Writing Lonely Dog x 2

It is seriously full on at the moment! Friday we met with Warner Bros for a quick update. They came through NZ en route from Sydney to LA, and stopped over briefly. Their main focus is scripting with the hope of having draft one complete by the end of September.

We are currently sorting diaries so that the screen writer can come to New Zealand, visit Queenstown, catch up with Ivan, see the home of the Lonely Dog, and pick up a feel for the landscape that has inspired the fantastical world of Alveridgea, and use this as fuel as he completes the script. Can't wait.

At the same time we are deep in plot outlines as we craft the novel version of the book. This will be a largely text based book, with only the maps and one or two pencil sketches. Those of you lucky enough to have a copy of the source code - The Almalogue - will know how important Ivan's sketches and paintings are in bringing the world to life. ( Along with all the ephemera and found pieces inserted into it as well). Without these, we need to pay attention to adding extra descriptive passages to the writing so that those not in possession of an Almalogue still get a good idea of the world of Lonely Dog. Our goal is to have the book ready for worldwide release hopefully next May. For that to occur we need to be ready for the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. That is putting some pressure on!

The book editor is flying from London to New Zealand to be with us over the next few weeks and keep us on track. Ivan has been drawing, and has come up with a simply sensational sketch as a basis for a painting that will be the feature of the cover. Awesome.

As you might imagine, one of the things we are trying to do is to keep the two developments running in tandem, being informed by each other. It is great that over the next few weeks we will have both parties here getting immersed in the "real oil". It is quite humbling to be getting this level of attention from large international companies. It certainly feels as if the world of Lonely Dog is about to be enjoyed by a whole lot more people!

Warner's Test Results. A lot is going on!

OK, it's been a while. So what has been going on in the world of Lonely Dog? The big news is that on a recent trip to the US Ivan and I met with Warners. They were really keen to show us their work on the "test". This is a short piece of a few minutes that will never see the light of day. It is to see what the concept looks like, how the world feels, how the digital properties look, and so on.

Well, test it might be in their language, but it looked extremely impressive! A few impressions. We were both bowled over by the opening voice over. None other than Morgan Freeman! What a compliment to The Lonely Dog to use the 'voice of God' as the test narrator! Sensational.

To set the scene, as Morgan Freeman narrates the opening a motorcycle approached the small seaside town of Port Alveridge. It pulls in, riders (2) dismount, and enter a seaside bar. A hand pulls out the power cord to a jukebox that is pumping out atrocious cat pop. The shadowy small character from the back of the bike takes to the stage, plugs his guitar in, turns, and reveals himself to be not a hound, but Lonely Dog himself. With a flourish of power chords he gets the hounds up and dancing, the cats trying to join in but being pushed to one side.....

Warners had fun with the props at a real seaside bar at Marina Del Ray. All the bottles behind the bar had appropriate houndish labels - Jack Russell Whiskey, with a slightly familiar black label! Etc. Every bottle created! Posters are on the walls, showing various famous catside and houndside artists. One of these actual posters is in the Auckland Gallery and another in the Wellington Gallery - we brought them home with us!

The footage was shot live action, motion capture, head replacement. Lonely Dog - and the other characters of hounds and cats - were played by real people, and filmed in a real set. Their heads were 'replaced' electronically. LD's head looked incredibly realistic. In fact Ivan felt it was too realistic. Stunning. It is easy to see how this is going to work. It looks like nothing else, and is very captivating.

It was quite fantastic to see tangible evidence of the project coming to life.

Next steps are to press on with scripting. The test was a resounding success. Things are getting interesting ....!