Hooters.

Now I've got your attention, thought I'd make a late night post on the blog... No, not that sort..

Anyway, I'm going to try and keep the posts a little shorter for your digestion so I'll post Boris' character description, then an image or two of how he looks and possibly something on his voice.

Name: Boris

Also known as: “The Owl”

Age: Unknown, but would appear the same, or a little older than the others.

Main Relationships: Esteban (friend), Miguel (best friend/foe), Bones (friend)

Appearance:

Bones is an owl, standing around 4½ foot or so, quite plump in appearance. He has ears and big yellow eyes, with a bright yellow beak, and he wears a pair of NHS-style spectacles with a collar and bow-tie. He is vaguely reminiscent of Ronnie Barker in a way. He has large wings and a pair of spiky yellow feet with talons.

Clothes:

Other than for occasional storyline purposes, the only items Boris wears are his collar, bow-tie and glasses.

Personality:

Boris is the wiser, more level-headed member of the group. He offers advice to any who seek it, and is often the person people go to when they feel they have no-one else to turn to.

Whilst excellent at helping others, Boris does not listen to his own advice and generally ends up making himself look like a fool. He is unlucky in love and is continually teased about it, as he falls in love too easily.

Boris is extremely intelligent, and as such, prefers to hang around with Miguel, rather than Esteban and Bones. As the latter are unable to understand Miguel, Boris has become his closest friend. As they are both extremely intelligent, and prone to the odd strop, they often fall out and are like an old married couple. They are best friends at heart and are regularly out drinking together and making fools of themselves. Boris is also a weed smoker, mainly from his time at university. He has a job at a bank and works part-time hours.

Mannerisms:

Boris is a calm, rational fellow but will be prone to the occasional strop when he feels people aren’t listening to him. He isn’t the most graceful of birds and this is particularly true when stoned or drunk. He talks in a fairly deep voice, with a broad Yorkshire accent.


Sadly I haven't been able to upload a sketch as of yet, but here's my vague image, just imagine the owl a little fatter.

As for the accent, think Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch and you'll know what I mean. Tomorrow I'll post the final character description (Esteban's best friend, 'Bones') and after that post the second script so you get a full introduction to the 4 main characters. Hopefully I'll have some images soon of Bones and Boris too.

Anyway, peace in the East, etc.

Webisode 1 - Meet The Mexican

For today's blog I thought I'd give you a different kind of treat. This does depend on your definition of the word 'treat', but I thought you might like to see the script for the first episode of the animation. It's in it's first draft, and there are some tweaks in my head that I want to make, but it's almost there I think.

Despite the fact that it introduces two characters I haven't yet described, I thought I'd post it anyway and my next couple of posts will be to describe the two characters left to introduce.

The first of these is "Bones", Esteban's best friend/partner in crime. For now, think of him as a tall skinny 25 year-old with a shaved head and slightly skeletal (although not ugly) features. His accent is the one typical in my neck of the woods, a broad Black country accent. Here's a video for those who don't know what I mean.

Ignore the bloke's own words, folk round here should be proud of their accent!

Anyway, Boris is as my main profile image is, an owl that looks a bit Ronnie-Barker esque, and has a northern/Yorkshire accent.

Anyway, without further ado, click here to get a copy of the script for Episdode 1, depending on the response, I may post or e-mail some of the further 5 I've written. Laters homies.

http://rapidshare.com/files/141144250/TCT_-_Webisode_I_-_Meet_The_Mexican_v1.1.doc.html

Elevator Muzak..

I'm going to take a moment now to talk about music and sound. I have a friend who has said he's possibly interested in scoring it, but this is one area I genuinely would like as much feedback and suggestions as possible as despite being mildly proficient on the guitar (I could probably do session work for say, Status Quo) I'm usless at all other instruments.

Additionally I have no ability to read music and I doubt I could have much of a stab at composition, so I'm throwing it open to people. I know I have a lot of musical friends so if you want to send any suggestions, please e-mail the.cautionary.tales.of@gmail.com or e-mail here to request the first script and I'll send it to you. Over the course of this post I'll attempt to steer you in the direction I'm thinking and you can see if you agree or disagree.

