You're only half the story

tvtropes is , as most know, a combination wiki and message board devoted to cataloging and listing every bit, event and cliché that appears in fiction in general. Browsing tv tropes reveals two very valuable things.

1. There are no new ideas.
The exhaustive lists for movies like Princess Bride and Pirates of the Caribbean, show just how many conventions so many movies share (Even Casablanca and The 400 Blows) . There doesn't seem to be any film or work of note that doesn't have an enormous cross-referenced list of "tropes".

2. The author only writes half the story.

The rest of what makes a successful story live is the audience.
The"Wild Mass Guessing" and "Fridge Brilliance", categories of the site prove how freaking insane fans are, like people who think Sofia from Golden Girls was a figment of Rose's Imagination or that any character who changes actors is a Doctor Who Timelord. With shows and franchises with particularily devoted fanbases like the Recent My Little Pony Series (even just for one character) and the Christopher Nolan Batman movies,the debates just get strange.

But with all this dissection going on over lines or pieces of business that were one-off jokes, or simply trying to re-write plot holes as ultra-subtle brilliance, tvtropes proves that the audience is an active participant, not merely the recipient, of the ritual we call storytelling. 'Cause there's no way in hell Batman's a Timelord.

"The more beautifully you shape your work around one clear idea, the more meanings audiences will discover in your film as they take your idea and follow its implications into every aspect of their lives."
-Robert McKee

So comic con San Diego came and went with thunderous noise and many blistered feet. But like always, It was a blast. A mighty blast, complete with....

COSPLAY

MOVIE PEOPLE IN GREAT BIG HALLS!

Rick Baker


Kevin Altieri, staring into your very soul.

AND COMICS PEOPLE IN VERY SMALL HALLS

The Hernandez Brothers, creators of Love and Rockets.

The Nicole Brothers, Ethan (art) and Malachai (story), creators of Axe Cop.

Extra Bonus: the panel was moderated by Kevin Murphy.

Extra-Extra Bonus: Malachai Nicole showed Baby Man how to do the Baby Man Dance!

Extra-Extra- Extra Bonus: somebody asked to take my picture, complimenting me on my "Hunter S. Thomson" Costume.

... The Hell?

OMG Ponies!!!

Recently, I've started loving "My Little Pony :Frienship is Magic" (Hereafter referred to as "MLP:FIM" because that's a damn long title) developed by Lauren Faust.

A lot of people have praised the show, and drawn some terribly, terribly disturbing fan art but MLP:FIM's real strength isn't so much the witty exchanges, the slapstick humor , better than average flash animation or even the phenomenon of male adult viewers shucking their masculinity to watch a horsie show

Not that I'm insecure, of course

...But it's the same thing that animation gurus Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston claimed made (their) Disney feature cartoons so wonderful...

and honestly, how can you not trust these guys?

Which is a focus on Character Personalities, first off, that they have different personalities.

Compared with earlier pony shows, certainly

...and those personalities motivated the plot, like in Die Hard!

not like I'm compensating or anything...

In movies like North By Northwest and Raiders of the Lost Arc, stuff just kinda happens to the hero for no real reason; cropdusters from nowhere, posion darts from the wall. The absurdity of it all is part of the entertainment value of those films. But Die Hard's slightly different.

What would otherwise be walking plot devices: antagonism, exposition, a plot twist , are made interesting and believable through characters with compelling personalities and clearly distinguished motives. The villain, exposition guy and the second-act end plot twist become Hans Gruber, Officer Powell and Dick Thornburg, the effect is the scenarios on the screen are not arbitrary, but created by the actions of the characters.

MLP:FIS's best episodes focus on the naturally occurring friction between the members of the "mane" cast.

In "Sonic Rainboom", Rarity's massive vanity both heightens the conflict and provides a catalyst for the resolution. Kinda like Shakespeare, actually.

...Specifically A Midsummer Night's Dream. Absent of bewitching prophesies, vengeful ghosts or other external means to kick-start the plot, stuff happens because a group of people happen to be in the same place at the same time. From serious crush issues to a really bitter marriage between supernatural monarchs and Puck's love for trolling, it's like what did you expect when these guys are all thrown into the mix?

