumb.

During an eloquent delivery (see?), there are a bunch of voices in my head.  Not just on pitch day either (see yesterday’s post).

The hardest part about this is separating these voices.  One of the ways to do this is to give each character characteristics.  I start by coming up with at least five traits that a character can have.  He can be emotive, happy-go-lucky, shy, loud, et al.  You get the picture.  I put those together that, at first, seem willy nilly.  Well, it is willy nilly.  But once I put them on paper, I try to make them a little different.  Do I want someone who is shy and reserved?  That’s a little boring.  I want to make those adjectives or traits to be pretty varied.  Heck, maybe they aren’t even closely related at all.

Shy and loves to play with buttons.  Huh?  Not really related but pretty cool.

See what it does?  It elicits a feeling about a character.  I mean, what kind of person likes to play with buttons?

This gives the character a life of their own.  This is SUPER important in this world of make-believe.  It’s important if you are a character designer.  It helps give form to your character.  What her face looks like.  What kind of clothes they wear.  It does it all.  Start with a blank canvas?  You get a blank character.

It’s also important with animation.  Give the character some fears and loves and suddenly you have vibrant animation that seems a bit more real.  Do this with writing?  Well, that’s my whole point of this long run-on paragraph laden rant.  I can’t even begin to write anything until I know who my characters are.  I do a biography so I can hear them speak.

And speak to me they do.  I don’t have to write anymore because they do it for me.  (I, however, will take the paychecks.  They get nothing and like it.)  This can’t happen without drawing up characteristics.  Without breathing a little more life into them.

But believe me, there are days I wish I didn’t have so many of them in my head…at the same time.

It’s hard enough to know what is MY voice anymore…but that’s another discussion…

Day 230 – Pitching Planet Sheen (kind of)

Posted: 20th March 2013 by Mike Gasaway in agony, pitching
1

Listening to the multiple voices in my head today, I was harkened back to the time we first pitched Planet Sheen.  It wasn’t called Planet Sheen back then.  It was something different.  Something with rich characters who had interesting problems and conditions.  Stories that had depth and imagination.  In short, it was funny.

It started out as a crazy idea that Keith Alcorn (the lovely and uber talented) and I dreamed up one day after lunching at our normal weekly hangout.  Throughout history, we humans have been searching for intelligent life.  I thought it would be funny if we sent a pretty dumb guy in space, he crashed on Mars and found life.  But it wasn’t intelligent.

To which Keith added – what if they were hillbillies?  The germ was born.  We both loved it and nurtured it.  We came up with those fun and imaginative characters with depth and purpose.  There was a feuding family that fought over crops.  Ma-n-Pa was one person where Ma was the front end and Pa was the hind end.  We had a love interest who wanted desperately to get off the planet.  There were designs, outlines and a pretty dang (hillbilly reference) funny script.

We were ready to go.

Three of us ventured to New York where we met the head of Nickelodeon (way atop the MTV building), the head of development and another producer.  We pitched the show and it was going really well.  They were laughing in the right places.  Catching what we were throwing down.  It was a lot of fun.

What does this have to do with voices?

Well, we finished our pitch and the question part of the program came up.  Keith and I had this all pretty nailed.  We knew the characters and the situation pretty well.  We had a bunch of scenarios that worked nicely.  We were ready for everything.

I should have said that Keith was ready for anything because the head of development asked me a question.  I thought we answered it pretty solidly in the pitch.  In my head, my first voice jumped in and started telling me that we answered it already, what does he mean?  The voice that was telling me to talk had a different agenda.  It was saying the exact same thing that we had said in the pitch.

After I was done (or so I thought), I smiled back to the producer…who proceeded to ask the exact same question.

Another voice fires up in my head.  This one is screaming, “We’ve been found out to be a fraud!”  Apparently, this voice is also connected to my sweat glands.  Especially the ones around the hair line.  Right around this time, another voice starts yelling, “STOP TALKING!!” over and over.  For some reason, however, the main voice has commandeered my vocal cords and my mouth because they aren’t stopping.

Finally, one last voice yells even louder.  This one was very ingenious and telepathic.  It started yelling, “KEITH!  Help us!!!”

Some how, some way, Keith heard that voice (that or he noticed my increasing perspiration) and jumped in and successfully answered the question.

My heart started again and my pulse returned to normal.  All the voices were happy with the result and decided to remain quiet.  The rest of the meeting went pretty well and the outcome is going to be saved for another time.

I think you can fill in some of the blanks because that show that we pitched was called Red Acres.  A show I’m sure would have made it more than one lousy season…

 

Day 229 – Choreography and Rolling Chairs

Posted: 19th March 2013 by Mike Gasaway in Cameras, Layout
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Have you ever seen the behind the scenes in movies where the director walks around with his hands looking like the little goal posts when you played paper football in grade school?  Yeah, it looks silly but it does, for some odd reason, serve a purpose.  Those digits can magically block everything out of view so it appears to the director that he’s looking through a camera lens.

Well, not exactly but it does help.  Try it.