My first thought was of course, Ennio Morricone's seminal scores to Sergio Leone's Westerns, 'the man with no name' trilogy and, as mentioned previously, "Once Upon A Time in the West". It was with some glee I stumbled upon this genius cover of it, by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. As several people I know can attest to, I've raved about them.



The two main things I love about this performance for the animation are the smallness of sound that the ukes create, yet when played in numbers they are beautifully full sounding. I feel this creates a great sound for the animation as it conveys the simplicity it has, but with the thickness of the sound of so many it also conveys the depth of story.

My second favourite idea in it is the bit 3:47 in where the backing vocals are a kind of "AAAAIIIIEEEE!!" noise. I think this and possibly the whistling would work well.

My next thought was that some sort of trumpet could be used to give an authentic Mexican sound. This clip should show what I mean with the "Mexican Hat Dance", and I think Rafael Mendez' accent is awesome...




Lastly, a bit of Rodrigo Y Gabriella, and I just love the rhythm to their playing.





That's about it for now, like I say, feedback would be appreciated.

Oh the pain, the pain of it all...

Right, I thought I'd post today before I go out drinking tonight (3 times in 4 days - almost unheard of for me), and as promised it's the second of our four main characters, Esteban's cat, Miguel. As usual, I'll post a character bio, some videos of influences and a very rough sketch of what he might look like.



Name: Miguel

Also known as: “Geoffrey”, “Geoffrey Mountbatten”

Age: 5 cat years.

Main Relationships: Esteban (owner/friend), Boris (best friend/foe), Bones (friend)

Appearance:

Miguel is an elegant grey cat, reminiscent of a Siamese breed, or those from the Sheba adverts and he has bright green eyes, set in an oversized head. He has a red collar and does not usually wear clothing and is often seen holding a cigarette and/or a gin and tonic.

Clothes:

Other than for occasional storyline purposes, the only item Miguel wears is his red collar.

Personality:

Miguel is a witty, intelligent, hugely creative, bombastic man… trapped in a cat’s body. He speaks perfect English and is understood by all, except his owner, Esteban and his best friend Bones. This is a constant source of annoyance as Miguel considers himself better than them and he is determined to find out why they cannot understand and to make them! A major annoyance is that they refer to him as his “slave name”, ‘Miguel’, when he insists he is an Oxford-educated man named Geoffrey Mountbatten.

Miguel likes to think himself a ladies’ man, yet the others rib him about being gay as he is extremely camp. His profession is a failed actor, who longs to play Hamlet or Othello, yet is left appearing in Sheba commercials on occasion and such like.

Miguel is extremely intelligent, and as such, prefers to hang around with Boris, rather than Esteban and Bones. As the latter are unable to understand Miguel, Boris has become his closest friend. As they are both extremely intelligent, and prone to the odd strop, they often fall out and are like an old married couple. They are best friends at heart and are regularly out drinking together and making fools of themselves. Miguel is a spirits drinker, with his favoured tipple being gin.

Mannerisms:

Miguel’s mannerisms can best be summed up as a fusion of Peter Cook, Withnail and Kenneth Williams. This includes his voice. Like most cats, he is often to be found sleeping.


As stated in that last part of his description, I'd say Miguel has three main influences; firstly, the wonderful Peter Cook. I could ramble on about how fantastic he was and how it was such a shame his career never panned out in the way a man of his genius' should, but I thought I'd find a clip of his work instead. It's hard to pick one thing to show fantastic he was but here's at least a taster, probably his most famous sketch.






Another influence is this fine gentleman, another man sadly lost to the ravages of time and illness to early. You can also see where Alan Carr attempted to steal his entire act, without realising Kenneth was not only crude but highly intelligent, something Carr is seemingly devoid of.

