I've posted 2 new book reviews on Goodreads if you feel the great urge to read them. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson.
Both very good books that you should check out if you haven't yet.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
I Am Nobody Chapter 4 Draft 2
And so I'm done with another chapter of the second draft of I Am Nobody, and you can find it at the bottom of this page. This one took quite a while to get done for several reasons, mostly that this one needed a lot more work than the previous four, mostly in the character development area, and because the week leading up to Thanksgiving at the Post Office is HORRIBLE!!! The ads... dear God, the Black Friday ads...
Mostly what I needed to do with this chapter was show how strained Mia's relationship with her mom is. In the first draft I basically just told you that the relationship is bad, and never really showed you any of that. In this draft I really wanted that to come out more, and I think I've done a much better job of it in this chapter than I originally did. This is the chapter where Mia's relationship with her mom and her relationship with Steve are both established, and since that is very important to how these characters will interact with one another throughout the rest of the story, this is a very important chapter, and everything in it needed to be a lot more than what it was originally. Plus, I needed to introduce some of Steve's personality quirks right off, and I failed to do that in the first draft. On top of all of that, I wanted to show more deeply how Mia sees and feels about herself. She's meant to be lacking confidence in herself, and that did not come across very well in the first draft. And the way she sees herself ties in greatly with the trouble she's having with her mom. It's a really convoluted relationship. Mia thinks she's ugly so she doesn't even try to look pretty anymore. Her mom feels guilty for how Mia looks, blames herself for it because she couldn't stop smoking while pregnant, and thinks Mia blames her for it too. So she wants to dress Mia up all pretty to prove to herself that her daughter isn't suffering any ill effects from her smoking during pregnancy, and it makes her super angry when Mia refuses to let her. And Mia herself gets super angry when her mom tries to do it because she sees it as having her nose rubbed in how ugly she thinks she is. And with the tension of all of that, with the addition of Mia growing up and becoming her own person now rather than a child that does everything her mom says, causes them to strike sparks against each other at every opportunity.
And literally NONE of that was really evident in the first draft. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done in incorporating it into the second draft, and since this chapter is the one that sets those subplots in motion, it needed lots of extra special care, which is why it took me so long to get it done.
Mostly what I needed to do with this chapter was show how strained Mia's relationship with her mom is. In the first draft I basically just told you that the relationship is bad, and never really showed you any of that. In this draft I really wanted that to come out more, and I think I've done a much better job of it in this chapter than I originally did. This is the chapter where Mia's relationship with her mom and her relationship with Steve are both established, and since that is very important to how these characters will interact with one another throughout the rest of the story, this is a very important chapter, and everything in it needed to be a lot more than what it was originally. Plus, I needed to introduce some of Steve's personality quirks right off, and I failed to do that in the first draft. On top of all of that, I wanted to show more deeply how Mia sees and feels about herself. She's meant to be lacking confidence in herself, and that did not come across very well in the first draft. And the way she sees herself ties in greatly with the trouble she's having with her mom. It's a really convoluted relationship. Mia thinks she's ugly so she doesn't even try to look pretty anymore. Her mom feels guilty for how Mia looks, blames herself for it because she couldn't stop smoking while pregnant, and thinks Mia blames her for it too. So she wants to dress Mia up all pretty to prove to herself that her daughter isn't suffering any ill effects from her smoking during pregnancy, and it makes her super angry when Mia refuses to let her. And Mia herself gets super angry when her mom tries to do it because she sees it as having her nose rubbed in how ugly she thinks she is. And with the tension of all of that, with the addition of Mia growing up and becoming her own person now rather than a child that does everything her mom says, causes them to strike sparks against each other at every opportunity.
And literally NONE of that was really evident in the first draft. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done in incorporating it into the second draft, and since this chapter is the one that sets those subplots in motion, it needed lots of extra special care, which is why it took me so long to get it done.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
CG vs. Sets/models/etc... Which is more cost effective?
