Odds and ends

There's a bunch of things to gab about today.

To start with, what's on my mind this morning is the new James Cameron film Avatar. Theoretically still 6 months away, I'm starting to get the fever. Despite there being a host of other movies between now and then I am interested in, Avatar is the only one I think will both look great and have a great story (Star Trek surprised the hell out of me but more on that later).

Several pieces of concept art recently surfaced on the net. I found them via AICN but I'll send you to the source here:

http://marketsaw.blogspot.com/2009/05/want-to-see-what-whole-power-suit-might.html

I pretty much exploded the second I saw The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventurewas available for pre-order.

I haven't seen a trailer, a teaser or really much more than the previously linked pieces and yet, I am hopped up like I just pounded 4 Monster Khaos in a row. It's strange to believe after so many disappointments that I can still get hyped up about products/films/games, but there you go. 35 and I still have faith despite my general despair for the future.

Me and Michelle have spent a considerable amount of time trying to find a new school for my step kid, Mercedes aka Chebes aka Cheese Band. The more I learn about education, the less I am impressed with public schools. It's not really their fault mind you, but there's just not enough money to go around and what is one to do? Go the route of the EU and have much higher taxes to provide far better schools or simply privatize schooling entirely...The method that seems to be the most locked on is called "montessori". Google it if you're interested. I'm sure it's not a silver bullet for everyone but I like a lot of what they are about.

I'm reading Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Centuryright now. It's pretty engaging, especially after just finishing "Twisted Metal" by Tony Ballentine (which was fun but not something I ever need to read again. I'll probably pick up the sequels though ^o^). Wired For War is a pretty interesting look at robotics/drones in culture and warfare today and has some very interesting speculation about the future of the industry.

I've been working on client projects and the BPRE graphic novel(and by extension the Facebook game) screenplay this whole week. BPRE as a non-FPS title was really hard for me to swallow at first, but it's becoming clear that this route will allow us to really show off some of the research and story telling we wanted to do, but couldn't afford to create in a 3D experience.

Everyday requires me to embrace change as an artist and as a leader of creative organization. To our credit we've been pretty resilient at this. I am generally resistant to change, but I come around more often than not.

Have a better one :)

The past week I've been working on a vertical slice of our Facebook game. My job is to write the narrative that drives the player from area to area, to identify or invent all the tools(ie weapons, fieldware, armor, clothes) that the player will utilize during their adventure and create a "shot list" for the game, ie shots we want/need to capture to convey what is going on to the user. It's an interesting excercise in that it quickly tells you what you can/cannot do, ie if a sequence is too ambitious to represent, cut it and come up with something else!

We're going to be doing 2 photoshoots this summer. One in the US with some of the people at BDSCI (don't bother looking it up, they don't have a website) and then another overseas, most likely in Dubai to collect location shots. After the game is up and running we've discussed releasing a coffee table book with all the photos from the first "chapter" in high res for people to enjoy outside of the game. As you can imagine, our stuff is going to look a bit different than some of the other games that are out there.

We also settled on an artist to begin work on the BPRE graphic novel. We had a call this week and the artist will begin work on a style sheet shortly. We're still not 100% if the book will be color or B+W. I like both and I think either could work. I'm desperately trying to get the screenplay wrapped but it isn't easy with all the client work we've been running. I have a ton of notes laying out some scenes that had needed more...tissue.It's pretty insane how far the story has come since we switched our locations from Mars to Earth.

Been reading up all the books I can by David Ignatius. Started with Agents of Innocenceand then read Body of Lies: A Novel (Movie Tie-In). Agents is definitely the better read...maybe because when reading Body of Lies I had a pretty good idea of what was in the coming pages. Just ordered his new one, The Increment: A Novel, just shipped. I'm hoping it's killer ^_^;

I used to read nothing but scifi. Now, I feel like good sf is few and far. One trend I've become increasingly aware of is a sf author will get a great start. Fast paced adrenalin rush or super complex intrigue story...250-350 pages...Boom and we're out. By book 3 they are pushing 600 pages and much of it is not the gripping/ass kickery I originally signed on for. I suppose one cannot do the same thing forever but...I ordered Twisted Metal by Tony Ballentine a few weeks ago after Neal Asher raved about it in his blog, theSkinner. It's scheduled to ship any day now...sigh.