My orders come from high places. Look, I'm just the messenger after all; I tell it like it is. Your wait is over - and it has only just begun. I suppose Tuesday comes a lot sooner than...well, we never did say, did we? I don't think I can tell you much more than that. I will let on that we'll be working with at least one potentially challenging limitation this summer.
...Well, wouldn't YOU like to know?
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, November 30, 2009
Concerning the Little Worlds RPG System
In the interests of enlivening the discussion surrounding the comic, I thought it might be helpful to explain a bit about the role-playing game from which all these Little Worlds originate.
I myself was first exposed to Little Worlds last school year when a planned Dungeons and Dragons session fell through for one reason or other, and Peter proposed a standalone ("one-shot", in gamer parlance) session of this roleplaying game which he had devised. I forget precisely what information I was given before we began play, but it was more or less "you are a person in the real, modern world. You should have some reason to be in the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario)". I decided to be an extreme-sportswoman who would if pressed into combat defeat her foes with X-TREME stunts! (this didn't actually happen, but that is not to say I did not have my badass moments).
So, the real, modern world. Yeah, not for very long. As soon as we had completed our character introductions, we were thrust into a magic-mushroom (note: "magic" here is sort of halfway between magic-sorcerous and magic-psychotropic) fuelled ancient-egyptian themed parallel world nightmare thing. With mummies. And bats. Fortunately, one of the other player characters (Aaron AKA The Duke) was a preacher, which turns out to be a pretty useful profession to be when battling the living dead. The bats I dispatched with extreme prejudice by way of improvised grapeshot (gold coins) fired from an antique musket.
Little Worlds is not, by nature, combat-oriented. There's a lot of emphasis on strong characterization and roleplaying (in a later session* the same characters stumbled into a pagan fertility ritual and made rather more love than war). The rule with Little Worlds seems to be that there is someone or something who has become a sort of nexus of unreality. Usually they are a bit (understatement) CrAzY. If LW the comic were happening around a gaming table, you can probably guess that the experience of the players would be more or less that of Derby, with The Duke projecting his demented parallel existence onto those unfortunate enough to cross his path.
*"But wait, what was that about 'standalone' you were saying earlier?". I guess we liked those characters enough to play them again?
I myself was first exposed to Little Worlds last school year when a planned Dungeons and Dragons session fell through for one reason or other, and Peter proposed a standalone ("one-shot", in gamer parlance) session of this roleplaying game which he had devised. I forget precisely what information I was given before we began play, but it was more or less "you are a person in the real, modern world. You should have some reason to be in the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario)". I decided to be an extreme-sportswoman who would if pressed into combat defeat her foes with X-TREME stunts! (this didn't actually happen, but that is not to say I did not have my badass moments).
So, the real, modern world. Yeah, not for very long. As soon as we had completed our character introductions, we were thrust into a magic-mushroom (note: "magic" here is sort of halfway between magic-sorcerous and magic-psychotropic) fuelled ancient-egyptian themed parallel world nightmare thing. With mummies. And bats. Fortunately, one of the other player characters (Aaron AKA The Duke) was a preacher, which turns out to be a pretty useful profession to be when battling the living dead. The bats I dispatched with extreme prejudice by way of improvised grapeshot (gold coins) fired from an antique musket.
Little Worlds is not, by nature, combat-oriented. There's a lot of emphasis on strong characterization and roleplaying (in a later session* the same characters stumbled into a pagan fertility ritual and made rather more love than war). The rule with Little Worlds seems to be that there is someone or something who has become a sort of nexus of unreality. Usually they are a bit (understatement) CrAzY. If LW the comic were happening around a gaming table, you can probably guess that the experience of the players would be more or less that of Derby, with The Duke projecting his demented parallel existence onto those unfortunate enough to cross his path.
*"But wait, what was that about 'standalone' you were saying earlier?". I guess we liked those characters enough to play them again?
Friday, November 27, 2009
Chapter One is Done (Sort of)!