Sooooo, the first Hobbit movie is coming out in a few weeks, and so I figured I'd have a Lord of the Rings marathon on my day off. As I was watching, seeing how beautiful these movies are, and how realistic the sets and models that they used are, I started thinking that these movies must have cost a frickton of money to make. So I did a little research, and yes, they cost quite a bit of money to make, but nowhere near as much as I was expecting. You see, I have been hearing that it costs so much less these days to just CG things as opposed to building sets, using practical effects wherever possible, outfitting people with costumes, building models and doing some trick camera work with miniatures and so on.
So, I then did some looking into the three biggest CG abominations in the history of film. The Star Wars prequels. It just so happens that these movies were being made at the same time, and in the same part of the world, so production costs would be relatively the same for each. And you know what? The Lord of the Rings movies, the movies where they spent all that time and money building sets, getting actual actors outfitted with real armor and weapons, making all of those models of Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith, Minas Morgol, Moria, Osgiliath, Orthanc, etc and filming on location rather than in a completely green room with setting to be added later cost SIGNIFICANTLY less money than all of the CG garbage that went into the Star Wars prequels. Nearly twenty million dollars less per movie. That also takes into account that the Lord of the Rings had a far more expensive cast of actors than Star Wars did on top of it. And they took quite a bit less time to make as well. Five years for all three Lord of the Rings movies as opposed to nine years for all three Star Wars movies.
Each Lord of the Rings movie is, on average an hour and fifteen minutes longer than its Star Wars counterpart. Where the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed mostly on location, in sets of entire cities that were actually built out in the middle of nowhere for the movies, Star Wars was filmed almost entirely on studios in completely blue and green rooms. Where the Lord of the Rings movies employed hundreds of extras, and put them in actual makeup and prosthetics to turn them into monsters, spening all of the money to build armor and weapons for them to carry, the vast majority of the characters that you see in the Star Wars prequels are either a.) CG or b.) Wearing the exact same generic clothing, which appears no better tailored than Jedi Halloween costumes bought off the rack at Wal-Mart for less than 20 bucks. Where the Lord of the Rings movies used props and practical effects at every possible opportunity, only relying on CG effects when there was no other possible way to accomplish what was needed, nearly everything but the actors in the Star Wars movies is CG.
On top of all of that, there is the realism factor. CG backgrounds and characters have a fake, cartoony, two dimensional quality to them. It's easy to tell that they're fake, because they don't belong. The human eye can spot the fakeness pretty easily. Something about it just doesn't look right. It's too clean, sterile, and oftentimes the lighting isn't quite right. You can obviously tell that the background is just being projected on a blue wall two feet behind the actors. Additionally, the actors do not give as good a performance when they're in a completely blue room with nothing to see and react to, acting against CG characters that will be added in later. This puts a whole lot of strain on them, and leads to some very, very horrible performances unless the director is truly epic at his job (something George Lucas has never been). When the actors are in REAL places, with REAL people all around them, YOU CAN TELL. It LOOKS real. It FEELS real. The actors have things to interact with. They can see what's supposed to be going on all around them, and they have characters that are real and right in front of them in the flesh to act opposite to. Even when there were CG characters in Lord of the Rings there was an actual actor standing in for them in a motion capture suit so that the actors had something to see and interact with.
So, if building sets, hiring actors, employing ever metalcrafter in New Zealand to build weapons and armor, using makeup and prosthetics to create the majority of the non-human monsters rather than CG, making models for wide, sweeping city shots, and filming on location costs SO MUCH LESS, and makes the movie look and feel SO MUCH MORE REAL... WHY IN THE HELL DO WE KEEP GETTING MOVIES THAT ARE MADE ALMOST COMPLETELY IN CG!?!?!?!?
It's because Filmmakers these days are getting lazy. They would rather sit on a couch and watch dozens of computer animators put together their movie instead of doing the work that it takes to make a REAL movie. They would rather let animators do their thing, horrible as it looks in the finished product, because they are too lazy to use their own imaginations to try and figure out how to do things without the CG like back in the old days. CG is the easy way of doing things. Without it, filmmakers actually have to get off their expanding asses and actually do their jobs.
