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Could you send me a copy of the edited pilot (celtx file) as well? There are some more edits I would like to make, just some little touches here and there. Feel free to send your draft out to the artists you mentioned.

Sure, I'll do my best to get it to you tonight.

Okay, these are the scenes that I think would be the most interesting and important to illustrate for the VS. I have had these for a while but have been busy with thngs. I think we should pick and choose from these scenes. I tried to choose scenes that were action packed, pivotal, introduced a new character, comic relief, or highly emotional. We may have to weed out even more than what I have picked out. Now that summer is here things should slow down a bit for me.

Opening scene, this could be illustrated in a comic type panel:
Cool lay out of twisted red and yellow rock formations with sand dunes, Sea Duck in foreground
Baloo
but I didn’t even mention the
best part. There’s -
KIT
Baloo, LOOK OUT!
A plane suddenly zooms through the sky right in front of the
Sea Duck, cutting Baloo off. Baloo has to bank the plane
hard to the right to avoid a collision.


I thought this was hilarious and needed to be illustrated:
Wildcat carelessly tosses the crate off-screen into the
plane. The crash of shattering glass is heard off-screen.
WILDCAT
Sounded like the expensive crystal
glassware.
Rebecca slaps her forehead. Molly giggles.

A scene of the board room with Sultan and exeutive gathered around, Mini-universal logo in background:
Sultan presses a button on the side of the table and a
full-scale model of a section of Cape Suzette Harbor rises
up from the center of the table. It is the same harbor
where Higher for Hire is located, but the businesses and
docks around the harbor have been replaced by ugly gray
Miniversal buildings and shipping piers


Perry introduction: Perry grins evilly. (Upper body shot)

Scene with Ignatz, Baloo rolling up his sleeves:
Ignatz flaps over to Kit and lands on his shoulder. Ignatz
hugs Kit’s neck with his wings while Kit gives Ignatz a
friendly pat on his head.
IGNATZ
I thought it was you two. Of
course I saw Baloo first!
Ignatz points at Baloo’s belly.
IGNATZ
That thing can be seen from space!
BALOO
Why, I oughta--

Jarrett introduction:
JARRETT is arguing with who appears to be his sponsor.
Jarrett looks to be furious. He is yelling and veins are
bulging out of his neck. His sponsor is physically much
smaller than he is; Jarrett towers over him imposingly.
Jarrett has a wrench in his hand; he waves it menacingly
while he talks.

Scene: The Scarlet Macaw!

Griffin introduction, Kissing Rebecca‘s hand:
Griffith is a con man, and he is good at what he
does. To the average person he looks like a polished
businessman with a slick and refined way of speaking. He is
handsome in a professional way. With a sweeping gesture, Griffith delicately takes Rebecca’s
hand and kisses it. The move works on Rebecca. She is
charmed and blushes slightly

Comdey relief comic panel:
Kit
watch out dead ahead!
BALOO
Wha??
Baloo looks up and sees he is headed right for a large
billboard with an advertisement for soda pop. It is too
late to avoid it, and plane smashes into it, tearing right
through.

At least one racing scene with Jarett trying to make Baloo crash.

Baloo giving Rebecca the money, scene with him beaming and Rebecca shocked:
BALOO
Oh, just fifty thousand dollars to
buy back the Sea Duck. Don’t spend
it all in one place!
Rebecca is shocked. She picks up a stack of bills and flips
through it slowly. Baloo laughs.
BALOO
See, Kit? I told you she’d be
surprised!
REBECCA
Where did you get this?
BALOO
Kit and I won it in a race.

Rebecca begging for mercy:
REBECCA
Yes, I realize that I’m late on my
payment. But you have to give me
more time!
BANKER
I’m sorry, Miss Cunningham. We
can’t do that. We need payment now
or we’re going to foreclose.
REBECCA
But this is an extreme
circumstance!
She motions with her hand at the business owner closing up
shop next door. SWINDLED!

