On approaching production of the “Sisters” vignette and it’s unexpected growth, compared to the minimalism of its predecessor “Jezebel”

Regular blog readers are familiar with how the original concept for Night Zero was a series of semi-independent stories, with crossover casts and occasionally intermingling storylines. That idea was shelved in favor of the six-episode serial arc, but stayed alive in the form of the vignette. A way for the team to try out new techniques, cast new faces, and get a break from the day-to-day production of the serial comic, the vignette concept was that of low-overhead and low-expense productions, short shoot schedules, and quick turnarounds. “Jezebel” and the untitled vignette were both perfect examples of this, each being shot in two short sessions with minimal crew, the former costing less than $30 and the latter costing nearly nothing to produce.

When “Sisters” was developed this last April, it was supposed to follow suit. It was to be a short story, a quick production, and it was supposed to accomplish three things. First, I wanted to explore the personalities and relationship of Dariya and Nadia, who are very complex characters with unfortunately little screentime in the serial arc. Second, I wanted to flex our action muscles and see what we could do. The last time we shot a real “action” scene was the very first day of production on Episode One over a year ago, and the next time we’re scheduled to shoot will be in the middle of downtown Seattle with a cast and crew of nearly one hundred people. Naturally, I wanted to give the team a little bit of practice before then. And third, I wanted to get some up-close and personal time with our zombies, which also have relatively little screentime in the serial arc.

After nailing down the final plot of the Sisters vignette (discussed in a previous blog post), a shoot day was scheduled with the full cast. The script was nine pages and the story divided neatly into two half-days, so everything was coming along nicely until the storyboards began. It quickly became clear that there was too much story to produce in one day, even after a serious and extensive session of editing, consolidating, and cutting. The decision was made to split the production into two shoots: our already-scheduled date would cover the first act (Drake and his goons), and a following date would cover the second act (scratchers and the military). The Drake shoot was our first at the location and our first using the “shot card” method of production, but although we hit some delays and shot over schedule, we wrapped everything we wanted and were ready for the next one.

Unfortunately, storyboarding once again showed that we were trying to do too much, and that the “simple” story was not nearly as simple as it appeared on paper. Rather than forcing more cuts before production, I decided to again split the shoot: the scheduled second shoot would cover the sisters vs. henchmen plus the first scratcher attack, and a third shoot would wrap up with the second scratcher attack and Yevgeniy’s rescue. For flexibility, I chose to shoot the entire script as originally storyboarded and make cuts in post-production. Consolidating and slicing the assembled pages, another 10% was trimmed down from the finished work… but it was still incredibly long.

In addition to the three primary goals of the Sisters vignette, I was also using the production as a test bed for our comic’s visual style, pacing, and action/dialogue balance. Over the past year we’ve received some good feedback from readers about how Night Zero flows, and some of the more common impressions were that most scenes moved a bit slowly and could stand more action. Our most popular work to date, “Jezebel”, is often cited as well-balanced and quickly-paced story, and it was in that spirit that the first act of “Sisters” was produced. [In full disclosure: the original cut of Jezebel wasn't without its share of pacing problems, and it too got some heavy trimming (nearly 20% reduced) in post-production.]

The second act of “Sisters” was an experiment in sustained action sequences, and there should be no doubt that we learned something important: action sequences should NOT be sustained. In previous works, too much dialogue has prevented physical action from progressing, leading to a “talking heads” situation. In the second act of “Sisters”, too much action creates a disproportionate timeline, where a month’s worth of page updates covers less than a minute’s worth of story time. If I were to do it again, the two acts would be merged together for a constant switch-off between action and dialogue, smoothly blending from one to the other every 3-5 pages. We’d already shot and sequenced Episode Three before production on “Sisters” began, but I’ll be revisiting every panel and every page to retroactively apply some of our new understanding of pacing and plot progression. As we now kick into production of Episode Four, timing and balance will be at the top of our script and storyboard review process.

There is always a struggle for us to reconcile Night Zero as both a full-length graphic novel and a regularly-updated webcomic. Being the former, there are certain allowances for longer developments and extensive sequences, with the understanding that the reader will be presented with the entire work and may move at their desired pace without requiring a punchline on every page. But being the latter, there is pressure to make every single page independently significant and engaging, lest readers tire of waiting for updates. Towards the end of this vignette, we noticed a trend of visitors checking weekly and getting a three-page batch rather than checking for each update (our website has no advertisements or sponsors, so this behavior doesn’t negatively affect us like it would most comics). After “Sisters” concludes next week, we’ll be launching a redesign of our website that is better suited for visitors checking both daily and less-than-every-day. Of course, if you want to keep getting new pages and not worry about checking the site at all, I recommend you check out the RSS feed.

I hope you have enjoyed the “Sisters” vignette, and appreciate you sticking through to the lengthy end. I’m always appreciative of feedback from you, dear reader, so please take a moment to comment on this blog entry or send us an email with your thoughts on “Sisters”, other vignettes and the serial story, or anything else.