As you can see I also mention Withnail, and for those of you unfamiliar with the film I'm sure it won't take too much effort to beg/steal/borrow a copy so I won't link to Youtube here. Anyway, without further ado, here's Miguel as a rough sketch, sadly missing his cigarette holder (Breakfast at Tiffany's style).

Anyway, laters folks, I'll be back soon.

Meet The Mexican...

Back again folks, not too hungover thankfully after going to a brilliant wedding reception last night for a couple of mates.

I thought today I'd show some influences on the main character, Esteban (the animation is named around him after all..) and then show our first attempts at sketching him.

Whenever I've described Esteban to anyone (check his description two posts ago if you've forgotten) they always ask me the same question: "Who's he based on?" My reply is very simple; he's an amalgamation of all the cunts I've ever met in my life, he's not based on one specific individual. He has the trait that a lot of people I've met have in common: namely that whilst he's self-obsessed and an idiot, he always ends up on top somehow.

A primary influence for him, (albeit a far cleverer, far more abstract series) was a programme called "Nathan Barley", previously shown on Channel 4 in 2005. It was a fusion of two of my favourite writers/comedians, Chris Morris (behind Brasseye, The Day Today, etc) and Charlie Brooker who was behind the superb cult website, TVGoHome. The series expanded on one of Brooker's previous characters who was in the delightfully-titled series, "Cunt", a programme found in the site's fictitous TV listings.

If you're the reading kind I'd recommend going here:

http://www.tvgohome.com/


If you're more visual, click below for a taste of Barley via Youtube.






Sadly, despite being superb, the programme received little public success and was not granted any further series. It would appear that the whole series (6 episodes) can be found on youtube, but I'd recommend buying it for the book you get with the DVD, which again, is hilarious. You might even say it's "well Jackson".

A second influence was a piece of music which triggered images in my mind, even though it's not Mexican, I still felt it gave the right feel for the animation. Here it is, again via youtube; Ennio Morricone's "Man with harmonica" music from Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West".





Anyway, from this I started to think of the "man with no name trilogy" and I think this made me think of Clint Eastwood's attire in the film. I wanted his style, but more modern and definitely with a lot more colour. After I sketched an idea for each of the main characters, my friend Dan transferred them to computer via his drawing-tablet-thing and coloured them in. So here he is, a very rough sketch and a first idea for our main man, Senor Esteban Sanchez.















Anyway, I'll be back soon with our next character, Esteban's cat, Miguel. Just don't call him that to his face...

Club Foot

Afternoon folks, no post today as I'm off to see Kasabian (completely forgot) and tomorrow I'm at a friend's wedding. I'll attempt to post on Saturday in my hungover state, but we'll see.

Incidentally, I think Esteban's look reminds me of this lad who'll be on the old gee-tar tonight...

Laters.

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As it transpired, Kasabian were ok, but not half as good as Glasto last year.

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Mexico Calling...

Wilkommen again comrades.

I hope you've all checked out my friends blog (plug again: http://chulk607.blogspot.com/) and have been impressed by his work so far on an animation recycling project. The style itself was immediately what I thought would work for the animation I was going to write, and having seen some previous work of his, I was convinced this would be a style that could pay off.

Predictably for such a lazy man as myself, I didn't start commencing my first script until April, but, having looked at some random scripts online, I was convinced I could cobble together something that looked like one for all intents and purposes. I also thought it would be sufficient to give enough scope for plenty of sections to be dependent on the quality of the animation. I began a headlong journey into writing a full-on pilot episode and sent snippets to my friend.

It was with some trepidation that I sent the first few scenes over and got a good reaction so I ploughed on. Sadly I hadn't really accounted for the length of what I was writing and had to have a quick reality check. Currently standing at a ridiculous 8,547 words, it's well over half the size of the dissertation I wrote (which was terrible...) and had taken very little time to breeze through, less than a month. Given that my story was already around half an hour in length and was only half finished, it dawned on me that expecting to make something that was nearly an hour in length was a very foolish idea. After some gentle suggestion I agreed that trying to trim this beast into small 5 minute episodes was wiser.