Pivital part of the show:
DRIVER
There’s a call for you.
The banker picks up the phone.
BANKER
Hello?
PERRY (V.O.)
I want to buy the harbor businesses
your bank recently foreclosed on.
BANKER
Which ones do you want to buy?
PERRY:(V.O.)
All of them.

Exciting Kit scene on airfoil:
KIT
Time for your bath!
Kit sprays the fire extinguisher all over the grease on the
windshield.

Caught red-handed:
Rebecca whirls around. Perry is standing in the doorway of
the file room. Rebecca hastily puts the papers back in the
confidential folder and stuffs it into the file
cabinet. Rebecca stands up to face Mr. Perry, her back
against the cabinet.

Meeting of Jarrett and Griffin:
GRIFFITH
I see the racing community was
right about you. You are a total
jerk.
Jarrett gets angry and approaches Griffith menacingly with
his wrench in hand.
JARRETT
Get out of here before you really
make me mad.
Griffith throws a thick of stack of cash onto the ground in
front of Jarrett. This catches Jarrett’s attention.

Jarrett sabotaging the Sea Duck, comic panel with Jarett at Sea Duck then Baloo and him arguing:
Jarrett is in the cockpit of the Sea Duck, tinkering with
the plane’s gyrocompass. He sees Baloo, Kit, and Ignatz
approaching. Jarrett quickly gets out of the cockpit and
slams the door shut. No one saw him in the act of sabotage.
BALOO
The only times you’re not cheating
are when you’re taking off and
landing! Now if you’ll excuse us,
we have a race to win!
JARRETT
Ok, I’m going! Good to see you
again!

Jarrett taunting Baloo and Kit:
JARRETT (V.O.)
Did you boys like my latest act of
sabotage?
Baloo picks up the radio.
BALOO
So you’re the one who broke our
gyrocompass! Oooh, you’ve pulled
some dirty tricks before, Jarrett,
but getting us lost in the middle
of the desert is low, even for you!

Griffin meeting Baloo and Kit:
JARRETT
Actually he works for my employer.
KIT
Your employer?
The back door of the jeep opens and Griffith emerges.
BALOO
Griffith? What are you doing here?

The pilot picks up Kit’s hat and hands it to Ignatz. Ignatz
turns it over and looks at the inside.
IGNATZ
There’s a message written on the
inside. Squawk! Oh man! Kit’s in
trouble! Come on, get to the
plane! Start her up! Get moving,
get moving!

Molly kicks bad guy butt, comic panel:
Molly stands in the doorway of her room dressed in her
Danger Woman costume, carrying the pot of hot coffee from
the kitchen. Molly splashes the coffee at Thug #1 and hits
him (Rebecca braces for the hit, but Molly has precise aim
so she doesn’t get a drop onto her mom).
THUG #1
Ow!
Thug #1 grabs his face in pain, letting Rebecca go. Thug #2
tries to grab Rebecca but Rebecca lashes out with her
spatula. She gets a couple of good hits in.

Griffith cocks the pistol. Baloo closes his eyes. Kit also
closes his eyes and turns away. Griffith is about to shoot
when Frankie comes into the room and knocks on the open
door.

Wildcat uses a screwdriver to fiddle with Kit and Baloo’s
cuffs and get them unlocked. Meanwhile, Rebecca arrives on
the scene.
REBECCA
Let’s go! I just placed a call to
Cape Suzette! They’re expecting
us!

Scene where Baloo runs from Jarrett:
Baloo dives the plane down into the forest below. The Sea
Duck flies through the forest, dodging and swerving to avoid
trees.

The boom from the explosion fades and Baloo gets the SeaDuck back under control. They fly back down and survey the
damage. The forest lies in blackened ruins. Most of the
trees have been destroyed, flattened by the
explosion. Thick smoke curls up from the remains of the
forest.

A fight scene with the Mini-universal pilots

Rebecca, Kit, and Baloo huddle together as gunfire continues
to ricochet throughout the cabin. Baloo closes his eyes and
clutches his friends tightly.

Business deal:Baloo extends his hand. Rebecca thinks about it, then
accepts Baloo’s handshake.
REBECCA
Okay, partner.

