As usual, my favorite time of the year is flying by. I have been reading a lot of books on scriptwriting, and a book about using the Tarot as inspiration for writing.
Of these books, I have found that Save the Cat and Tarot for Writers synch up great as both inspiration and technique.
My current production, The Cthulhu Key, is created using a composite of the methods from those two books.
I have created my own Tarot spread, slightly modifying the Tarot for Writers spread.
Using this modified spread, I was able to completely fill out my Save the Cat scene board in an afternoon.
That’s 40 scenes outlined and laid out.
I am not going to go into theory of Tarot here, but regardless if you believe in the paranormal, the symbolism of the Tarot married to the structure from the Save the Cat beat sheet can open cascades of creativity.
Go get a Tarot deck, and find something that looks cool to you
(The Dark Grimoire Tarot (English and Spanish Edition)
),
then get the book (Tarot for Writers
).
Read, practice, write, repeat.
in video!
SO I have been working like crazy to get The Cthulhu Key: Idol Thoughts up and running. That means every aspect of the story and how the film will look
has to be decided up front. Now, in the video circles there is a long raging debate about how to get the “film look” onto video.
Without getting too very technical, there are alot of ways to simulate that look on video, and one of them is shooting with 35mm lens.
After doing alot of research, I went with the Jag35 Pro and after spending a little time getting to know it, I am very happy with my results.
the Jag35 Pro
I will post a link to the Jag35 footage as soon as it’s uploaded.
Same great taste. Yeah, I am changing the look again, so bear with me…
to Venture Brothers Season 4, which starts tonight @ midnight on Adult Swim.
io9 has a great gallery over here
And you can check out thumbnails of my more recent pics over to your right.
On the project front, I updated the outline to “The Cthulhu Key” and began working on the script.
I am also still waiting for my Jag35 Pro 35mm adapter (yeah, I took the plunge…) and the IndiSystem rails for it.
I will write up a review on both, and post alot more video.
It’s getting close….
So I have really been knuckling down in 3DS Max, and getting into character rigging and animation more than ever.
I am getting close to being able to produce short films solely in 3D.
I have settled on some character designs,
and here is a quick walk cycle test of a little guy named Jasy. 
I hope I can post some of the full color renders this weekend,
but with football season kicking off, there are no promises!
[kml_flashembed movie="/wp-content/uploads/Walk.swf" height="488" width="500" /]
Man, its been forever since my last update.
I have still been hammering away on the music videos, though sunday, my primary editing box got caught in some crazy reboot loop. Two days later, I bite the bullet and install another drive to serve as the primary, and slaved the existing RAID array.
I didn’t lose any data, and I think in the end I am coming out better.
I had tried out a lot of different editing suites before settling on my current config, and I imagine that played a part in the driver conflict I experienced.
After getting the editing gear and plugins loaded, that machine is screaming again.
On the project side, wrapping up the music videos will take another three weeks (I try to tell clients that revisions late in the game spells delay), but I was still able to crank out the first revision of the Cthulhu Key script.
I am planning on shooting that in September, and getting it ready by late October or early November.
I am trying to angle things so that I can shoot sooner, cause I think it would be awesome to have a Halloween screening of it!
