Hey there everyone!
News is trickling out of the LAN'ded front more and more as the summer goes on it seems. A constant re-working of the 3rd draft gets more and more of my attention every day and the past week was no exception. After reading (several times) the way that the first episode sounds, I find myself constantly unhappy with the lyrics to the first major song of the show. After writing 8 different sets of lyrics (yes, 8) I think we may have found something that works or at least we're one step closer to what will become the final text.
I've been working on putting together a video-blog to keep track of our pre-production adventures and you guys can expect that sometime before the end of the month (hopefully, we'll see). As you probably know, the Ghostbusters video game comes out in 4 days and who knows how much work I'll get done after I get my hands on that. I've waited over 20 years to become a Ghostbuster, and I'm determined to relive every memory I have from Venkman, Stantz, and Egon.
Check back for more news next week!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
We're gonna take it Step By Step...
...and Day by Day.
I have an exciting announcement for you all. You may have known that the three principle members of the LAN'ded dev team can be followed on twitter. You can follow me at this address, here is Kyle's twitter, and David was the last to succumb yesterday. Twitter has been a pretty valuable way for us to keep in touch with other companies and projects. People have been able to follow our recent developments on this blog as well as twitter and it has opened many doors to us.
Today, from the shores of Port Washington, Wisconsin, we added a twitter to follow out of sheer respect for our childhood prime time TV viewing. That man was TV's Patrick Duffy. You may know him as Frank, father of the Lambert family on the hit TGIF regular "Step by Step." It was a no-brainer to follow Mr. Duffy. As a matter of fact, Kyle and I put together a choral soulful version of the show's theme song our senior year. We thought it would be a fitting tribute.
Not even a day after I added Mr. Duffy's twitter to my follow list did I receive an e-mail saying that he was following my twitter as well. David, who was not 5 feet away from me felt my enthusiasm first. Almost immediately we rejoiced and soon Kyle was called with the good news.
Mr. Duffy, if you are reading this: thank you for your support.
If you wish to view some of Mr. Duffy's content on YouTube, I've linked to it right here. You can also follow his twitter here. I hope that you find it as amusing as we have.
And now, without further ado, the LAN'ded team is preparing for more readings of the script. We'll be sure to let you know how it goes! KEEP LAN'DING!
Monday, June 1, 2009
A Hearty Hello from the Hampshire!
Gosh, 3 weeks just sort of flies by doesn't it?
Well LAN'ders, let me just start by saying that this week is a HUGE week for everyone. There's a new Pixar movie, E3 is happening, and the Imaginary Trends team is getting together for read-thrus once more. After all, we're all up here in the beautiful roads of New Hampshire now, so we've got plenty of time to work! Personally, it's a bit of a departure in writing up here. Whereas I was surrounded by media outlets of all sorts in Pittsburgh, up here I have to drive at least 15 minutes to get anywhere. Just puts everything in a different mindset.
Truth be told, many different iterations of the episodes we used in the reading have been written and re-written and time and time again it keeps coming back to the basics: How can we get our point across, and how can be innovate it? The ideas, we think, are innovative enough with our concepts, but how do we have these themes and ideas identifiable? Rather than mining pop culture through and through using any and everything to get a laugh (Like Family Guy), we're relying mainly on things that make you think of childhood, like comics, Muppets, video games, and cartoons. It's expanded from just a dorky coming-of-age tale and has evolved into a celebration of childhood in a way.
Part of the difficulty in writing the content is merging those aspects with the adult themes of the characters. Christian is an adult, living as a scared child. Izzy and Natalie are manifestations of the sandbox best friends he's never met or had before. How do you relate the child and the adult? Well, luckily for us, we never really grew up. That's not to say we're men who behave like boys, but we're mature kids at heart. We still have our action figures, we still love our Looney Tunes, and we still would jump at the chance to play some good old fashioned Mario Kart. Merge that with a big desire to create and you've got something great and new on your hands. Hopefully when LAN'ded becomes fully realized later on in its development cycle, you'll be able to see that as well.
I'm editing the scripts one last time, fixing typos and such before we start doing read-thrus again tomorrow. Can you believe I mixed up Robin Hood and Peter Pan? Yikes...people have been killed for less.