So, I then did some looking into the three biggest CG abominations in the history of film. The Star Wars prequels. It just so happens that these movies were being made at the same time, and in the same part of the world, so production costs would be relatively the same for each. And you know what? The Lord of the Rings movies, the movies where they spent all that time and money building sets, getting actual actors outfitted with real armor and weapons, making all of those models of Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith, Minas Morgol, Moria, Osgiliath, Orthanc, etc and filming on location rather than in a completely green room with setting to be added later cost SIGNIFICANTLY less money than all of the CG garbage that went into the Star Wars prequels. Nearly twenty million dollars less per movie. That also takes into account that the Lord of the Rings had a far more expensive cast of actors than Star Wars did on top of it. And they took quite a bit less time to make as well. Five years for all three Lord of the Rings movies as opposed to nine years for all three Star Wars movies.
Each Lord of the Rings movie is, on average an hour and fifteen minutes longer than its Star Wars counterpart. Where the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed mostly on location, in sets of entire cities that were actually built out in the middle of nowhere for the movies, Star Wars was filmed almost entirely on studios in completely blue and green rooms. Where the Lord of the Rings movies employed hundreds of extras, and put them in actual makeup and prosthetics to turn them into monsters, spening all of the money to build armor and weapons for them to carry, the vast majority of the characters that you see in the Star Wars prequels are either a.) CG or b.) Wearing the exact same generic clothing, which appears no better tailored than Jedi Halloween costumes bought off the rack at Wal-Mart for less than 20 bucks. Where the Lord of the Rings movies used props and practical effects at every possible opportunity, only relying on CG effects when there was no other possible way to accomplish what was needed, nearly everything but the actors in the Star Wars movies is CG.
On top of all of that, there is the realism factor. CG backgrounds and characters have a fake, cartoony, two dimensional quality to them. It's easy to tell that they're fake, because they don't belong. The human eye can spot the fakeness pretty easily. Something about it just doesn't look right. It's too clean, sterile, and oftentimes the lighting isn't quite right. You can obviously tell that the background is just being projected on a blue wall two feet behind the actors. Additionally, the actors do not give as good a performance when they're in a completely blue room with nothing to see and react to, acting against CG characters that will be added in later. This puts a whole lot of strain on them, and leads to some very, very horrible performances unless the director is truly epic at his job (something George Lucas has never been). When the actors are in REAL places, with REAL people all around them, YOU CAN TELL. It LOOKS real. It FEELS real. The actors have things to interact with. They can see what's supposed to be going on all around them, and they have characters that are real and right in front of them in the flesh to act opposite to. Even when there were CG characters in Lord of the Rings there was an actual actor standing in for them in a motion capture suit so that the actors had something to see and interact with.
So, if building sets, hiring actors, employing ever metalcrafter in New Zealand to build weapons and armor, using makeup and prosthetics to create the majority of the non-human monsters rather than CG, making models for wide, sweeping city shots, and filming on location costs SO MUCH LESS, and makes the movie look and feel SO MUCH MORE REAL... WHY IN THE HELL DO WE KEEP GETTING MOVIES THAT ARE MADE ALMOST COMPLETELY IN CG!?!?!?!?
It's because Filmmakers these days are getting lazy. They would rather sit on a couch and watch dozens of computer animators put together their movie instead of doing the work that it takes to make a REAL movie. They would rather let animators do their thing, horrible as it looks in the finished product, because they are too lazy to use their own imaginations to try and figure out how to do things without the CG like back in the old days. CG is the easy way of doing things. Without it, filmmakers actually have to get off their expanding asses and actually do their jobs.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Book Review: Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
So, I've posted the next part of my Dune Retrospective on Goodreads with a Review of Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert.
The biggest question I get when talking about books that come after Dune from most people is "Wait, there's more books after Dune?" And there are. In fact many of the further volumes in the series are far better written, far less confusing, and a lot more entertaining. Dune Messiah, the second volume in the series, is one of those. Where Dune was basically one gigantic action scene and coming of age story, Dune Messiah is a character study on Paul, going in depth into the philosophy behind the Holy War that he inadvertently started by taking the throne for himself, and what all of it does to him as a person. It's a very different kind of book than the first in the series, and in my opinion, it's a much better book too. If you enjoyed Dune but never knew about or picked up any of the sequels, I'm pretty sure you'll really enjoy this one. It's the shortest volume of the series, but it's also probably the best in my opinion.
