Fictional Skies

John The Animator Guy has an interesting and helpful piece on visual storytelling  for newcomers. Lucy V at Write Here, Write Now  offers great advice  on how to put together a Writer's CV for those looking to do so. Scott at Go Into The Story has an excellent ten-part series on his scriptwriting process for the curious. Michelle Goode of So Fluid: Confessions of a Screenwriter  has some great info and resources on social networking and peer feedback for writers wanting to network and share work. Brian at Screenplay Readers  shares some golden advice on how to get a 'Recommend' on your script coverage for those wanting to improve their game.

For the last month or so I have been working diligently on a new TV project: an animated adventure series for children. Although this is the grand reveal, I'm afraid it'll be a no show as to specific details. You know the score. If it was Comic-Con then I would be happy to share all! Instead I will offer a little insight on the origin of the idea, its rebirth and end with some notes on the early development for this. Project Spacebound is not the actual title. Although, a rather cool one come to think of it. It's the codename for the show and a way to talk about it other than referring to it as the vague New Project 2012, New Project1, 011011100010011 or Animated Children's TV Series, or God forbid, to reveal its actual title before its time! From Short Animation to Series  The revival for this stems back to a chat with Danny Stack a few months back. The act of being able to share the story concept with him and have it received well was revitalising and encou...

Being miserable or happy is a choice and the latter starts by doing what you love and forgetting the rest. Enjoy the moment and learn to seize the day. Work towards a better more knowledgeable self, a body of work and a positive network. Only that way will your ambitions and goals be attainable. Who knows you may even find they may shift a little but as long as you love what you are doing it doesn't matter. Enjoy the experience. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's your  life. Have the courage to live it.

Have you ever had an idea for a story or character journey and could not only picture its existence as a film but could also see it expanded as a television series? Maybe an idea began as a comedy series for television but would work well as a radio series with less budget and more chance of being commissioned? Alternatively, it may have began as a short film but has the potential to work as a feature with expanded development and more characters? But ultimately were put off by the amount of work and wrote it in one format - while dreaming of the other. Or could not decide and left them both. It can sometimes be troubling and a killjoy to visualise an exciting story concept in another form to then reach a deadlock. However, the important thing is to keep moving forward regardless. Passion Vs. Logic  From experience the more insight and knowledge I've gained into what would work and fit into a particular form the more my instincts are attuned to what will work bes...

I have recently found this great eHow video on script writing for children in both an animated and live-action context. It's an essential video and sound advice, if like me you're starting out writing your first major children's animated project or even if your live-action script has a child character or two in there, or a whole main cast of them. It's a useful insight on what's important when writing for children that can be easily forgotten when writing, as we tend to write and appeal to the child within us first. But the longer we ignore our audience the more we run the risk of damaging our script, characters' voices, credibility and will bore. The last thing we want to do is disrespect them and convey a lack of professionalism and talent to a script reader and/or producer. Step out of the story for a moment and watch the video to be reminded of the fundamentals on writing for children. How to Write Scripts for Children -- powered by eHow ...

I read this morning, an excellent piece of project management advice from Go Into The Story that will change my writing life forever. This promptly made its way to ScriptSense . It arrived in the last minute of the eleventh hour to prevent me going any further with my proposed Rotating Triangle Approach to Screenwriting and Project Management. After four weeks on the preliminary work on the Primary Project (Codename: Spacebound). I was set to rotate and start the prelim-work on Secondary Project today. As well as share the initial idea on the approach. If you wish, you can read the unpublished post on the abandoned approach here . What it shows is that I was on the right lines searching for a solution to managing and progressing with three projects at once. Although, last night did spot weaknesses in the approach which were going to led to modifications and to include the overlapping of projects. But I needn't do any more on it now. The First Hour  I have no d...