Here's a link to Hasbro's official site: a clip from the MLP:FIS episode Applebuck Season. Note that in a show where time and budget demands a lot of work done from templates...

and sometimes it shows

...That every character is unmistakably distinct. Not only do the leads has a different speaking voice and attitude, but different ways of approaching the podium. Twilight shuffles index cards, Rainbow Dash simply barges in, Fluttershy slouches and Pinkie Pie jumps up from nowhere.

The reason why the entire internet (or maybe just 4Chan) has gone ballistic for this show over the past few months is because, like good fiction and great drama, from the Looney Tunes to Moby Dick, everything in it is grounded in and motivated by the characters' personalities. Which I think is worth getting excited over.




























.... BTW my favoritest pony ever is Fluttershy

Tr!ckster: bringing comics back to CCI?

The complaint: modern comic conventions, particularliry the massive Comic Con International in San Diego, have less and less to do with comics.
Sure, there's a hell of a lot of Anime, CCGs, Cartoons, Console Gaming, Cosplay, Disney fandom, Fanfics, LARP-ing, MMORPGs,Movies, MUDs, PC gaming, TV shows, and several metric tons of Toys... but in such a widespread frenzy , many of these Cons have lost sight of their namesake intent and focus: comic books.
So now there's Tr!ckster : a creator-driven project that includes an expo with seminars right across the street from CCI.
I doubt tr!ckster -style expos are going to supplant the modern fandom-driven convention from it's place in the public eye, but I sure as hell wish there will be more of them.

Because I'm a total geek, that's why.

Know what the first rule of cartooning is? I suspect it's the same as the first rule of flying a Firefly.

"Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse... but you take a boat in the air that you don't love... she'll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down... tells you she's hurting before she keels. Makes her a home."

For those of you who haven't seen Firefly, the spaceship looks like this, 'cept slightly bigger.

Like the Beatles and J.K. Rowling, the official "making of" story behind the TV series Firefly is as big a legend as the content itself. Like the ragtag outlaws harassed by the totalitarian alliance, Firefly is remembered as a ragtag TV show harassed by the Totalitarian Fox Network. Which would make "Flying" "writing/running a TV show" if one chooses to view with a meta-allegory in mind.

So replace the words "Flying" with "cartooning", "math" with "technique" "boat" with"career" and I think the sentiment holds true enough.

CCI bound!

Just got my 4 day pass for Comic Con International in San Diego, held the same week as my birthday.

Whooo!

Also, I saw this cool thing just now.



And I recently saw this less cool thing almost just now.




And I have absolutely no explanation for this

Improv

Improvisation, at least in a theatrical sense refers to a collaborative form of on stage play that others somehow find amusing. Like you suppose, I't kind of hard and involves making stuff up as you go along. Also, it's totally a learnable skill, and requires a large amount of discipline and structure to create "off the cuff".

Obligatory "Whose Line is it Anyway?" Photo

I'm an avid Improv hobbyist. Once a week, I go make an ass of myself with a bunch of folks at a local community center, playing theater games. There I develop my skills of reincorporation, acceptance, scene building and playing nice with others.

There's awesome books about it, like "Truth in Comedy" by Charna Halper, "Impro"by Keith Johnstone and Viola Spolin's "Improvisation for the Theater" or you can learn for free.

Granted, Improv may not look like it has a lot to do with cartooning but it so totally does.

Did you know Frank Thomas played the Piano? If you know who Frank Thomas is, you probably know that he played the piano, but the late Mr. Thomas, as well as most of Disney's classic animators, played a musical instrument, and even insisted that it was beneficial to their craft.

One of these men is not Frank Thomas.

Jeez, that's like, the zillionth Disney reference I've made! Maybe I'm dangerously obsessed or something. Ollie Johnston looks scary there, doesn't he?

Where was I? Oh, Improv and cartooning, which is sort of like pianos, except they aren't.

So take for example Jean "Moebius" Giraud

Moebius has very little to do with Disney, I think.

Basically one of the most influential Sci-Fi artist/writers in the freaking world. When he started his Sci-Fi themed work which included "The Airtight Garage" and "Arzak", he did the whole damn thing one panel at a time. Seriously. Moebius was all about exploring the unconscious, and as most Sci-Fi is an allegory for stuff, Moebius' realms were an allegory for modes of perception (or so he claims, I dunno, he's French).

