It's moi--I am back

I know--bad bad blogger...I have not posted in let's see, that would be FOREVER...A lot has happened to me--I will spare you. But I am still at it and must report I have parted from my animator Sinead Walshe in Ireland..She is great, I won't go into it here...You should hire her if you want some good animation. Details below...
Although I am seeking a new collaborator with animation skills and software, I am also aware that the present covid economy has almost wiped out family movies. Supposedly. And animated family movies are an even more expensive gamble for the suits.
So I am working on a live action script...Yes, I dreamed it like I did my two-full length animated scripts. I may share more later. I will be breaking all the tenets of screenwriting...ooooo, scary.
This is a crazy biz (as you may have heard, heh)... I am trying to adapt...or think out of the box or even find that darn box or whatever...
Send me good thoughts...why don'tcha...
Oh, and if you want to buy my animated scripts or packaged products, despite all this, that would be aces. jkellaw at aol dot com.

She moves! She lives!

NEW YEAR and new progress to report.

My Irish collaborator Sinead Walshe is working on my four main characters for my one-minute trailer for the short cartoon series CHONIE & BOS.  She plucked images from the internet (see below) to give me a choice of feel and tone for each character.

Then she did some drawings and asked me did I like the cat Chonie to have a rounded muzzle or no muzzle, and so on. I thought her first Chonie was too skinny and model-like...kinda unreal world. We wanted her to be a bold, frisky high schooler warts and all (well, not real warts).

This meant some meat on those bones--clearly a kitty who ate food...

Then, since in the trailer Chonie is changeable--angry, jealous, seductive, and so on, Sinead did a compilation of her expressions...EXCITING because finally she MOVED, she was animated...

See above.

This is a very interesting process...I am amped.

Progress on my 1-min trailer--the MOODBOARD

I am trying to learn more about animation as a process by making a 1-min trailer for a short-form cartoon project called CHONIE & BOS. Chonie is a vampy HS student cat who is dictating her "memoirs" to a beagle named Boswell...and in the process she begins to see how her sexy ways may be working against her, even with tomcats.

My collaborator is Sinead Walshe of Cork, Ireland. I had commissioned some studies of the four main characters, which she will tweak. But first she created a Moodboard--of images that "say" Chonie--for the background, which will remain static.

In turn, I did sort of a "word" moodboard of words that describe Chonie in the period the trailer will cover:

Girly

Messy

Boy crazy

Logo conscious

Music

Popular icons

You Tubey

Scattered

Fast zippy

Impulsive

Irreverent

Rule breaking

Sassy

Self-centered

We are trying to mesh our visions...

Tweet Tweet Tweetily Deet

When I became a finalist in the Oaxaca Film Fest , I needed someplace to smug brag.

So I got a Twitter account.

But before I did that, I read up and watched videos about Twitter.

You know the expression, "So much has been written about everything, it's hard to find anything out about it"? Well, that applies.

So finally I just signed up, created some tweets on my projects, hashtagged #animation #cartoons and so on.

I also was told to follow people...so I followed BoJack Horseman (the look and hopelessly sarcastic tone I like for one of my projects), the creator of BoJack (sep account), and some other Hwood spots.

Zap--all their tweets went on my account...chaos. So I muted them. So now I have no idea who sees what.

I have decided it takes time for your excellence to be recognized. Ahem.

Can anyone give me tips? My account also split in two..no idea why.

This is The Blue Bird of Happiness?

My handle is @TheStarLawrence, if you are interested.

Oh--and I didn't win. But it was fun to think about and chat with some tweeters who did win.

Hey--Someone in Mexico likes my script

As a screenwriter, you can pretty much wipe out all your bank accounts entering contests, but I learned of a free script contest at the Oaxaca FilmFest9--coming up in October.

For fun, I sent in my feature-length animated script PAW & ORDER.

Today I was informed that 5% of the thousands of scripts sent were officially selected to be involved
--and PAW was one.

The pitch:

It's New York, the future, animals are educated, have good jobs and are on equal footing with humans. In this comedic takeoff on the famous show,  Det Lupine (a wolf) and Sgt Buzzy (a honeybee) partner up to track down the killjoy who stole two human kids' TV satellite dish. They wisecrack with each other, grill suspects, and finally turn over the thief for a riotous trial. Full of puns, crazy jokes, and more fun than the law allows.

I probably cannot journey to Mexico with my stupid knees and ailments, but I am happy anyway...

You have to take the good with the bad, I always say.

Ole!

Working with the "young bunch"

Where the heck were YOU when I
needed you?

Being "a certain age" is apparently the kiss of death in the movie business, much less the cartoon biz. Well, I cannot turn back the clock--so I better turn out the goods, right?

As mentioned below, I am working through a site called Artella.com, put up by some ex-Pixar guys. From our facetime meetings, I see they are mostly 20s-30s Most have spent with a long time, relatively, in the trenches of animation, which is crazy complicated--but maybe not so much in screenwriting, plotting, character development, adaptation of property, and other skills.

Anyway, I needed a video pitch of my project on Artella--and this turned into a monster project for me. I screened a number of videographers and concept artists (they do "still" drawings of characters). The videographers were two brothers, originally from Peru. They shot me for 3 hours...and boy did I learn again that acting is hard and I am no actress.

I also spent several days tracking down the rights to a version of the old Troggs hit WILD THING for my music.

I had my old filmmaking partner make a cut of the videotape and that did not turn out (long story). So I paid the brothers to cut it--and had to urge them to be bold, put in wacky touches--since when did young people become so conservative?

Then we tangled over the volume of the music...They wanted to dial it way back to almost an indecipherable tinkle...I wanted it raucous--you know, like in a CARTOON!

You can see the results to the right--it's under two minutes...

Yes, others also said the music was too loud, but I am OK with it and it's my call.

Sooner or later, you have to "auteur" this stuff.

Funny thing (hope) happened on way to the trailer

OK--to catch up. I decided to make a short trailer for my cartoon series CHONIE & BOS--using a collaboration site put up by some ex-Pixar guys.

As I began to learn the VERY complicated ins and outs of animation production, I was told I needed concept art. After some very chaotic interactions with artists on Craigs, I finally settled on a guy who drew a few facial expressions for each of my four  cat characters...whew, that took a lot out of me.

But THEN, I learned from Bobby Beck, the honcho at the collaboration site (Artella.com), that I would do better attracting the various skills to my project if I had a "pitch video."

A pitch video would be me talking about my project.

I would probably get my old filmmaking partner Ross Stansfield to cut it together, but I would need the footage--and I am now 2500 miles away from Ross.

About this time, too, it dawned on me that maybe I could use the pitch video to market the project instead of the animated trailer...So I would want good production values, since it would be going to production companies.

I finally found two brothers on Craigs who are starting a video business here in the Phoenix area--Richard and David Carhuayo.

They came yesterday with all their lights and equipment and we did a 3-hr shoot. I am no actress and proved it at first anyway--although I am hoping I loosened up by the end.

It was crazy fun!! Reminded me so much of an earlier live action film Ross and I made and which won a Telly. Curious? You can see that on YouTube under Star Lawrence.

Anyhow, we have not gotten to the rough cut or final cut or any cut stage on the video--so stay tuned.