Scripts..or how to pack a punch

7 minutes.
7 minutes to tell a story.
Beginning, middle, end.
Moral/learn.
7 Minutes can be more than enough time to tell a story, if properly paced.
As with everything 'Mr. King' related, less is best would be the best approach.

The Remarkable Mr. King was created to match Genevieve's (writer/illustrator) books which had carefully told stories with beautifully, deceptively simple, illustrations. She only painted what needed to be painted, but in a unique way.
She only wrote what needed to be written, but in a storybook way.

Scripts for Mr. King are no exception to these rules. And some times, most of the times, our writers get caught up in the excitement of our characters. They write fun actions, great interactive dialogue, exciting actions. And it's both Andrew(script editor) and my responsibility to ensure we remove most of it. We skim through every line, every note, ensuring that when we're done we're left with only what's necessary to tell the story in unique way.
This is why I created the writers style guide. Obviously they all know how to write, but sometimes being literal to a three act structure, helps one focus.
A typical Mr. King story follows...

Act 1: Mr. King likes/dislikes something. He is presented with the opportunity  to act on this and has his "Big Think", which is the formation of his plan on how he thinks he should pursue his like, or deal with his dislike. This "Big Think" leads us into Act 2.

Act 2: I usually like three events to happen through Act 2. Three things that gradually grow to show our audience that this was perhaps, not the best course of action for Mr. King to take. It always results in an "Uh oh!" moment where Mr. King realizes must acknowledge his mistake and have a Thoughtful think in order to fix his error in judgement. This leads us into Act 3.

Act 3: Essentially this act is where Mr. King fixes the problems he may have caused from his Big think and shows the correct, more appropriate way of dealing with his original desire. Act 3 always ends with a special moment between our narrator and Mr.King sharing a poignant moment together, summarizing the learn in a well thought out sentence or two. Something remarkable.

7 minutes may not seem like a lot of time to incorporate all of this info. But if you think of it like 2 minutes 20 seconds per act, if written carefully, should be more than enough time to tell an entertaining Mr. King story.

And we mustn't forget about the music...

Technical difficulties...and successes

The funny thing about the studio I work for is that they are extremely creative but sometimes extremely complacent.

Our studio history has been extremely innovative whether creating a feature film, Rock and Rule, one of the first 3D tv series, Roly Poly Ollie, the first Flash broadcast series, Quads, a first Toon Boom series, 16, and countless innovations which helped bring productions such as The Backyardigans and Bubble Guppies to the high quality level which our audiences appreciate.

Our studio created an asset management tool called 'Nelnet' which helps one upload, download, images, scripts, movies etc, which was extremely innovative for the time. Still is actually. It's really quite amazing and not unlike popular management tools such as Autodesk's Shotgun. Better in some respects.
Unfortunately, one of the buttons doesn't work the way it should. Apparently I need to undertake some sort of quest regarding sacrifice and endurance, not unlike Jason and the Argonauts, in order to have this button fixed.
Oh well, not the end of the world, thankfully. But honestly...a button?

Picking up steam and a voice!!!

So things are really picking up on Mr. King lately, which explains the lack of posts over the recent weeks. So much has been going on and it's all great! Some remarkable things to note...
We have our Mr. King voice!!!

Nissae Isen, a very experienced voice actor, has been cast for our lead role! The whole process and how it unfolded, was quite interesting.
When I was first approached by our casting director, Kim Hurdon, my original direction was to find an adult who had a raspy voice, not unlike Bobby from King of the Hill. A little lion who might be a little mischievous but also have the ability to quickly change from high aggressive energy to gentle empathy.  Kim provided a strong initial group of actors and actresses and I had some short listed for the part. None had the original vocal quality I was looking for but there were a couple I thought I could live with.
Thankfully Athena, our head of development and huge Mr. King fan, ever so gently, questioned the suggested casting choice. It forced me to acknowledge my own doubts and we cast the net again.
One individual who caught my attention was Nissae but I wasn't sure as her audition felt a little too high and a bit on the femine side for Mr. King. Kim brought her back in and with a little more direction, this pro was able to magically transform into Mr. King. Nissae has it all and I'm very happy we found her.

Not sure if Mr. King should have some curly hair or Nissae a crown and cat whiskers.