Post for February 18th

Things are collapsing in on me but I am going to try my best.
I need to work more on my thesis and last time I wasn't able to find a time to meet with the Thesis consultant and I don't want to miss her this time around.

In other news I have been researching Night Mind (NM)
A youtube channel that focuses on what makes good horror, good suspense and just an all around good story.

(I think I even linked to his twin peaks video in a much earlier post during my initial research.)

His recent video on Resident Evil VI is a great resource for how to lead an audience's anticipation to a scare and how to 'train' the audience to expect things in certain situations.

As I am working on inking the first several pages of my comic, I really need to keep in mind how my 'setup' for the story 'teaches' the audience. You need to warm the viewer up to the world and how the tools of your fiction and really focus on what effect my decisions will lead to further down the line.
It's all about foundation. Strong foundation, maybe it won't topple later.
I hope.

Post for FEB 11th

Well, it is only 8 more weeks until my IP is due and I am going to be doing less and less research and more and more just, working until I physically can't anymore.

The last bit of inspiration comes from a genuine relic from the internet.

MARBLE HORNETS

We all know Slenderman, the internet meme gone awry. Slenderman started as a photoshop contest to make convincing  'haunted; photo, and this one (below) ended up winning, it eventually spiraled into
fan theories, fan art, spin offs, video games and even more spin offs until the creepy "Slenderman" became a meme of the bare bones basic "Spooky urban legends creature," a short hand cliche trope that is no longer considered original

But there was a golden period, right after the photoshop contest but RIGHT before the Slenderman mythos became a pop culture phenomenon.

MARBLE HORNETS

Marble Hornets was a short form web series depicting an old student film found on tapes after the original owner went missing. When his childhood friend re-watched the old tapes, he starts to notice a creature following them in the background, from a distance. A monster known as "The Operator" long before "Slenderman" existed, terrorized the cast and crew of marble hornets. His very presence drove people slowly insane to the point of obsession. The fact that the video series is grainy old footage with the monster hidden in single frames at a time, the audience has to become obsessed themselves, looking at every single image frame by frame to see the horror, just as the characters do. The hidden nature of the operator causes the characters to look for him behind every corner and constantly doubt their eyes, and the abstract low budget quality of the show itself makes the viewer take on the same roll as the characters. This is the exact blend of form and function that I hope to embody in my own work.
I hope.

Post for Feb 5th

Progress has been made with the storyboards

More than that I have the plot outline ready.

Outline: A nameless hacker and a cyber bully spends his days working as a nurse, and his nights harassing people online. He vents his hateful urges onto other people he doesn’t know as a way to live his normal life without guilt. He doesn’t think of himself as a bad person because he is kind and helpful to the people he meets in real life. He justifies it himself as a hobby, a way to test his skills as a hacker and a just a way to keep himself occupied. He is often paid to hack people's webcams and send the footage to his clients. He often hacks into strangers computers and mess with their files purely as a joke, he often sees it as nothing more than pranks. He frequents sites on the dark web but rarely ever buys anything.

Things change when another hacker tries to shut down his system, he is angered and retaliates by finding out where they live and buying dark-web drugs as them, then tipping the cops to their location. He reads a local news report days later about the other hacker getting arrested.

After this, he begins to feel guilt for the first time, and suppresses it as best he can. Things start to go wrong as his computer suffers some minor viruses and his house starts have electrical issues. He finds evidence of tampering with his wires outside his apartment and calls an electrician who never shows up. His computer refuses to start up, but then acts normal when he tries to leave for work. He calls in sick to spend the day tearing his computer apart to look for the problem. Small inconveniences keep him from finishing, he begins to suspect that someone from the dark-web has found him and has found some way to infect his computer and maybe even damage his electrical systems. He stops going online for a while and work begins to consume his time. Tired and lacking sleep, he decides to check his semi-functional computer only to find that he has apparently been logged on several times in the last week. Not only that but threatening messages appear hidden in the depths of his computer.

In anger he buys a brand new laptop to tries to get to the source of this problem, only finding that the same threatening messages are already on his brand new computer. He tries to call the tech support only to hear a strange voice on the other side of the line.

He smashes the new laptop and goes to the old computer, his face is talking to him, mocking him for all the horrible things he has done to other people and the hacker he sent to jail. In anger he takes a butcher knife and slashes at the computer, smashing it with his bear fists once the knife breaks. He hears someone outside his window and he goes to confront them, he finds someone with their back turned messing with his wires, he grabs the broken blade and tries to kill the stranger, only to find it is the electrician he called so long ago. The police arrive on the scene and drag him away, while he is screaming about how this was some conspiracy to drive him insane.

The last scene is of the salesman at the computer shop sending a letter that is later revived by a man in jail.

The story is suppose to be like a dark web creepy pasta mixed with a twilight zone-esque cautionary tale of self destruction.

I decided to remove any supernatural element to add to the paranoia and the realism.

It is a classic story about a misunderstanding and make the paranoia a real factor in the character's downward spiral.

Not much else to state. I am working hard and trying not to collapse or get sick when my progress is dependant on me working at full capacity each day. oh well

Post for Jan 29.

I unfortunately skipped last weeks blog update so I will make sure that this one covers all my bases.

I have run into an artistic roadblock and have been working hard to muscle through my artist block to produce work. My thumbnails are going to be turned into at least 4 inked pages by the end of the week and at least 1 digitally scanned page that I can consider "Done"

I also plan to post my finished script to this blog by next Friday for suggestions.

I have been struggling to get back to drawing regularly and hopefully this week is the start of an upswing rather than another downfall emotionally.

