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Introspective
Mar. 19th, 2006 04:43 pmSpen- no problem. That's one useful thing LJ is for- keeping people updated and in touch- and as you may have noticed, its not like I'm using my LJ for much else recently.
*
Random...
I finally broke down and typed up a response to Ed in the CR the other day, criticizing a number of ways Pendragon and other TGS projects (the alpha version of gargoyles season four, for one) were handled, as it had been on my brain for a long time. I left out that (since it is an eye of the beholder sort of thing) on top of what I did mention, I also thought that a lot of the writing was bad. I can see the plot holes, the OOC characterizations, the conflicts in continuity. They are there, and I can point them out for others to see. My personal opinion of their style, well, not everyone will agree with that.
He responded, and defended his work. It was a good defense. Again, there are points I don't agree with, but its hard to argue personal preference- so I am not going to bother. (Besides, I'd rather work on TGS anyway.) And as lain pointed out- they did come up with, draft, and write (even if said writing could have been more detailed, and everyone they encountered on foreign land all talked exactly like Arthur, and the most character growth we saw was in the relationship between a pair of 14 year olds whom it has already been revealed in the future will wind up together and produce a couple children, and...but I digress) a 24-episode long series, and got it out.
We haven't quite managed that yet.
Then again, we're working on two series at the same time with special attention to making sure they mesh, since they share some villains and said villains can't be in two places at once, and we're also putting in the time and effort to at least attempt to avoid a number of the problems we personally see in writing like Pendragon Season 4. (This time and effort includes things like the Biograph and Pantheon projects, along with figuring out long-term intended schemes of several of the "we are always planning something" villain types. Something that I think is neccessary when you have a character like Thailog, who is known for his machevellian plans and is in the city, with a personal grudge against our main cast and Demona. He won control of her company from her in season 3- Just how is he intending on keeping it during season four? If he has plans that keep him three steps ahead of the curve, what *are* those plans?)
Actual status of Gargoyles Season 4? In the last three days an outline was started from nearly scratch and finished; tomorrow I'm off to see who on our list of guest writers is free to take it. And one story- something expected to be a two-parter- that had been troubling for a while in a "we know some of what we want to do, now how do we make a story out of it?" way got a shove along in the production process. A compilation was made of all the ideas batted around for it, what needed to happen and what might be interesting to see, and a quite talented writer agreed to take a look at what we had and see if she was willing to make a story out of it.
This is more progress than one might realize, since both of these stories had been giving us a headache for over a year, and the outliner originally assigned to the single-shot story dissappeared off the face of the world without ever giving an update.
By the end of April, sixteen of the twenty stories planned for Gargoyles Season 4 should be in the hands of a writer or an editor (or are already finished), and we'll be working on finalizing the outlines for the last four. Of those four stories, three make up the trilogy that ends the season, and already have a number of scenes written (courtesy of Greg Bishansky).
Six months ago, we had hoped to get Season 4 out in June. Now we're hoping to have it out starting in- September? the fall. Except that having the stories in the hands of writers is not the same as them being written- and TGS has been plagued by delays, delays, and more delays when it comes to its on-staff writers finding time to sit down and work for a while now. So we can't officially announce an intended release date until we get to June and see how many stories are done, how many are in edits- and how many are still floating out there, being worked on a sentence at a time.
I've always said that it'll be ready when it is ready. At least one person in the TGS CR declared the year-long wait for HS 3 to be worth it; we can only hope people feel the same way when Gar 4 is released. We neither want to do a rush job to get it done by an announced date, nor dissapoint what little audience we have left by shoving back the release date if we get up to it and find the season not ready.
Oh, and Gunjack decided to re-write the intro scenes to Hungry Shadows part four when he was supposed to be doing final edits on it. : P It should be out within the week, though.
Oh. And Art. When more of the stories are ready, we need to go see who of our artists besides Shauntell (and Revel, and lain, and myself) still have the interest and the time to art up the stories. But much like the unfinished outlines, there isn't a point in asking now (when they might have the free time) if we aren't ready for them now.
*
Random...
I finally broke down and typed up a response to Ed in the CR the other day, criticizing a number of ways Pendragon and other TGS projects (the alpha version of gargoyles season four, for one) were handled, as it had been on my brain for a long time. I left out that (since it is an eye of the beholder sort of thing) on top of what I did mention, I also thought that a lot of the writing was bad. I can see the plot holes, the OOC characterizations, the conflicts in continuity. They are there, and I can point them out for others to see. My personal opinion of their style, well, not everyone will agree with that.
He responded, and defended his work. It was a good defense. Again, there are points I don't agree with, but its hard to argue personal preference- so I am not going to bother. (Besides, I'd rather work on TGS anyway.) And as lain pointed out- they did come up with, draft, and write (even if said writing could have been more detailed, and everyone they encountered on foreign land all talked exactly like Arthur, and the most character growth we saw was in the relationship between a pair of 14 year olds whom it has already been revealed in the future will wind up together and produce a couple children, and...but I digress) a 24-episode long series, and got it out.
We haven't quite managed that yet.
Then again, we're working on two series at the same time with special attention to making sure they mesh, since they share some villains and said villains can't be in two places at once, and we're also putting in the time and effort to at least attempt to avoid a number of the problems we personally see in writing like Pendragon Season 4. (This time and effort includes things like the Biograph and Pantheon projects, along with figuring out long-term intended schemes of several of the "we are always planning something" villain types. Something that I think is neccessary when you have a character like Thailog, who is known for his machevellian plans and is in the city, with a personal grudge against our main cast and Demona. He won control of her company from her in season 3- Just how is he intending on keeping it during season four? If he has plans that keep him three steps ahead of the curve, what *are* those plans?)
Actual status of Gargoyles Season 4? In the last three days an outline was started from nearly scratch and finished; tomorrow I'm off to see who on our list of guest writers is free to take it. And one story- something expected to be a two-parter- that had been troubling for a while in a "we know some of what we want to do, now how do we make a story out of it?" way got a shove along in the production process. A compilation was made of all the ideas batted around for it, what needed to happen and what might be interesting to see, and a quite talented writer agreed to take a look at what we had and see if she was willing to make a story out of it.
This is more progress than one might realize, since both of these stories had been giving us a headache for over a year, and the outliner originally assigned to the single-shot story dissappeared off the face of the world without ever giving an update.
By the end of April, sixteen of the twenty stories planned for Gargoyles Season 4 should be in the hands of a writer or an editor (or are already finished), and we'll be working on finalizing the outlines for the last four. Of those four stories, three make up the trilogy that ends the season, and already have a number of scenes written (courtesy of Greg Bishansky).
Six months ago, we had hoped to get Season 4 out in June. Now we're hoping to have it out starting in-
I've always said that it'll be ready when it is ready. At least one person in the TGS CR declared the year-long wait for HS 3 to be worth it; we can only hope people feel the same way when Gar 4 is released. We neither want to do a rush job to get it done by an announced date, nor dissapoint what little audience we have left by shoving back the release date if we get up to it and find the season not ready.
Oh, and Gunjack decided to re-write the intro scenes to Hungry Shadows part four when he was supposed to be doing final edits on it. : P It should be out within the week, though.
Oh. And Art. When more of the stories are ready, we need to go see who of our artists besides Shauntell (and Revel, and lain, and myself) still have the interest and the time to art up the stories. But much like the unfinished outlines, there isn't a point in asking now (when they might have the free time) if we aren't ready for them now.