Things back to normal:
Baloo and Rebecca start to argue. As they continue yelling
at each other, Wildcat, Molly and Kit stand outside and
watch them.
KIT
Here we go again!

0x7B: I read over your edits to Ep 1, some very nice touches there. The scenes you worked on definitely feel more polished. I look forward to your edits on the rest of the script, I assume you are going to do those as well. Also, you are right about making it shorter overall, I think there are several non-essential scenes we can abridge or cut out entirely (there's actually a couple that I no longer like and actively want to get rid of). I will suggest some changes and maybe e-mail them to you.

I also had a couple of ideas for linking episodes to each other more strongly, for example introducing the gyrocompass in Episode 1 (when they are first flying in) and also having the sheriff make an appearance in Episode 1 as part of the introduction to Raceville (maybe before they start the race). Both play a pivotal role later on so it would be good for foreshadowing purposes.

WatrPrincess: That seems like a good list to me (lots of different moods there), all those sound like good ideas.

I'm excited about the prospect about finally getting some artists involved and look forward to the possibilities ahead.

WatrPrincess => Sounds good, I would say that maybe we should start with some Baloo / Kit with the Sea Duck scenes to promote the VS, as they're the most representative of the series and of our 2nd pilot.

Did anyone ever draw a character sheet for the Sea Duck? I need a shot from the top of the plane. I am not to great at planes but am willing to try. I will do a rough sketch of what I think that the first illustration should look like and then you can tell me what you want from there. I am limited to the old fashioned way of doing it. I will try to have it on here by the beginning of next week or sooner. However my week plays out.

My thoughts exactly. Those are some great scenes to illustrate! Actually, you picked many of the scenes that I was thinking of. So at 29 scenes, that averages out to about seven pictures per episode, which I think is doable.


Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. Yes, I do plan on editing the rest of the script as soon as I can. It shouldn't be too much longer now. Just email me the updated celtx file with the changed scenes when you're ready. Btw, any idea what scenes will change or possibly be removed? (So I can skip editing them until I have the new versions.)


Good idea. The plot could use some foreshadowing.

Me too.


Agreed.


Sounds great, I can't wait to see it! And you wanted a model sheet of the Sea Duck, so here ya go:
Sea Duck interior, exterior and control panel diagrams.

After about an hour and a half this is what I have gotten. I stared at a variety of dessert rock formation images off the web, tried to tackle Kit, folded some laundry, and then figured out my faithful scanner has suddenly been taken over by gremelins. Before I go forward please look over this and tell me what you think. Two of the panels are not done and I found out that I suck at drawing planes, but I think that you can get the basic idea of what I had in mind. Comments are appreciated. Does anyone else draw planes better than I do? I may have to trace the Sea Duck.

@WatrPrincess: Awesome...yes, those rock formations look very much like what I had pictured in my mind's eye. And I actually think the Sea Duck looks pretty good...then again I cannot draw. So, I look forward to more stuff from you

Sort of on-topic: I'm not sure if this link has been passed around yet, but I found this repository of original Talespin character modelsheets that may be helpful in the art stage. We might consider posting the link to the non-management part of the website, or at least among our artists...

http://animationarchive.net/TV/Series/T ... /index.php

@07xB: Here are some things I was thinking about changing/getting rid of. I am definitely thinking about getting rid of Rebecca's assistant as a character - she doesn't play much of a role and I'm thinking the fewer characters we have to come up with art/models for, the better. Also, making the big race scene in Episode 1 a little shorter would probably be good.

I also had an idea to change how much information about Miniversal's plan is revealed, and when. I think it will help the scheme unfold more gradually and probably be more realistic. This would all be done in Episode 2 after Perry makes his telephone call to the banker, so I would hold off on editing from there to the end of Ep2 until you've had a chance to read the edited version.

It's coming along very nicely!
The Sea Duck is very well drawn, so is Kit. The background is nice too, the coloring could be difficult though (will it be colored, BTW?)


I think I have already seen them. Not sure if I could just pick them up and paste them on my site, but I guess you can use them and post them on the VS management section.


