Hello Interwebs! Welcome back to another installment of TPM news. Hope you’ve all done well this February. Read on to find out what projects our team has been generating during quarantine:
Pre-production Projects
I’m happy to report that pre-production was strong in the month of February. Of most consequence: I returned to our short film, Cut It Out, after a long hiatus. My treatment for CiO has been laying around for months, gathering dust (metaphorically– it’s on a hard-drive)… It’s emotionally draining stuff, so I needed a break, but I’m glad to be working on this story again. I’m nearly finished the first draft of the script! So that’s exciting.
TPM hasn’t produced any comedy sketches for a few years now, but we’d like to do more. The team enjoys flexing our comedic muscles once in a while, and such films are fun to produce. To that end– I re-tooled an old script called Phil Blye the Education Guy. Justin and I came up with that idea over 4 years now. And we wrote the script all the way back then too! We just never got around to producing the video. But we’ve come up with a few new ideas for the sketch since then, so I decided to make some tweaks in the screenplay.
We may or may not film this one soon. Apologies for our indecisiveness. There’s just a few details we ought to figure out first, such as casting, location, props, etc. I intend to have an update on this sketch by next month.
Production Projects
Provincial lockdown was lifted in TPM’s area this past month. So that’s been awesome! But the team is still not getting together for film work, or otherwise. We don’t believe it’s safe enough to gather yet. And, barring our personal feelings, our area is locking down again for March anyway. Also, the weather still sucks. So there’s that little problem…
Post-Production
I’ve officially sorted our clips for Retribution Isle. And I’m pleased to say they look great so far! I even completed some editing as well. Lately, I’ve been trying my hand at some advanced special effects work. Every film ought to be a learning experience for something or other, and I’m considerably sharpening my post-production skills through trial and error.
Graphic Novels
This month Matteo has added half a dozen strands to his web of lore in Tales of Sesom. Every week this project seems to gain a new continent, or mythical figure, or culture. It’s quite extraordinary to me how quickly Matteo comes up with his ideas! ToS has an intricately thought-out story world which I hope fantasy-lovers will appreciate.
In addition to ToS, Matteo recently broke ground on another Guild of Gallantry story: this one focusing on that Gothic avenger Dark Squirrel and his trusty sidekick The Cardinal. Take one guess which hero this is satirizing. I’ll wait…
Meanwhile I’ve completed both the treatment and the first draft of Sheep Man’s first story: Acts of Valor! Matteo and I came up with the story for this one a few years ago when he first created Sheep Man. For the tale of Sheep Man’s sad but hilarious beginnings (in real life), read last month’s news update. Jackie Mason (Sheep Man) is arrogant, out of touch, and a bit of a jerk, but he’s still a hero in our hearts. Hopefully you guys will like the character as much as Matteo and I do.
Just today I completed a treatment for a GoG introductory tale. In this mini-adventure, one of our main heroes (The Sentinel) takes you on a brief tour of the world, introduces you to the main characters, and explains the concept of the book. But it’s presented as a Guild recruitment ad.
This has been TPM’s February news. If you have any questions about what I’ve written today, or have something you’d like to see addressed more in-depth in next month’s update, let me know in the comments. Also, if you have any ideas for future articles, or any general questions, let me know that as well. Be sure to like this article on Facebook and share if you enjoyed!
Till next time
Joe Morin