After whizzing through these I sent them onto some more friends for some feedback. Again it was positive and encouraged me to write on, not without some setbacks along the way, but I'll get to those later. One of these friends was another animator who took a very keen interest in the scripts and did say something along the lines of: "I wasn't expecting a lot but I'm impressed..." Humble praise, if I am under-selling myself.

At this point I would show you some of Dan's work but he is blog/website-less at this point, but I'm sure he will be around soon to show you. I may post some of his work if he doesn't mind instead...

So what I thought I'd show first is a character description, in this instance, our lead character, Esteban Sanchez.


Name: Esteban Sanchez

Also known as: Any name he decides he’s called that day.

Age: Around 25

Main Relationships: Bones (best friend), Miguel (owner/friend), Boris (friend/lodger), Grace (girlfriend)

Appearance:

Esteban is a relatively short man, around 5’ 8”, who is in reasonable shape and presents himself well. He is a ladies’ man (despite having a girlfriend) and is handsome in this respect. He has long dark hair, with sideburns and goatee and moustache combo. His skin is brown, not from being Latin, but from tanning himself and he has bright blue eyes.

Clothes:

Esteban wears a variety of stylish outfits that always look very Mexican or Old West in feel. Lots of woollen items, and a beanie hat, or something similar. He generally wears jeans or smart trousers and has stylish, winkle-picker shoes.

Personality:

Buried under it all, Esteban is a nice guy deep down. However, it is extremely difficult to get past the bravado and showmanship that he gives off. He likes to think himself the “alpha male” or “the big man/don”, and will generally screw over people, even close friends, should the need arise. He is a mercenary, always looking for ways to make money. He is a dealer but deals terrible measures, and cuts his drugs so they are not as potent.

Although lacking in intelligence, Esteban always considers himself to be right and will often be heard saying “Esteban wins: fact!” when involved in a discussion. Despite having an incredible lack of intelligence or common sense, Esteban inevitably ends up on top, even when things look like they have gone wrong for him.

Esteban owns his house out right, and it is filled with expensive gadgets, a testament to the profitability of his dealing. His house is Mexican-themed and is furnished to such end. Living with him are his cat, Miguel and his friend, Boris the Owl (although Boris lives in a treehouse in the garden). Also living with Esteban is his girlfriend Grace, who in the Webisodes is never seen, only spoken about in ominous tones.

Esteban truly believes he is Mexican and tries to pretend this but he knows nothing of their culture. His back story will be revealed as we go on but suffice to say he is definitely not from Mexico.


Mannerisms:

Esteban is very elegant, except for when he is stoned, and he can look very much worse for wear. He has built up a high tolerance however, so this is uncommon. His voice is a Mexican accent, which is fake, but extremely convincing.

So there you have him, our lead guy. I'll show you some drawings soon, but I'll make you wait a bit first. In the mean time I think the inspiration came from this fellow. Laters.

And so it all started...

Greetings people. This is going to be a blog about an animation project being produced out of good old Wolverhampton in the UK. Looking around me every day I saw a sea of wonderful people; friends, family, work colleagues, but saw all these people surrounded by a dark, grey city that had no ambition and seemingly no hope. I had an idea for an escape, a thought of my own set of characters and stories.

It probably started when I first created an 'animation' in PowerPoint at work using pictures robbed from Google image search and our 'people directory' of faces and made several little 5-10 minute stories. They had no sound, instead the speech was provided in text bubbles and as the images were composited using MS Paint it had little finesse. They were a pastiche of the A-Team and entertained people so I continued to make these little stories until predictably, management stepped in and I was not allowed to make or send them any more.

I then created the idea in my head for a series of characters and a premise for a cartoon. I jotted some of these ideas down but then never went anywhere with them and then something happened. Maybe it was the relentlessly depressing tone of a home town that I perversely still love or maybe it was that I'm now part of the management team that had stopped my fun in the past but I decided I needed to start writing again.

