TPM’s Jovial July News Update (2021)

Hello Interwebs! Welcome to TPM’s July news update. This was a “rebuilding” month for our company where we decided to take new directions for many ongoing projects. We’re excited to share our progress with you!  

Pre-production Projects

Contrary to my previous report, Justin may take control of our short film “Below Zero” once more. He recently obtained a rejuvenated sense of purpose for BZ after discussing it with me. Now Justin wonders if, perhaps, he over-complicated what was supposed to be a simple plot. In doing so, he might have made more work for himself than necessary. Justin is inclined to strip the story back to basics.

Justin is also hard at work on pre-production for his Night Hunt concept (working title was “Frights By Nightlight”). At this time, he’s debating whether he should animate in 2-D or 3-D. Justin is also looking into methods for making the animation process as easy on himself as possible, considering he’s gonna a one-man operation on that front.

Meanwhile– Matteo decided to put his passion project Coming of Age on the back-burner for the forseeable future. The whole concept was a parody about the film industry, and Matteo feels his story is no longer relevant to modern film-making culture. He may alter the idea or re-purpose it into something else altogether. Time will tell.

This month Justin and I decided that, after we complete Retribution Isle, we’d like to produce a new short film called Capture the Moment. I also discussed this somewhat in my May News Update.

I didn’t get a chance to work on any scripts this month but I wrote many notes for a new sketch. This one is based on an old idea of Justin’s aboot a Canadian guy named Ross Poutine. That’s all I’m gonna share at this time…

Production Projects

Justin and I are fully vaccinated now! Not sure about Matteo… So– to steal from a metaphor I made last month– the TPM ship feels the gusts of wind and it’s starting to move. But our vessel still has a ways to go before it reaches shore.

Post-Production

OK. I’m slacking off here. I just need some time off from the frame-by-frame editing. It’s monotonous work!

Graphic Novels

GUILD OF GALLANTRY
Matteo and I recently changed our projected business model for the release of GoG comics. Initially, we’d planned to put out multiple anthology volumes of 30+ unique comics. Justin convinced us to release our stories the more traditional route (of one single issue per month). The clinching argument was that, by dropping dozens of issues all at once and making our audience wait multiple years for more content, our universe might grow stale; but releasing one month at a time will keep us relevant to any fans we pick up.

My initial fear of releasing one issue at a time was based around our non-existent street cred in the comics world. Who would bother paying for comics from a company nobody’s heard of? I felt the monthly stories were more risky because, if someone reads the first couple and they don’t like the stories, they might ignore all the others we have planned– even though we’re planning on all our titles feeling distinct from one another. At least with a giant volume of varied stories sold at a fair price, we might have a shot of somebody biting on a good deal and enjoying some of the work. That method would offer a wide snapshot of our world and all the different kinds of stories we’d planned within it. But of course the glaring flaw, as Justin pointed out, is the amount of time between story releases.

As for the actual comics themselves, I continued work on Neuron and The Olympian.  

Other

Thought Plane Media created a re-organization plan for our company’s future! We’re trying to make our production system more efficient. To that end, Justin and I will take a backseat from acting after Retribution Isle and hire new performers for on-camera roles. Justin prefers operating the camera to performing anyway. And it’ll be nice to have a dedicated camera operator for the first time in… ever.

I’d still like to be in front of the camera but I’ll take smaller roles to focus on directing. Our team decided that projects will be better served if I stay primarily behind-the-scenes because I’m the organizer of all our shoots, and the person who plans the most, and the person who gets most annoyed when things don’t go according to plan. When I work both in front of and behind the camera, our team wastes time waiting for me to get my costumes on or read my lines or check the shot lists and THEN tell them what they’re doing. If I only direct, I can offer better direction to the crew while waiting on OTHER actors to get ready for their scenes. I think these changes will result in the best possible films we can make.

NOTE: This only applies to films and short films. I’m still 100% committed to acting in Thought Plane Media sketches for our YouTube channel.

In other “Other” news I got a new job so there’ll probably be less progress on my projects from month to month. I’m still going to put out weekly articles so long as I can help it. But I probably won’t get as much editing or writing done. I’ll try my best though! I want to get more content out for you to enjoy.

Also, I’m working to monetize these articles so I can actually make a little money from them. They’re good fun to write but if I CAN make some cash on the side as well, then what’s the harm?

This has been TPM’s July 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