FREE EBOOK SAMPLE ON AMAZON

From Today, October 9th to October 10, ebook samples of my wife and my hard boiled crime fiction novels are available on Amazon for FREE!

"Original Sin City 20,000 Word Sampler" contains the first 9 chapters of our Barry Award Nominated novel "Little Mexico" and the first 3 chapters of its sequel "In the Name of the Father." 

We hope that if you enjoy having a taste of our storytelling, you will buy the complete novels. Only $3.99 each.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

ON WRITING LOGLINES

For those who are interesting writing for animation, check out my other blog that I write with my wife Cathie: Original Sin City. We are beginning a series of posts on writing mysteries and crime fiction novels. Those posts are informative regarding writing for animation as well.

The link to this first post is:
http://cathiejohnc.blogspot.com/2013/09/talking-about-loglines-1.html

The second one follows a couple of posts later. See you there!

New Blog and Older Website

I've started a new blog that focuses on my crime fiction writing (http://cathiejohnc.blogspot.com/). As some of you may already know, I've written five crime fiction novels with my wife Cathie (www.cathiejohn.com).

In that new blog I'll be focusing on the process of creating stories, which is very much an integral (but very neglected) element of animated film-making.

Please give them both a visit. And if you like what you see, pass the word on to others.

 

Thoughts On Developing Educational Mobile Game #1

To me, one of the most important elements of a successful educational game for preschoolers is the ability to capture their attention. One way to do this is to have characters who show appealing personalities. The younger the child, the bigger the language barrier is to communicating the character's personality. Thus, I'm using pantomime to convey personality in the game play actions.

The preschool player should be entertained by the way the character performs the actions chosen.

I'm also planning a variety of ways each character can do a specific action, so that the player won't become quickly bored with the actions they are controlling. I want various versions of the actions be programmed to come up in random order, so that it'll be a surprise to the player which one appears. It'll be like the character has made it's own decision how to perform the action.

Various Bear Actions Across The Screen

Educational Mobile Game

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted. For one reason or another, I haven't had much new to add to what I've already said in previous posts. Now I do!

I'm starting my educational mobile game project for preschoolers and I'd like to post my progress as I develop it.

Here's the logo for the game:

Milt Kahl Letter

It has been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd look through my files for something different to add to my blog.

I found this treasured response from Milt Kahl, to whom I had sent a fan letter back in 1982. I had just finished animating on Rock & Rule, and wanted to let Mr. Kahl know that his work had been an inspiration to me.

Here is his response.

A Future For Traditional Hand Drawn 2D Animation?

I've started developing a 2D video game to be played on mobile phones. It's a basic gather and chase game using one of my studio's animated characters as the hero.

As I develop the game, I'm concentrating on short animation cycles that convey my hero's personality...very much of a throw back to early cartoon pantomime. Makes me think "is this the future for 2D animation?" By the way, I'm drawing pencil on paper and scanning the drawings into Photoshop.

I find myself approaching the project as an early Fleischer cartoon in that I'm not censoring my imagination at this point of development. The characters in my game will perform actions that are eccentric and fanciful, as well as realistic. The overall design of the game will embrace both caricature and cartoony elements. Right now, I'm jotting down all ideas that come to mind. But the most important element is the playability of the game! Without that nobody will buy it!
I'm writing and designing this game as though it were a traditional cartoon short with a sympathetic and relatable character...but with the viewer being able to guide the main character past the villains and obstacles to a successful conclusion. The fun is that it is all action with sound effects and music,etc.