The biggest question I get when talking about books that come after Dune from most people is "Wait, there's more books after Dune?" And there are. In fact many of the further volumes in the series are far better written, far less confusing, and a lot more entertaining. Dune Messiah, the second volume in the series, is one of those. Where Dune was basically one gigantic action scene and coming of age story, Dune Messiah is a character study on Paul, going in depth into the philosophy behind the Holy War that he inadvertently started by taking the throne for himself, and what all of it does to him as a person. It's a very different kind of book than the first in the series, and in my opinion, it's a much better book too. If you enjoyed Dune but never knew about or picked up any of the sequels, I'm pretty sure you'll really enjoy this one. It's the shortest volume of the series, but it's also probably the best in my opinion.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
I Am Nobody Chapter 3 draft 2
Another chapter of the second draft of I Am Nobody is done and can be found at the bottom of this page.
This chapter may seem a little mundane. It basically sets out what Mia's normal morning routine is. There is a reason that I included such a detailed description of what she normally does in the morning before school. Because near the end that routine is interrupted. So, having what goes on normally established early on is important for that scene later on to have any impact. Additionally there is a huge amount of development for her character and a few holes in the back story are filled in. More so in this second draft.
This chapter may seem a little mundane. It basically sets out what Mia's normal morning routine is. There is a reason that I included such a detailed description of what she normally does in the morning before school. Because near the end that routine is interrupted. So, having what goes on normally established early on is important for that scene later on to have any impact. Additionally there is a huge amount of development for her character and a few holes in the back story are filled in. More so in this second draft.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
I Am Nobody Chapters 1&2 Draft 2
I've got two more chapters of the second draft of I Am Nobody finished up. If you feel the great urge to check out the new and improved versions of chapters 1 and 2 you can find them on This Page.
Mostly what I'm doing is removing contractions, and finding better, clearer ways of wording things with these. I've also added a few lines of description that was lacking, a few lines of dialog to clear things up, and a few other things. Most of the dialog was pretty good, and only needed some mild tweaking. A lot of the changes that are being made are in the other sections of the writing. And again, this may seem like not much editing work completed, but it took me a good nine hours today to get it done. I want each and every sentence to be perfect, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of messing around with the wording, countless times rereading it, tweaking a few words here and there to make it flow more smoothly, and reading it aloud to see how it sounds. This is NOT easy work. It takes a lot of time and patience, and requires a great love of the story and characters not to go insane while doing it.
Mostly what I'm doing is removing contractions, and finding better, clearer ways of wording things with these. I've also added a few lines of description that was lacking, a few lines of dialog to clear things up, and a few other things. Most of the dialog was pretty good, and only needed some mild tweaking. A lot of the changes that are being made are in the other sections of the writing. And again, this may seem like not much editing work completed, but it took me a good nine hours today to get it done. I want each and every sentence to be perfect, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of messing around with the wording, countless times rereading it, tweaking a few words here and there to make it flow more smoothly, and reading it aloud to see how it sounds. This is NOT easy work. It takes a lot of time and patience, and requires a great love of the story and characters not to go insane while doing it.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
I Am Nobody Prologue Draft 2
After writing the entire first draft of I Am Nobody in 11 days, I seem to have forgotten what I do with my time when I'm not writing I Am Nobody. So I figured I'd start work on the second draft. You can find the new and improved version of this chapter at the bottom of this page if you feel so inclined. I left the first draft up because I'm lazy, the second draft is the one labeled "Draft 2".
Believe it or not, looking at these two versions side by side. It took me a good eight hours today to make the changes that I made. I have to say that it's impressively better than before though. The long and hard work made a huge difference.
Believe it or not, looking at these two versions side by side. It took me a good eight hours today to make the changes that I made. I have to say that it's impressively better than before though. The long and hard work made a huge difference.
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