Feels stupid, doesn’t it.

But it works.

That’s not the only thing that helps visualize things when you are trying to come up with shots.  Especially shots that are dynamic and have a certain filmic vitality.  I loved to put those kind of shots in my shows.  My lighting crew, at first (and maybe all the way through), HATED these shots because they were very tough to light.  I still love that crew with all of my heart.  They’re some great peeps with super talent.

Those types of shots are hard to not only come up with but to then communicate it back to artists so they can execute it.

The most fun time I had doing shots like this was for the Christmas Episode of Jimmy Neutron, Holly Jolly Jimmy.  There are a couple of songs in that show and I wanted to make it over the top with spinning characters, dance numbers and very cool transitions from shot to shot.

The best was the dance part.  I had an idea that I wanted the characters to spin away around the camera, revealing something else behind it.  I tried to explain it but nothing was sticking.  So Joe (my beloved editor) and I cleared out the room except for two rolling chairs.  We put two layout artists on the chairs and with the music running, we spun them around and twirled them in the room.

Light bulbs went on and the gears started turning.  They got it and couldn’t wait to set up the shot.  They executed it flawlessly.  The animators did a bang up job of doing the little dance and the lighters even enjoyed doing the shot.

All because I put my hands up like little goal posts…

Day 228 – Need a Little Gas for the Car

Posted: 18th March 2013 by Mike Gasaway in agony
0

It’s that sound.  You know the sound.  When the weather is a little cold (San Diego friends, that means below 50 degrees) and your car just doesn’t want to turn over.  I’m not sure what turn over means but I heard a gear monkey say that once.  Not a real monkey because that would be too cool but a mechanic.  What he was trying to say was the engine didn’t quite want to start.

In a long about way, that’s how I’ve felt lately.  I start up and then stop.  Start stop.  Marco.  Polo.  Hard to keep the momentum going for some reason.  Not anything in particular.  Well, except for the lack of sunshine.  I’m pretty sure the sun’s still up there but we in Ohio, haven’t seen it in a while.  Wait, did 2012 come and go already?

Wow, I’m all over the place.  That’s pretty much what has been going on in my head these days.

In short.  I miss working on a show day to day.  I’d like to think it was a strong suit of mine, going to work and helping make great shows.  I still have it in me but for some reason things just aren’t going that way.  I wonder if maybe my time is up.  Maybe I did what I was supposed to do.  Like my light extinguished.

I said SOMETIMES.  Not all the time.  I know.  I know.  Whoas me.  It’s just a phase.  We “artists” go through it all the time.  One minute we’re up; the next we’re down.  I joke with my students that I have a shovel next to my bed.  NOT to bury someone while they sleep (although a few come to mind) but to keep it there to remind me I could always dig ditches for a living.

Throughout my career, I’ve been lucky…no…blessed that I have been able to do what I have done.  I’m in a different part of my cycle now and just need to figure out what that is and where I’m going.

In the mean time, to use another car metaphor, I’m going to take you all on little journeys with me.  Little anecdotes, if you will, of my career.  Strap on, it is definitely bumpy.

but fun.

Now, if I can just find my keys.

Day 227 – Writing and the like

Posted: 25th February 2013 by Mike Gasaway in agony
1

Spotty.  That’s a good word.  Erratic.  That’s another good one.  Lazy.  Probably in there as well.  But mostly, apathetic.  Yeah.  That’s the word.

That’s the way it’s been since I finished the upteenth pass on Book 1.  There was excitement and momentum and then after crossing the finish line, there was just blah.  I wonder if this happens to everyone.  It’s an odd feeling.  Finishing a journey of sorts and wondering what’s next.  It’s been…interesting.

That’s another word.

What I’ve been doing is going back and forth with a wonderful reader whom I have never met.  We are reading each others’ manuscript, one chapter at a time and giving notes.  Their notes have been spot on and have made my book better and better. I’m learning a lot both through the notes and giving my own notes.

For animation, I’ve always told my students that I like them to critique each others’ works.  It’s good for the person being critiqued and the one critiquing.  It gives you a better animation eye.  Makes you see things you haven’t seen.

Doing this with writing has definitely made me a better writer.

But I’m at a weird crossroads.  I’ve completed, what I’ve been told, something special.  It’s resonating and that’s all I could ask for.  But now, I am feeling that aggravation of making sure the second book is as good or better than the first.  This has been the goal from the beginning.

Don’t you just hate when the second movie is worse than the original?  I mean, except for Aliens and Empire (both following amazing movies), the second and third and fourth movies, usually stink in comparison.  Ok, I’ll give you The Godfather Part Two.  Oh and before the crazy few of you that say, what about Evil Dead 2?  I say, there was only one movie.  I refuse to even acknowledge there was a second one.  Oh, and it’s not Friday the Thirteenth Part One.  There is no such movie.  It’s just Friday the Thirteenth.

I digress.  I’m back to outlining the second book – something I thought I did before I started the first book.  The problem is, the outline isn’t as good as the first book.  I’ve had to revamp it.

