Project Stalled

The project has been stalled for several months now because of various things going on in my life. I hope to return to it in the coming months, but I don't see another release in the near future. I am still collecting resources to use though, so there is still some chance that I will return to it eventually.

Also, the link for the first section is dead now, but it has been restored at the following link:
"The New Genesis" - "Days" and "Eden" (.pptx). Enjoy if you haven't seen it yet.

First Release

Okay, it's been quite a while since the pilot chapter was completed in terms of the animations, but I was waiting on an answer as to whether I would have assistance to add voices to the more than 10 characters. Apparently, as of now, I do not have said assistance, and so I have decided that it would be better to just release the animations and add voices later if the remainder of the project has a set of voices.

The project has turned out very well, though I think it goes kind of slow in the "Eden" section, because of the massive amount of Fox talking (it would be a better parody of Al Gore if it had a voice).

While watching this, viewers should remember that this is the story of creation through the eyes of extremist liberals and catastrophist environmentalists. Therefore, the contents are skewed to that point of view, making the depictions of characters very poignant in the second half. However, the project also depicts true events at many points, contrasting and satirizing what is being written in the book itself. Watch this with the knowledge that I am a very conservative person depicting a liberal point-of-view. There are multiple lenses. Do not take this short disclaimer to mean that I am ashamed of my position though. I just feel that it adds to the humor of the project if this information is added (because there are a few instances where the only joke is the contradiction between the image and what is being said). I am exceedingly proud of the project, and I hope to be able to complete future chapters, most of which are now in pre-production. Enjoy.

"The New Genesis" - "Days" and "Eden" (.pptx)

PS: I thought I might want to add a Cast List to this, in case the quotations that introduce each character do not have the right amount of salience. It is in order of appearance.

The Snake - Symbol of Reason and Progress (Totally evil... right, Mr. Gore?)
Fox - Al Gore
Birds - The Media ("Mainstream" and otherwise)
Sheep - The American (Animalican) Public
Snail - George W. Bush
Skunk - Dick Cheney
Cats - Republicans (Republicats)
Orange Cat - Newt Gingrich
Dogs - Democrats (Dogicrats)
Bunny ("Waskally Wabbit") - Bill Clinton
Pig - Rosie O'Donnell (or... as herself)
Worm - Nancy Pelosi (pretty sure most Democrats would agree)
Weasel - Hillary Clinton
Squirrels - "Civil Rights" Leaders
Squirrel Sharptooth (Light Squirrel) - Al Sharpton
Black Squirrel - Jesse Jackson

I guess now you know why I didn't do voices for this just yet... ~SP

Days and Eden

The two pilot sections are essentially finished, although with some inspiration I may add another page (2 slides)... though I doubt it. I am withholding the release until I hear from Sean as to whether or not he will assist me with dubbing voices... if not, this release will not likely have voices (too many characters), though I may re-release it later with them. There will also be some familiar elements that people who know me should recognize...

Onto an explanation of things: Days ends with the creation of fossil fuels and the growth of the garden. I'm not sure if anyone will get the snake's innuendo, so I'll just explain it (even though I hate doing that). On the last slide of "Days" there will be a mouse that crawls across the screen, then a snake that has what looks like a tail in its mouth coming from the other direction.... the snake ate the mouse.

Take note when the release comes out that there will be no humans in this story...mostly because I hate drawing and animating humans, but also because I appreciate the allegory. Eden is meant to introduce characters such that informed people will know who they are (except for the snail, who people will actually understand in the next section -- Cain and Abel, which will be the two previous elections (hint hint hint)). Keep in mind that the allegorical content of the animals will be through extremist liberal eyes...so it should come as no surprise about the skunk.

We also get to see Rosie O'Donnell, Nancy Pelosi, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and a few unnamed Republicans (but one can guess who they are with some of the context). I am proud of the quality of the birds (who serve as the media), and we will see many more as the project progresses. The plans are coming to fruition at a steady pace, but there are several obligations that I am placing above this project at the moment -- like job searching and studying for the LSAT, so the pace may slow for the next month or more. However, I do hope to release the pilot and get feedback ASAP.

"Days" Part 2 and Release Info

The Pilot is taking longer than expected, largely because I went into long-term planning mode and set the project itself aside for several days. Speaking of "Days," they will be complete when I put the words on the final slide. I have also just completed the title page, which I had previously neglected, but is a very important aspect of a comic. All-in-all, "Days" will be 12 slides long (6 pages of comic). The last pages contain the mysterious "global warming" death of the dinosaurs, what happens to the bones of the dinosaurs on the sixth day, and the small creatures begin to rule the world as the garden grows on the seventh day.

However, the release will not be made until the second section, "Eden" is complete, because I want to have all of the characters properly introduced before moving into the storyline. However, since the first chapter ("Cain and Abel") will deal with the Election of 2000, many of the characters may not be seen again for a while, so I'm still debating how many characters to introduce in Eden. The Obama character will almost certainly not be seen until he appears (far later in the project). That way, I will be motivated to complete the project -- because I like the jokes that surround that character. I will post again with details for Eden, probably when the release comes out.

Characters and Topics

I may be able to make a decent release this week, since I have decided to release the project in episodes, much like the Bible itself is separated into episodic stories. I will probably release "Days" as a pilot, then move into longer episodes. If I feel particularly ambitious, I will put "Eden" into the mix and introduce all the characters that will be seen for the remainder of the project. So far, many of the early stories have initial planning complete, though the creation of specific characters will need to be complete before I can proceed with them, because the way that the characters are created will greatly affect the types of actions that can be animated with them. I will complete "Days" by the end of the week, and the pilot release should be early next week on my website.