One last thing - Go see UP! You'll love it.
Well LAN'ders, let me just start by saying that this week is a HUGE week for everyone. There's a new Pixar movie, E3 is happening, and the Imaginary Trends team is getting together for read-thrus once more. After all, we're all up here in the beautiful roads of New Hampshire now, so we've got plenty of time to work! Personally, it's a bit of a departure in writing up here. Whereas I was surrounded by media outlets of all sorts in Pittsburgh, up here I have to drive at least 15 minutes to get anywhere. Just puts everything in a different mindset.
Truth be told, many different iterations of the episodes we used in the reading have been written and re-written and time and time again it keeps coming back to the basics: How can we get our point across, and how can be innovate it? The ideas, we think, are innovative enough with our concepts, but how do we have these themes and ideas identifiable? Rather than mining pop culture through and through using any and everything to get a laugh (Like Family Guy), we're relying mainly on things that make you think of childhood, like comics, Muppets, video games, and cartoons. It's expanded from just a dorky coming-of-age tale and has evolved into a celebration of childhood in a way.
Part of the difficulty in writing the content is merging those aspects with the adult themes of the characters. Christian is an adult, living as a scared child. Izzy and Natalie are manifestations of the sandbox best friends he's never met or had before. How do you relate the child and the adult? Well, luckily for us, we never really grew up. That's not to say we're men who behave like boys, but we're mature kids at heart. We still have our action figures, we still love our Looney Tunes, and we still would jump at the chance to play some good old fashioned Mario Kart. Merge that with a big desire to create and you've got something great and new on your hands. Hopefully when LAN'ded becomes fully realized later on in its development cycle, you'll be able to see that as well.
I'm editing the scripts one last time, fixing typos and such before we start doing read-thrus again tomorrow. Can you believe I mixed up Robin Hood and Peter Pan? Yikes...people have been killed for less.
One last thing - Go see UP! You'll love it.
Monday, May 11, 2009
The World Begins With You
HEY EVERYONE! Just as promised, here is the first draft of out new pilot for LAN'ded. It's been made for convenient download HERE as a PDF. I'll also re-link to our "trailer" script HERE!
Tomorrow night is the big trek to New Hampshire, where the LAN'ded creative team will be setting up shop for the summer. What's even more fun is that it'll be the first time that I meet David face to face rather than video chat over the internet! Crazy how we get things done so far away from each other. Just imagine what'll get done when we're all living in the same house!
The rest period in-between graduation and the NH job has been fantastic. First off, Star Trek was probably the best movie I've seen all year. After the disappointing Wolverine, Star Trek was a breath of fresh air that I'm probably going to see again and again if my wallet allows it. On top of that, I finally found the time to complete the game "The World Ends With You" for the DS. I'd be lying if I said the game wasn't superb from top to bottom. From presentation to the themes/messages the game was trying to get across, it was just fantastic. Bravo Square-Enix, bravo. I can't help but compare Neku (from TWEWY) and Christian, funny how inspiration and parallels comes from the most unlikely of places.
As I did last time I was home, I'm leeching internet from a local Panera. I've become one of 'those' people who get food at Panera and leech their Wi-Fi signal for hours. Only today I am not getting food from Panera, I'm instead going to trek (no pun intended) over to BK and get a special commemorative glass with Captain Kirk on it because I'm still reeling from the movie. At this point, I have four LOTR goblets and 2 Star Trek glasses to furnish my Chicago home when I move there and set up shop. I wouldn't have it any other way.
See you guys in 700+ miles!
~ Aaron J.
Tomorrow night is the big trek to New Hampshire, where the LAN'ded creative team will be setting up shop for the summer. What's even more fun is that it'll be the first time that I meet David face to face rather than video chat over the internet! Crazy how we get things done so far away from each other. Just imagine what'll get done when we're all living in the same house!