We completed photography for chapter one several days ago now (applause). The Duke has just made his first speaking appearance, and you'll be seeing Lev shortly. There's plenty of post-processing to go before everything's in the bag, but it proceeds apace (and it all looks really really good!).
This was an interesting shoot for a number of reasons. Not only were we introducing new characters, but we were also introducing new elements into the creative process: we began the day* with what I'll call our first Little Worlds conference. In our previous shoots, we would begin with the script and/or storyboard already in place. This conference was the first time that the whole crew participated in more or less the whole planning process. We discussed locations, character motivations, composition...heck, even (low budget) special effects. I think a part of this is that we were dealing with a Player Character this time - Lev. As was briefly alluded to in the past, Little Worlds grew out of a Role-Playing Game (RPG) which has run on-and-off both this year and last. Then as now, Lev was played by Dani, sole inhabitant of the nebulous region between actor and creator in our opus. The conference was in part to ensure that the characters would stay in-character in word and action, and it was not just Dani who had a say in this matter. As the other actors begin to inhabit the skin of those they portray, so are they given voices in council.
Finding a location was another chief challenge. It wasn't awful that day, but it was chilly enough and also a lazy Saturday to boot. We wanted to find somewhere that was close at hand, but which possessed enough in the way of grungy urban decay as to resemble the sort of alleyway in which the eldritch Duke would chose to waylay hapless Derby without drawing undue attention. We settled on the back end of some shop or other not too many streets away. There was a nearby parking structure we considered, but there is such a thing as 'too dark'. Also, having already used a car park in the past, I think it was the correct move to chose a different space than we had before. That matter being settled, we came to the usual difficulties of photography; climbing trees, trying not to drop your hundreds of dollars of camera to be dashed into so many hundreds of pieces upon the pavement, going prone on rusty metal stairways, lying in a patch of cracked asphalt and fallen leaves to get a shot from the injured Derby's point of view...the usual, really. And despite the myriad hardships, there is that terribly addictive quality to the satisfaction of a job well done that keeps a guy coming back for more.
*Actually, the day started with late breakfast at a certain local tea house that we hope to include in Little Worlds canon. The meeting actually happened around 3:30 in the afternoon. Incidentally, speaking of this tea house, if anyone knows where we might acquire furniture resembling in some way the inside of a diner on a student (read: no) budget, we would be very much obliged (please email Peter or myself should you be inclined to volunteer such information).
This was an interesting shoot for a number of reasons. Not only were we introducing new characters, but we were also introducing new elements into the creative process: we began the day* with what I'll call our first Little Worlds conference. In our previous shoots, we would begin with the script and/or storyboard already in place. This conference was the first time that the whole crew participated in more or less the whole planning process. We discussed locations, character motivations, composition...heck, even (low budget) special effects. I think a part of this is that we were dealing with a Player Character this time - Lev. As was briefly alluded to in the past, Little Worlds grew out of a Role-Playing Game (RPG) which has run on-and-off both this year and last. Then as now, Lev was played by Dani, sole inhabitant of the nebulous region between actor and creator in our opus. The conference was in part to ensure that the characters would stay in-character in word and action, and it was not just Dani who had a say in this matter. As the other actors begin to inhabit the skin of those they portray, so are they given voices in council.
Finding a location was another chief challenge. It wasn't awful that day, but it was chilly enough and also a lazy Saturday to boot. We wanted to find somewhere that was close at hand, but which possessed enough in the way of grungy urban decay as to resemble the sort of alleyway in which the eldritch Duke would chose to waylay hapless Derby without drawing undue attention. We settled on the back end of some shop or other not too many streets away. There was a nearby parking structure we considered, but there is such a thing as 'too dark'. Also, having already used a car park in the past, I think it was the correct move to chose a different space than we had before. That matter being settled, we came to the usual difficulties of photography; climbing trees, trying not to drop your hundreds of dollars of camera to be dashed into so many hundreds of pieces upon the pavement, going prone on rusty metal stairways, lying in a patch of cracked asphalt and fallen leaves to get a shot from the injured Derby's point of view...the usual, really. And despite the myriad hardships, there is that terribly addictive quality to the satisfaction of a job well done that keeps a guy coming back for more.