Here's another one of my favorite cartoonists, Jill Thompson.

She kinda looks like this. She also drew Sandman
which means Goths everywhere should start doing Improv.

At a comics forum in 2008. Ms. Thompson spoke of the value of Improv training as a writing aid, particularly in developing scenarios and concepts for stories, like for her creations "Scary Godmother" and "Magic Trixie".

Oh yeah, and there's also Scott McCloud.

He actually looks like this: he has no eyes, and it's scary.

Among other things, McCloud's a big proponent of improvised comics. He also has invented the 24 hour comic, which is an excersise that it a lot of fun, whether or not you finish it.

The value of improvisation is that even the creator/performer doesn't know where it's gonna go or how it's gonna end. As a form unto itself or as a tool in early drafts or rehearsal, improvisation provides an invaluable resource to the cartoonist/performer. It's also fun.

What it Says on the Box

Branding is pretty simple, right? You can tell who or what companies made something just by looking at it. The Disney Company has excellent branding, you know a Disney movie when you look at it...

Except these are not Disney movies.

Anastasia and Ferngully were distributed by Fox and Swan Princess by New Line Cinema. You don't need to be an animation geek to tell, you can find out by checking the name on the box or poster.

Somehow, the name "Disney" means "Animated Princess Musical", which is weird, since Walter Elias Disney...

this guy

...produced over 20 animated features in his lifetime, only three of which starred Princesses.

...as well as significant amount of live action features and TV ventures that spanned genres from Sci-Fi Adventure to situation comedy. But he's dead now, so whatever. I really want to talk about "Flashpoint".

seamless transistion: no?

Or more specifically, One of the names on the box: "Silver Screen Partners" which, initially, was a limited partnership set up to fund a number of HBO Pictures films(like Flashpoint). Through such a partnership, average stockholders could invest in movies.

Like The Producers, but with less fraud(I think).

Which brings me back to Branding (specifically the Disney brand). As Silver Screen Partners was a series of limited partnerships, and Silver Screen Partners II, III and IV,produced Disney movies (and by extension, Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures movies) which were released from 1985 through 1992, before Disney became "Princess Musical Central".

"Now hold on there, smart-ass!" I hear you say. "Two of those are Animated Princess Musicals, that seems like mighty persistent brand association to me!".

Yes, anticipated-angry-poster, they are. But not every Silver Screen Partners picture got a slew of home video sequels and a theme park ride.

With the exception of Dick Tracy, all of the above movies were released by Disney as a "Disney" (as opposed to "Touchstone") film, with the name right on the box. There is also genre diversity, from High Fantasy to Mystery to Action/Adventure to period, to contemporary to Scary-as-Hell Thingies with Wheelers.

The actual quality of these films can be debated but not the content which doesn't conform so much to the "Cute and Cuter" fare that the Disney studio was producing since Walt's Death(like "Pete's Dragon") or even to the "Enchanted and Magical" stereotypes Disney has currently perpetuates as a brand. Dare I say, this was when the Disney Studio was trying out something new and different(or more accurately, as new and different as you can get in 1980's blockbuster cinema), most likely due to the influence of Michael Eisner and his "regime".

If you check the imdb pages for the Silver Screen Partners, you'll find The majority of Disney's Silver Screen Partners projects were more mainstream (at the time) films with a diversity of subject matter and genre, or "grown-up movies".

Because maturity means "Adventures in Babysitting"...

None of the Silver Screen Partners limited partnerships got a logo: no kid on a bike flying across a moon, no shield, no arclights, no little red robots no theme music and no castle whatsoever. After all, these partnerships were financial, not creative institutions, and were set up for and by one customer.

But since these investment funds were just as vital to producing motion pictures as big names like Spielberg or Eisner, these partnerships got credit on promotional materials (like the fine print on movie posters) and title cards on every movie made with their money.

Basically, one of the names on the box, and it's a brand I personally associate with a unique era of experimentation and ultimately, quality, in a movie studio's--

... oh never mind