In terms of tangible progress, I now have a working title for my comic.
"One way Mirror" Which I hope is different enough from Black Mirror, one of my major inspirations. I honestly was not thinking about the show when I came up with the name but it is one of those names too similar to ignore the differences.
I like how it works thematically as the computer screen acts like a 2 way mirror nowadays. The dark screen acts a mirror to reflect the person looking at themselves, while the webcam acts like a one sided glass to hackers and people who could be watching you from halfway across the world.

RESEARCH:

By Jove I found a goldmine.

I watched 2 horror movies that really got my motor running in terms of inspiration.
First: Under the Shadow

A foreign horror movie set in Iran during the Iraq-Iran war. A mother has to protect her daughter while the war rages on outside and a dark spirit of revenge haunts those who have been lost inside the apartment. It was thrilling, visually compelling and had great use of motifs and lighting to forward the narrative of oppression and looming danger overhead.


The next one....
HARD CANDY
OOOOOOOOOOH Boy.
This movie was basically made for me and my project, This movie is... in essence what I want my final product to be.
Although it came out in 2005 it is still incredibly relevant to today's issues with anonymity and digital stalking.
The movie follows a young 14 year old girl who meets a 30 year old man she met in an online chatroom. He invites her to his house and offers her a drink... and yet, the movie takes a darker turn that one could possibly imagine.
A twisted tale of cat and mouse, revenge and darkly sexual mind games begins as the young girl actually manipulates and tortures the pedophile over the edge of insanity and into a chaotic tailspin that ends in a bloody climax.
It is EXACTLY what I want from a technology centric thriller about the dangers of the internet and how people can be use the internet to transform something safe or innocent into a place of dark violence.
I loved it, I hated it and I wanted more. I both strongly recommend NOT watching it and also watching it at the same time. It is VERY violent and mature even without a lot of blood or gore.

I feel very inspired and will make a lot of progress by the end of this month.
I feel excited are you excited?

First Update of 2017 (Jan 13th)

It's Friday the 13th so this post is appropriate.

I finally have a clear roadmap to finishing my IP project and I couldn't be more excited.

Taking to heart my mid-process critique and focusing on one story at a time.
The first one about the hacker specifically.
I decided to drop the supernatural elements (almost) and focus on making it a more traditional horror story that you might here whispered on forums of shared via chain email.
To tap into the darker "urban legend" motif.

I have a full script of the story and it is my goal to have 15+ thumbnail storyboards by next week ready to ink.
I am going for a much more grounded "creepypasta" style that might make it dig just that much deeper under the skin of my readers and I love it.
I am drawing more inspirations from the dramatic creepypastas readings like this one: (waring, graphic content)

They give me the chills and I think this is a great path to take when writing my "modern horror story" with more of Twilight Zone or Hitchcock style to the tragedy rather than just a spooky ghost story.

I am super excited and will have actual work to post by next update.
Let's do this thing.

Update for December 9th

So again... not a lot has happened recently.

My computer was fixed about 80's one of my files of old concept art got corrupted but my more recent digital drawings are safe. I can't draw because of all the issues with my wacom but I am determined to keep working as hard as I can nonetheless.

I was able to get my submission materials to John Luther on time and now I will just have to edit and arrange what material I have and what material I will make over the weekend for next week. My wacom tablet should be fuctional by this saturday meaning sunday could be nothing but drawing and that is a huge relief to me.

Also
I have found several good revenues of research in the meantime.

The video channels, The Film Theorists

















A great video about sound design and the lack of information that makes J-horror work.

And the channel Every Frame a Painting:

A great video about framing as a way to make dialouge flow and character motivation visual.
I have been really digging deep into the technicals of framing and storytelling on a more visual level.
I have a script written for my three stories, but I am purposefully looking for what words can be cut out and the information can be shown visually.
Hopefully it will make the final product all the more enjoyable.

Update for Dec 2 2016

So not much to update this week.
My computer broke and is in the shop, so the weeks worth of digital art I was planning to do went down the drain real fast.

At the very least I was able to save my hard drive, meaning that most of my animations and sketches are safe but I feel horribly set back and I am not sure what to do.

I spent this week researching more narrative based themes when it comes to conveyance and audience involvement. I watched several documentaries on video game design and how an interactive story can teach the player what to do, what to feel and how to view the story through simple design changes. It pointed out how in Dark Souls, there are too many weapons and shields when compared to Bloodbourne that has NO shields in the game.
Dark Souls tells the audience that blocking is a valid form of defense even though dodging and parrying makes the game a lot more fun and fast paced, meaning the audience already starts frustrated and confused at the start of the game, and then gets little to no time practicing the dodge/parry technique which makes a lot of a tough bosses that much harder. While in the sequel series Bloodbourne, there are simply NO shields. Meaning the player has to practice and perfect the dodge/parry technique right at the start of the game and thus the entire game is easier and thus more fun. In addition, the practice one gets in Bloodbourne makes you appreciate all the other Dark Souls games as you now have the practice to handle those games.

It might seem like a rather tangential aside but it makes sense in context of my style. I eat that stuff up. Storytelling mechanics and subtle conveyance is my bread and butter. The entire feel and flow of a piece of media is completely changed by removing one superfluous feature. When it comes to structuring a narrative, editing your work to be more streamlined is key.

I have been working on my writing and asking myself how LITTLE dialogue I can use to tell the audience what is happening. Studying conveyance is important to unlocking the tools of storytelling.

In other news I have been working with Pen and paper a lot.




It is definitely making me feel better but I won't really be able to get back to were I was until I get my laptop back. Drawing is pretty much my only stress release and I am not doing too well without it.