The Guardian has an article by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) on the Exhaustion of Narrative.

Writers have always known there are a limited number of storylines. Christopher Booker’s Seven Basic Plots popularised the number seven, but others have argued for three, 20 and 36 basic plots - Rudyard Kipling said 69… That’s not what I mean by the “exhaustion of narrative”. What is new is the omnipresence and ubiquity of plot created by media proliferation. We are inundated by narrative. We are swimming in storylines.
[...]
What does it mean? For a storyteller, it means that’s it is increasingly difficult to get out in front of a viewer’s expectations. Almost every possible subject has not only been covered but covered exhaustively. How many hours of serial killer plot has the average viewer seen? Fifty? A hundred? He’s seen the basic plots, the permutations of those plotlines, the imitations of the permutations of those plotlines and the permutations of the imitations. How does a writer capture the imagination of a viewer seeped in serial killer plot? Make it even gorier? Done that. More perverse? Seen that. Serial killer with humour? Been there. As parody? Yawn.
[...]
The bar of originality has been raised. The media marketplace puts a premium on anything “new” or “fresh” and, at the same time, inundates its viewers with continual and competing narratives.

I’ve been wrestling with this issue of originality as I work on The Intern Project but I try not to get too caught up with it. Because it’s easy to make excuses that become barriers to the actual writing process.

You look at the latest blockbusters, Star Trek, Transformers 2. One is a great film, the other is trash. But neither of them are particularly original. But you can still make something entertaining.

This is also why it’s so important to watch a lot of films. See what’s been done already and see what’s entered the cultural narrative. Especially in the same genre that you’re writing in.

-Penguin

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Photo by Sun Times

Brooklyn musical duo Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino met at Pratt Institute and have been playing peppy, poppy tunes since.

Matt and Kim live and play together in Daylight.

For Lessons Learned, the couple walk and strip their way through Times Square.

Head boppin’ fun,
Ninja

Purchasing link
+ Matt and Kim—Grand, $10.99

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Wow, I am in awe of Wataru Itou’s handmade, papercraft castle. This intricate paper castle took four years to create and includes lights, a ferris wheel, and a moving train! It is on view at the Umi no Ue no Oshiro (A Castle On the Ocean—海の上のお城) exhibition at Uminohotaru.

Via tokyobling

Thanks for the tip, Ray!

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Hallo, hallo you lovely folks! Thank you so much for all your encouragement and little love notes as I nervously go through prepping for this show. You have no idea how much it means to me.

For her hair, I layered burnt siena, raw siena, and raw umber acrylic paint around thin strips of ochre underpainting.

Here’s where I left off at 3 AM. Seemed like a good stopping point. Stay tuned for more obsessively detailed hair painting. ~__^

Much love back atcha,
Ninja

• I never said I love you: Process 6 (0)
• I never said I love you: Process 5 (2)
• I never said I loved you: Process 4 (1)
• I never said I loved you: Process 3 (0)
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I have the bad habit of doodling on any random bits of paper that I find, and I lose sketch books at an alarming rate.

I’m trying to remedy all of this by starting a sketchbook I really care about. Here’s my first entry.

I know it’s kind of hard to read. The text that goes with these images is just a small bit about when left half my face went numb from my root canal and Penguin had the right side of his face temporarily paralyzed from Shingles. So we smiled lopsided smiles at each other until the pain medication wore off.

Happy sketching,
Ninja

• I never said I love you: Process 2 (2)
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The human printer is a team of 11 humans who generate unique, CMYK halftone images by hand.

The original matchbook and a work in process.

Cyan

Magenta

Yellow

Black

Layers

The human printer accepts image submissions from readers for their prints (afterward, the prints are uploaded to their blog). If you fancy seeing your photo lovingly rendered in halftones, you can contact the human printer here.

Happy hump day,
Ninja

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Thanks for joining me as I go about my painting process and prepare for my first group show.

Fixed the crooked jawline and added some tone with light acrylic washes.

Evened out the eye levels. Then I built up and layered the shadows with thin acrylic glazes.

Next step: hair! I can’t wait. ^______^

Happy painting,
Ninja

• I never said I love you: Process 7 (4)
• I never said I love you: Process 5 (2)
• I never said I loved you: Process 4 (1)
• I never said I loved you: Process 3 (0)
• Swan Lake Skateboards (3)

We just finished the first draft of the scene breakdown for The Intern Project. A scene breakdown is just a outline of every scene in the script focusing on who’s in it and what the central action is.

We had come up with the major story beats first, so we wrote up the breakdown for that. There was still a lot more stuff that we need to write to fill in all the gaps leading from beat to beat. So we just brainstormed for each episode, seeing what would be interesting or funny.

Then we started plugging the scenes that didn’t necessarily have to do with the overall plot into the scene breakdown. We were working over GoogleDocs, which made the process really hard. It was tough to see where the story was front heavy, back heavy, or just had holes.

Even though it took some time, we printed out the whole breakdown, cut it up into strips so we could move everything around physically. This was a great way to visually see how the story was progressing and what areas needed addressing.

We took notes and went back to the GoogleDoc and manually synced it to the strips. Then we went through and addressed all the notes we came up with.

This was the first time I’ve done a scene breakdown before and thought it was a great way to think through the entire script. Invariably, we started moving into some expanded scene breakdown territory with some of the more complicated scenes.

Now we’re going to go through and work on the expanded scene breakdown. This should take a few days, then we can finally get started on the script. We gave ourselves a deadline of July 7th, but I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to make it. It’s a lot of work between here and there.

I’ll keep you posted.

- Penguin

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Good morning!

Long story short, I royally messed up the original painting. So I stripped off all the varnish and gave the guitar a through sanding and started over again. It’s the same concept, just a different, softer pose.

Happy painting,
Ninja

• I never said I love you: Process 7 (4)
• I never said I love you: Process 6 (0)
• I never said I loved you: Process 4 (1)
• I never said I loved you: Process 3 (0)
• Swan Lake Skateboards (3)

I’m always fascinated by an artist’s process!

Check out this video (directed by Felipe Lima) of Shepard Fairey working on pieces for an upcoming show.

TGIF, ttfn,
Ninja

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