The rest period in-between graduation and the NH job has been fantastic. First off, Star Trek was probably the best movie I've seen all year. After the disappointing Wolverine, Star Trek was a breath of fresh air that I'm probably going to see again and again if my wallet allows it. On top of that, I finally found the time to complete the game "The World Ends With You" for the DS. I'd be lying if I said the game wasn't superb from top to bottom. From presentation to the themes/messages the game was trying to get across, it was just fantastic. Bravo Square-Enix, bravo. I can't help but compare Neku (from TWEWY) and Christian, funny how inspiration and parallels comes from the most unlikely of places.
As I did last time I was home, I'm leeching internet from a local Panera. I've become one of 'those' people who get food at Panera and leech their Wi-Fi signal for hours. Only today I am not getting food from Panera, I'm instead going to trek (no pun intended) over to BK and get a special commemorative glass with Captain Kirk on it because I'm still reeling from the movie. At this point, I have four LOTR goblets and 2 Star Trek glasses to furnish my Chicago home when I move there and set up shop. I wouldn't have it any other way.
See you guys in 700+ miles!
~ Aaron J.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
EXCITING NEW STUFF IS ON THE WAY!
Hey LAN'ders! Aaron here!
Just wanted to drop a line and say that if you want to catch a glimpse of some more writing that's been done for LAN'ded, check back on Monday the 11th! I'll be uploading some pages for everyone to see! Until then, why not check out Star Trek? Early reviews say that beaming up has never been so good.
Live Long & Prosper!
~ Aaron J.
Just wanted to drop a line and say that if you want to catch a glimpse of some more writing that's been done for LAN'ded, check back on Monday the 11th! I'll be uploading some pages for everyone to see! Until then, why not check out Star Trek? Early reviews say that beaming up has never been so good.
Live Long & Prosper!
~ Aaron J.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
For the record, the Wolverine movie was crap. Jus' sayin'...
Hey everyone!
Wow, I didn't realize so many people were really keeping up with the blog but I must have had 10 people ask me why there weren't any updates in the past week or so.
Well...long story short, I graduated college today and I've had to pack and say goodbyes and this and that. It's been..hectic. But sadly, it's over now and I'm officially a big boy. So hurray for adulthood!
Rest assured, LAN'ded is coming along. I know I keep saying that and we don't have anything to post but the writing process is a very interesting process. One day I'll write for hours and maybe it'll just be the same 5-10 pages over and over, and other days I will just jot down ideas and flesh things out, other days I just watch Ghostbusters. *shrug*
There have been a few new ideas thrown around for LAN'ded's first season though. Some involving religious themes, others involving character changes, and others involving including a wider range of style in terms of humor. One thing we're working on is accessibility. Just because it is made by dorks doesn't mean only dorks should 'get' it.
With alot of the LAN'ded crew making the move to NH for the summer I'm sure the creative juices will replenish and surge again soon. I PROMISE something will surface next week...
Keep LAN'ding
Wow, I didn't realize so many people were really keeping up with the blog but I must have had 10 people ask me why there weren't any updates in the past week or so.
Well...long story short, I graduated college today and I've had to pack and say goodbyes and this and that. It's been..hectic. But sadly, it's over now and I'm officially a big boy. So hurray for adulthood!
Rest assured, LAN'ded is coming along. I know I keep saying that and we don't have anything to post but the writing process is a very interesting process. One day I'll write for hours and maybe it'll just be the same 5-10 pages over and over, and other days I will just jot down ideas and flesh things out, other days I just watch Ghostbusters. *shrug*
There have been a few new ideas thrown around for LAN'ded's first season though. Some involving religious themes, others involving character changes, and others involving including a wider range of style in terms of humor. One thing we're working on is accessibility. Just because it is made by dorks doesn't mean only dorks should 'get' it.
With alot of the LAN'ded crew making the move to NH for the summer I'm sure the creative juices will replenish and surge again soon. I PROMISE something will surface next week...
Keep LAN'ding
The Next Step...
Wow! I graduated a year ago... and today another round of graduates will enter the "real world." In addition to Aaron, there were several other Seniors involved in the creation and production of the LAN'ded reading. For fear of forgetting someone, I'll just group them all together into one word... Noobs
Congratulations Aaron (and all you other Noobs)!
Welcome to the big leagues...
[insert mandatory evil laugh here]
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