Mmm, I'll have to re-read the pilot but she seemed a nice person (contrary the other people in the company we know about), I thought that was a nice touch. Then again we could use a character like this in other episodes.


I thought it was a bit long, but that's only MY opinion. Some people may like the epic side of it which could be reduced if shorten.

Off topic : Do we have a name for the 2nd pilot, then? Maybe we could have a pun on the word "pilot"...Just an idea.

Most of the shading (scribble lines) are for me. To show myself where I want certain things to go. YES! It will be colored. LOL I can try to do that to. Frankly I am better at black and white line drawings.

Cool! Your line art looks really good! I'm impressed! Sorry I haven't commented on them earlier, there's so many artworks on the site that I like but haven't commented on, like pretty much all of yours! Also, sorry for the delayed response, I've been out of town again, with no internet connection (again) But yeah, your line art is quite nice. The rock formations look good and the plane even looks pretty good. I only saw one tiny thing that didn't look quite right with Kit: to me, his eyebrows make him look more scared than surprised. I mean, he would be scared, but more surprised (imo). You know, like with big bulging eyes (even to exaggeration) and high arching eyebrows. (I'll try to find a screen-shot to post soon) The picture wouldn't even have to be redrawn, we could fix it with a graphics program.

Also, I was thinking that maybe we could use eclipse's 3D Seaduck to trace or use directly to make the illustrations. We could just rotate the model to any angle we want and take a screen-shot. Don't worry about coloring them yourself, its easier to ink and color them digitally anyway, (and helps keep everything look consistent as well). JerRocks2day said he might be able to ink/color some line art if he can get a good graphics application.

Another idea could be to get a rough physical model of the Seaduck (and anything else that you might need) to help with making the illustrations.

@eclipse:

So what do you think about the model thing? Is that doable? If so, how easy/hard would it be?


True, but I do kinda like her, and it would be nice to give her a slightly bigger role, just so she's more than background. Actually, I think she was added to emphasize how nice Rebecca's new job is, but at the same time, sometimes difficult decisions have to be made. You could just cut that part out and paste it into a new script in the same celtx archive to test with and without the assistant. It's just nice to have backups. (If you get 7zip, it can open the *.celtx archive and extract/modify the contents, just fyi.)

Yeah, the race scene is a little long. The script is averaging about 1.5 pages per minute, so at around 13.3 pages, the race scene would run almost nine minutes. Probably the best way to shorten it would be to add a few more checkpoints, but only do one lap. Like we could have them spend the first two or three checkpoints showing off the plane, the terrain and Baloo's mad flyin' skillz, and the last few checkpoints on the Jarrett encounter with a dissolve in between. Sort of like adding a subtle endurance factor, like making the race longer, but showing the audience less of it. Just an idea.

I had actually posted the model sheets in the Resources tab of the Virtual Season section on TS Source. I was so excited when I found them! I wish we had them for all the characters, but I'm definitely glad to have the ones that we do. Also, if you know of any more resources that may be useful to someone on the VS, let me know and I'll add it to the VS resources section.


Ok, cool. Then I suppose I'll go ahead and edit the third and fourth Eps.


Not yet. I'm still waiting to see if inspiration strikes. Maybe a pun, yes.

@everyone:

If you have any suggestions for VS resources or story title, please let me know.

I'll put on my thinking cap and see if I can come up with some punny titles. You want something with 'pilot' in it? Hmm...

Okay, here's what I came up with:

Second Treason (pun on 'second season')

Strafe Harbor (pun on 'safe harbor')

The Pilot's Strife (pun on The Pilot's Wife - a 2002 movie according to Google, never seen it)

Yeah, I know none of these are too good. Personally, I like The Fast and the Spurious.

Well there's a topic dedicated to this (that I had posted 5 years ago... )

want-a-good-and-free-picture-editing-program-t2508.html

Of course the best is Photoshop, but if you can't afford it, you can try The Gimp (free), some online free applications, or Paint Shop Pro (cheaper than Photoshop but still good)