After a break of several years and after one very caffeine-fuelled day at work I sent the following insane message to my friend on 18th March 2008. It was entitled: "the ramblings of a mad man.txt". Here it is in all its insane madness (spelling mistakes included…):


"My idea is very simple - I want to write my own long-running animation show. Initially it would probably be say, a 20 minute pilot but this would purely be enough to set up the characters and scenarios for a full series.

I want me and whoever I get involved to be rich and famous and to be able to look back on their lives and say "I made that". That was my contribution to the world and everyone else will damn well know about it. Like we said, I'm tired of procrastination. I'm tired of daydreaming. I'm tired of answering the fucking phone to a bunch of ungrateful cunts who get paid more than I ever fucking will if i carry on the way I'm going. I want to bring the schoolfriends back together and create something unique. I want to be able to meet Chris Morris some day and say "I made something that can stand up with the kind of stuff you did". I appreciate this may be difficult but I'm not in the mood to think through the technicalities of it all right about now.

My idea is something I've had for a very long time and I want it to create our own little world of characters and places that will be as recognisable as Springfield, Peckham, Fawlty Towers or Quahog. I want to create a british animation that will stand up to anything America has produced and be as globally accepted as them. I want it to have it's own look and feel, something you can buy into, no matter how ridiculous and absurd it is because people care about the pixels moving about on their TV screen as much as they care about their own friends and colleagues.

As for the actual animation itself, I want to move away from the family-based/school based animations that seem to have become de-rigeur these days. Sicne Family Guy i can't think of anything truly distinctive, nothing that has captured my attention. I've tried to get into Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken and various other non-animation based comedies (the IT crowd, etc) but nothing has jumped out at me. I see no other choice than to take matters into our own hands.

I want to base a comedy around a group of friends (and enemies) who are in their twenties, much like us. There's no point writing about something if you haven't experienced it. Yes, I intend to have wacky moments and flashbacks, that's part of the visually explosive nature of animation, the fact that you CAN do things that you couldn't do in real-life but I still want it to be based around reality.

I want it to draw on a wide range of influences, from stuff like Family Guy and South Park to non-animated comedies like Only Fools, Brass Eye and Monty Python. I want the look of the series to draw heavily on the main character, in that it will have a distinctly Mexican/generic Latin look to it, even though the surroundings are familiar. I want it to be easy on the eye so it draws people in with beatiful lighting and character animation but lock people in once they're in by firstly having a lot of jokes in it, and secondly by having storylines and character development that make sense. I want it ultimately to have a natural end. I don't want to see my characters wearing the same blue shorts and orange T-shirt and staying the same age for 20 years. I want to have character ageing and storyline progression that you would see in something like Only Fools and Horses. Births, deaths, weddings, relationships, hatred and all the other wonderful little things that crop up in life. That's the kind of thing that will help us to stand out. It's almost as if it's a sort of statement: Yes, we're pretending it's real but you know ultimately that it's not but you don't care, you buy into it because you can appreciate being in those situations.

I want the humour to be brutal at times, I want it to deliberately shock people to get their attention, but I also want it to have it's silly moments as there's many different moods you can be in and comedy doesn't have a defining style, it needs to adapt to survive. I want it to have sad, poignant moments in it but are always rooted back in comedy. I like to think that no matter what happens I can always raise a smile or a laugh to something and I'd like the animation to reflect that.

I hope this makes sense, I know it's very vague but I think of it more as some kind of manifesto. I will come to you with more actual character descriptions, locations (probably more your side of things) and actual plot lines. I have an idea for main A and B storylines and some jokes that would fit but I need to get these all down together, so I'll keep you posted.

Cheers for listening to my insane stream of consciousness, it's very much appreciated.


P.S. - I'm provisionally going to title it: "The Cautionary Tales of Esteban Sanchez and Others". Rolls off the fucking tongue, don't it?""

So that was that. Luckily my friend was thinking the same things, albeit slightly less psychotically REDRUM as my stream of consciousness, but he too wanted to do something. A plan was formed, which I'll talk about tomorrow.

For now, take a look at some of my friend's animation ideas here: http://chulk607.blogspot.com/