Seeing that our project is beginning to take some big steps, I reckon I’ll start writing sporadic updates on the progress of writing the Brackenwood feature film. Without giving too much away this is probably a decent starting point for a full-fledged production blog from which it’ll be fun to retrace the film’s progress in years to come.

OK, for several months now, Ryan and I have been having regular story meetings over Skype. We’re using free scriptwriting software called Celtx (which I’ve featured here in the past) to organise the project. The file - which we send back and forth as we add our ideas - is packed with reference images, concept sketches, character, animal and world descriptions and many pages of randomly typed ideas. It also contains test scenes in script form, basic structural notes and broad act strokes.

Co-writer

I’ve known Ryan O’Loughlin now for about 15 years. We worked together at Disney and he was always an insanely talented artist and animator. He progressed through the ranks of animation and eventually came to be a character lead on several well-known Disney movies. Almost inevitably he became an Animation Director (notably on the Lion King and Peter Pan sequels). He’s been living in L.A now for a number of years, working as a story artist for Disney and now Dreamworks.

Typical Brackenwood Story meeting

Ryan is in Los Angeles and I’m in Sydney, Australia. At the start of each call we recap our last meeting and swap whatever notes, solutions and ideas we have come up with during the week. Generally, we both type our fast-flowing ideas throughout the conversation which can be anywhere up to 3 or 4 hours. It’s always an intensely focused, creative process where we identify structural problems and work out ways to overcome them. Invariably (so far), once a given problem goes back and forth a bit, we’ll figure out a workable solution and occasionally, something even clicks into place.

I decided to start documenting this journey because today, for the first time ever, I actually saw a proper structure beginning to emerge. Brackenwood is starting to smell like a film and I’m really really happy with how it’s growing. I’ve always been the first to admit I’m not too hot with storytelling structure so I feel privileged to have Ryan working with me on this.

 Further updates

Like I said, these updates will probably be sporadic to start with.  I’ve just filled you in on our process of working out structure and writing the outline, so there won’t be much to say for a few weeks, or at least until we start actually blocking in the acts. I’d like to get Ryan to contribute a few words here at some point too.. as I mentioned before, he’s a wicked artist so I’d like to post one or two of his Brackenwood concept paintings, sooner or later :)

– — -

Unrelated update: For those people waiting for Chapter 2 of “The Animator’s Flash”, sit tight. I’ve just finished the 4th D&D so I’ll have some time to upload the new chapter in a few days.

ShareThis