*Actually, the day started with late breakfast at a certain local tea house that we hope to include in Little Worlds canon. The meeting actually happened around 3:30 in the afternoon. Incidentally, speaking of this tea house, if anyone knows where we might acquire furniture resembling in some way the inside of a diner on a student (read: no) budget, we would be very much obliged (please email Peter or myself should you be inclined to volunteer such information).
Friday, October 30, 2009
Launch Day!
The Little Worlds team is very, very excited because today we have officially launched!
Stay tuned for more posts, and new production images.
Stay tuned for more posts, and new production images.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
I fought the law...
...and the law politely asked us not to take photographs on government property. This was not a surprise in and of itself; if anything we would have expected this kind of trouble long before our fifth photo shoot. We will have to splice together some material as a result, as we had yet to finish the scene when the guard on duty informed us of our transgression. We moved from our original location onto campus, where we were fortunate enough not to be hassled further (although I was perched halfway over a railing on the way to, um, a location not normally accessible to the public when a uniformed officer left the main admin building behind us, which was a pretty close call!). This shoot was by far the shortest we've done, probably no more than 45 minutes long. We had the greatest number of photographers to date (3), and it was probably the second-coldest shoot (the school/playground session for the intro monologue takes the cake there).
On our way back after the shoot, we irked an overzealous left-turning Manitoban with his window rolled down, but we brandished our golf club and JAWS rental, and passed safely through the night.
Peter promises a process post sometime "soonish" detailing the progression from the photographs we take to the comic pages you see.
On our way back after the shoot, we irked an overzealous left-turning Manitoban with his window rolled down, but we brandished our golf club and JAWS rental, and passed safely through the night.
Peter promises a process post sometime "soonish" detailing the progression from the photographs we take to the comic pages you see.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Welcome!
Now that we've got ourselves a bona-fide homepage, it's time I committed some text to the page here on the progress blog. For now it's just the big ol' slideshow: a mix of production shots, unreleased photos, and the undoctored originals of some of what you have seen (or will see) in Little Worlds. As this space develops, you'll likely see a greater emphasis on the material that has gone into the comic, and I'm hoping to wrangle the odd actor into doing a guest post or two. I'll kick this off with some of my thoughts thus far:
I've gotten into digital photography in the last few years, but as a very sporadic hobby. Little Worlds is the first project that I have undertaken as a photographer per se, and as such is both exciting and intimidating. The responsibility of translating another person's vision into reality is a new one for me, so I'll admit that yeah, I'm definitely alittle lot scared of screwing up. Biggest challenge so far: holding the camera steady at night without a tripod, and the biggest success: I dunno if I'm the right person to ask, but there is this one really awesome picture of the Duke that I think will be available as a wallpaper at some point.
A note on my equipment, in case anyone is curious: I have the 8-megapixel Canon Digital Rebel XT with an 18-35mm lens. It's not a full frame digital camera, though, so the actual numbers are ~1.6x...higher (if I remember the manual correctly) than stated. Of course, this is some old-hat stuff compared to some of the newfangled gear you can get these days.
Before I sign off, there's a question I feel I ought to ask: what part of the comic-making process do you want to read about? Leave a comment to let us know!
-Loud (Gallium_Arsenide on the RPC forums)
I've gotten into digital photography in the last few years, but as a very sporadic hobby. Little Worlds is the first project that I have undertaken as a photographer per se, and as such is both exciting and intimidating. The responsibility of translating another person's vision into reality is a new one for me, so I'll admit that yeah, I'm definitely a
A note on my equipment, in case anyone is curious: I have the 8-megapixel Canon Digital Rebel XT with an 18-35mm lens. It's not a full frame digital camera, though, so the actual numbers are ~1.6x...higher (if I remember the manual correctly) than stated. Of course, this is some old-hat stuff compared to some of the newfangled gear you can get these days.
Before I sign off, there's a question I feel I ought to ask: what part of the comic-making process do you want to read about? Leave a comment to let us know!
-Loud (Gallium_Arsenide on the RPC forums)
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