As the pilot, "Days" and "Eden" will be quite a bit shorter than I plan the rest of the episodes to be. However, a lot of the initial work is necessary, so the longer sections may have faster release times. So far, roughly five characters have been produced for animation, and I am very happy with the quality thus far.

Characters

This is quickly becoming a point of contention for the project, because I have not fully decided which issues I will be addressing specifically. There are a number of topics that I'm tossing around which would require various people to be involved in controversy, but I am trying to keep the issues as current as possible. The issues seem to define which people will need to be represented in the project, so I will list here the issues that are definitely going to be seen (and a character that is involved):

1.) Global Warming - Al Gore
2.) Election - Barrack Obama
3.) Gun Control - Rosie O'Donnell
4.) The Constitution
5.) Health Care
6.) Big Government
7.) The Media - The Media

Some of the issues that I may use are below, but, as contentious as they are, I may not have the personal interest to address, especially since this is my opinion and not a party line:

1.) Gay Marriage
2.) Abortion
3.) Taxes
4.) War on Terrorism
5.) The Olympics (aka China)
6.) Education (College Devaluation)
7.) Welfare/Communism/Socialism
8.) Animal Rights/P.E.T.A.
9.) Euthenasia

I won't reveal how the characters will be portrayed yet (until I have pictures), but I will say that none of them will be caricatures of themselves. Allegory is very powerful, and what I have in mind may be more manageable than each of them.

As for real characters, there will need to be both extremes for any situation to work. Therefore, I will need to develop several different character types that need to be addressed. This means that it will likely take a lot more time to complete the project than I had originally hoped. I may have to make it episodic, and release "Days," then move onto "Eden and the Fall," where most of the characters are introduced. This is a last resort if character and story design take longer than expected, but there will be significant work done by the end of next week, whether I decide to serialize it or not. "Days" will be roughly four pages, unless I have a huge creative epiphany within the next few days (although this has been happening a lot in recent days...), so I don't really want to make a habit of only releasing four "pages" (8 slides) at a time, especially when the rest of the episodes will probably take longer to complete. We'll see how it develops.

The Days of Creation Part 1

To set up a habit, I will put each section's notes in a separate post. This one will discuss the 70% complete "Days of Creation" section of "The New Genesis."

Like the Bible, it begins with "In the Beginning" and each subsection ends with "And there was evening, and there was morning." Common phrasing is used throughout to let the viewer know that this is the beginning of a new Bible.

However, a viewer will immediately notice that God has been removed from the equation, and the "Beginning" is the big bang. This is very intentional, and would hopefully unsettle the viewer into believing that something is off or wrong with this new telling. On the bottom half of the page (slide 2), I used a photograph of the milky way (billions of stars are hard to make and arrange individually), in order to begin to focus on Earth. The next page has a very disorganized solar system on it. Notice the brown and red on the third planet -- that will be changed in the coming days. I must note that the big bang story may not be accurate to scientific accounts, and I did no research into it for this depiction, because over-simplified science seems to be acceptable when liberals are concerned.

For this section of the production, and probably no other section in it, time is extremely important. We start with the beginning, and go through several "days." However, each of the days is notedly separated by at least a few million years. It becomes consistent with the Big Bang Theory of creation, and probably more with reality, though the timetables are completely made up by me.

The first day displays constant volcanic activity on the Earth. Two separate animations are made, one large scale (planetary view) and the other more close-up. The close up animation is simple but was necessary to me, since I failed to create an animation of Vesuvius for one of my undergraduate projects and it had always bugged me. The latter animation type is reminiscent of two previous animations I had made: the spewing blood from my "Phillip the Great" presentation, and the fire smoke from my "Actium" presentation. These were two of my more clever independent animations and I combined the elements here.

The second day (after a billion years has elapsed) has the lava cooling and gas being excreted. Nothing special, except that in the middle of the top half, there will be the comment, "Carbon Dioxide and water vapor are accumulated, and it was good." This is the first of many cracks at the global warning hysteria and how ridiculous it is. On the bottom of the same page we move to day three (a billion years later as well). Here we have rains filling the oceans, lands reappearing and life beginning. This page contains a wonderful new animation. In the bottom right corner, there is a sunset animation which was surprisingly simple to produce, but looks really nice.

For the Fourth Day, the dinosaurs are introduced. Now, one must remember that I am not drawing with a pen, but rather with a mouse. While this may sound like an apology for the quality, it is actually a challenge against all those who complain about the shape of the stegasaurus and brachiosaurus. The characters, like most of my creations in PowerPoint are cartoony and by no means perfect representations, and this is a conscious choice.

However, this becomes the first overt criticism of Global Warming. The dinosaurs are claimed to have died due to global warming, caused by breathing too heavily and eating all the plants and trees. However, in the background for the viewer, we see a meteor striking the earth and the sky changing color. Lying through the teeth in order to fit a future agenda is seen explicitly for the first time here. And I don't want emails telling me that no one ever claimed that global warming killed the dinosaurs, because that is inaccurate (http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2005/01/21/extinction-050121.html)... and anyways, it's supposed to be symbolic and allegorical, like much of the Bible itself.

This is where we are (and by that I mean "I am") so far on the project - two and a half pages into the comic. I will make a point of expounding details to the production as they appear. In later entries, I will likely be more explicit on what the alternatives to the choices I made were, but right now, I'm tired of writing.