Friday, June 19, 2015

"Write in your own voice..."

The plan for this blog is to update regularly and cover pretty much anything that comes up while pursuing my goal for entertainment industry domination. However, as I sit here staring at only the SECOND post, I have no idea what to write about...

So I asked myself, "What am I working on right now? Maybe I should just post about that..."

"Well you're doing the rewrite on 'The Future Blows', write about that..."

"Can I? I mean... what about non-disclosure and such?"

"Did you actually sign a non-disclosure?"

"I dunno... did I actually read any of my contracts?"

"Good point... well you could write about the experience without talking about the actual show..."

"YES!"


Okay, so right now I'm writing on a show called 'The Future Blows'. It's not my show, I was brought in to punch it up and write the pilot. It's an animated short being made for Mondo Media, and it's maybe the most I've ever had to rewrite on something. It's just not working (at least according to the producer at Mondo)

And the reason it's not working is due to my writing... but here's where it's confusing...



I co-created (with my writing partner, Calvin) an animated show for Mondo called "City in Crisis". It was a hard sell, but when I sent them the 5 scripts for the first 5 episodes, they jumped all over it. I was praised for my style of writing "It's great! You're writing is hilarious without actually having any 'jokes'!!"

Oh okay... cool thanks! *no jokes?*

So they not only green-lit my show, but then asked me to do punch up on a few of their other shows - with the main one being 'The Future Blows'.

So I did a pass on the show, retaining the characters and personalities, but reworking the world a bit. I wrote a pilot outline and after approval, moved on to script. Overall I was happy with it.

But then the notes came back.

"Not funny... there are no jokes"

So I did another pass and it got approved. Phew.

So then it went to the next stage... an animatic. Now since this is an animated show, the animatic is just the storyboards for the episode cut together to give an idea of the length and timing of the scenes. There is also dialogue included from the voice actors.

Now the first animatic didn't go over well, so I asked to take a pass at it myself (as I've said, I'm an editor for my day job) and after I did a cut, I figured it was working pretty well, maybe just needed a different voice for the main character...

Then I heard back. "Don't like it. Not funny. There are still no jokes. Make it sound like 'City in Crisis'. Write it in your own voice..."

BUT I DID... It's exactly the same kind of humor as City in Crisis.

But being so close to a script, you can't exactly KNOW if it's working or not... and the guys at Mondo have a good ear for this kind of thing, so, okay... another rewrite it is!

So while I write this blog, on my second computer screen is the script for The Future Blows, and once again I'm tying to write it in my own voice... with jokes... that aren't jokes.

It's going to be a long day.

Side note...


At 6:00 today I hand in the final exports for the completed "City in Crisis"... It should go live next week on Mondo Media... I will keep everyone in the loop.

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