And that’s hard.

And spotty.

And erratic.

And lazy.  Well, not lazy.  That made no sense.

 

Day 226 – NYC (part 3)

Posted: 15th February 2013 by Mike Gasaway in Meetings
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…and that was it!

HA…

not really.  We were 15 minutes outside the city and the day was just about ready to get underway.  I had a fantastic meeting (that will be hopefully posted about very soon).  It was the whole purpose of the trip and made it all worth it.

I then took a train to White Plains to see my buddy Tom and have a few beers.  After staying the night, I woke to a ton of snow.  Did I say ton?  I meant a TON.  Now, if you don’t my sordid tale, I grew up in Ohio, moved all around, found peace in San Diego and got uprooted back to Ohio about two years ago.  I have seen some pretty good snows.

This one was up there.  That afternoon, I took the train back to the city and hung out for a little bit, watching giant snowflakes fall on 30 Rock.  I was going to stay at another friend’s place in New Jersey so I took the PATH subway under the Hudson river.  When I got on the rail, the snow was coming down but it was pretty normal.

Cut to the other side of the river?  White out.  It was weird.  The trip only took about 15 minutes but in weather terms felt like three hours.  I couldn’t believe how much it changed in just a few miles.  Let’s put it this way.  From the station in Hobokken, you can see the city across the river.

Not today.

I had no idea the city was even there.  I didn’t realize we were that close until the next day when the skies were open.  I couldn’t believe how bad it was.

As if that were the only problem.  My friend said the roads were horrible and that it would take him a few hours to get to me but the light rail system was working.  He told me which station to go to and he would meet me there.

Or so we thought.

At this point, my phone is dying.  For some reason, my phone battery is horrible.  After a day of texts and calls and pictures of Grand Central, it was ready for a nap.

So I get off on the station my buddy THOUGHT he told me to go to.  It’s snowing like mad.  I mean blankets of snow are falling at this point.  I’m trying to text him, saying my phone is at two percent.  He then tells me I’m at the WRONG STATION.  That’ I’m about 45 minutes away!

Holy crap.  So I’m thinking, great.  45 minutes is a long time to wait at a station.  I’m thinking that he isn’t going to wait that long and then I won’t be able to call him since my phone has died.  Yeah, I’m panicking.

OH…what about a phone charger?  Funny you should ask because I did bring one…and then left it at Tom’s…

I get on the rail and luckily happen to talk to a very friendly New Jersey-ite.  I ask him if he happens to have a charger.  He replies – only for an android phone.

Hallelujah!  I have an android phone!

So I yank the plug from his kind hands and save my battery.  My friend waits at the station – bless his heart – and we proceed to have a fun evening hanging with his family.

In short (yeah right), the storm dumped about 15 inches of snow on us.  Fortunately, I wasn’t leaving until much later saturday night so my bus wasn’t delayed at all.  I ended up leaving without a hitch.

unless you count the heat going off on the bus and the same crappy wi-fi…Overall, it was much better.

I can’t wait to go back again!

(more on the meeting later when I can say anything.  I promise)

Day 225 – NYC (part 2)

Posted: 13th February 2013 by Mike Gasaway in Meetings, writing
0

…and now we return you to your regularly scheduled program.  If you remember what happened before, excellent.  If not, too bad.

Oh, ok.  I was going to New York on a bus and blah blah blah…I started up my computer and…

BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.

Ok, no big deal.  I’ve been having some issues with Chrome and java lately that’s been crashing my machine.  It’s usually fine after a reboot.

BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH AGAIN.

Ok, now I’m panicking.  Just ask Lisa about the texts that I was sending and how many DIDN’T have the F word in it.

Then I realized – FROSTWIRE!  The movie Gods were punishing me for illegally downloading movies!

I was distraught.  When the dos screen came up RECOMMENDING me to restore to a previous version, my heart sank.  What was I about to lose?  My laptop is essentially my office.  And my office had been broken into and I was about to find out what I had stolen.

So, after a large gulp, I restored to a previous version.

Luckily, the only thing missing was the piece of BLANK software that probably caused the crash.

So, I was ok with that.  At least my computer was running.  So I fired it up and tried to get on the internet.

Notice the word “tried”?

Yeah, even though Megabus advertises that each bus has internet and doesn’t say (unless it’s in the fine print) that it doesn’t WORK.  Well, work is a general term here too.  I think it worked but only if the driver didn’t push on the accelerator.

Yeah, so no internet and then no movies because of the restore.

Or so I thought.

I did a search for Zero Dark and miraculously found the files!  I was saved!

I pressed play and started watching the movie seamlessly.

Until the bus hit a bump.

ANY bump.

When the bus did hit the bump, my movie froze for a second before playing again.

ON EVERY STINKING BUMP.

Yeah, I was a happy boy.

Eventually, my blood pressure lowered enough to allow me to fall asleep.  About 15 minutes before we got just outside of the city.

(join us tomorrow for our next installment of Jaws 3 in 3D! or NYC part trace)

 

 

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