Archive for the ‘Serial Episodes’ Category

Ally, On the Road to the Finale

Posted: 21st October 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Ally", Concepts & Development, Digital Production, Episode 6, Photography
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On the continued production of Episode Six throughout the year, simultaneous to the production and online runs of the origin vignettes.

This week we begin a new vignette, ‘Ally’, which is our sixth vignette of the 2011 year and our twelfth vignette overall. Some of you may be asking why we’re spending so much time on vignettes this year, having already produced in nine months as many as we have in the previous three years combined… while the grand finale Episode Six remains nowhere to be seen. For today’s blog post, I’ll be talking about what our production is doing, why the vignettes are so important, and when you’ll be seeing the elusive final episode.

When the production of Episode Six concludes, when the final photo is taken and the last shoot wrapped, that will be the end of Night Zero as a photographic novel. There is no episode seven, and there will be no more vignettes. This has been our plan from the beginning, and one of the reasons we chose to do a six-episode-arc rather than only standalone stories. With that choice came an inevitable conclusion, which itself is directly responsible for the production schedule we’ve taken. Knowing that Episode Six would be our last, I laid down a production mantra for the year: “Go big and go outside”.
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Five Hundred

Posted: 16th September 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Concepts & Development, Serial Episodes
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On Night Zero’s accomplishment of five hundred published pages, a true milestone in photographic novel history.

Today represents a major milestone in Night Zero’s lifetime: our five-hundredth page. It’s only approximately our five-hundredth online update, between the occasional holiday non-update and the occasional two-page-spread double-update, but page 19 of Sorority is the five hundredth page in the Night Zero photographic novel collection, counting back through our vignettes, serials, and the pilot.

People sometimes asked why we didn’t maintain all our comics online, and honestly, it wasn’t a ploy to get you to buy our books (although if you do, we sure appreciate it). It was honestly because our early stuff just wasn’t as good, and we didn’t want new visitors to start at the beginning and give up based on the quality they saw. Our hope was that visitors would check out some of our best vignettes, see the high quality of our work, and be more forgiving when they bought the books and saw much different it was in the beginning. It was a strategic selection, showing only our best face, but not anymore.

That’s right: in celebration of this milestone, every single one of our five hundred pages is now available to read on nightzero.com, including the plotless pilot and the awkward first two episodes, with special forwards prepared for the occasion. If you haven’t read through some of our earlier works in a while, take a wander through the archives and revisit the past. You may be surprised by what you find there… I know I sure was.
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The Penultimate Finale

Posted: 11th February 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Episode 5 - "Reversals", On Location
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On the various casting, costuming, and shooting challenges for the “Three Speeches” finale of Episode Five

Despite terrible weather battering the Midwest, the presses for Night Zero: Volume Three are alive and on-schedule. We expect to start shipping preorders the second week of March, with delivery to comic shops and the rest of our orders shipping the fourth week. If you enjoy reading Night Zero, if you appreciate the free thrice-weekly updates on a completely ad-free website, please show your support and preorder your copy today. Just twenty four dollars, independently produced and proudly printed in the USA.

On last week’s blog I talked about the movie-montage inspirations for the “Three Speeches” closing of Episode Five, as well as some of the developmental stages we went through to piece the whole sequence together.  That’s all essential to the pre-production, but coming up with a concept is only the beginning. The true success or failure lies, of course, in the execution of the design, and on that front I’m pleased to say it came together swimmingly.
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the Three Speeches

Posted: 4th February 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Concepts & Development, Episode 5 - "Reversals", Photography
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Announcing the opening of Volume Three pre-orders, and on the formulation of the “three speeches” that close out episode five.

Before I get into the actual blog post, I’m very pleased to announce that preorders for Night Zero: Volume Three are now available! Our third and most stunning volume yet, this graphic novel collection weighs in at nearly 200 pages of full-color post-apocalyptic HDR beauty, and includes all the comics we produced in 2010 as well as the protest shoot from 2009. A full list of details and a pre-order link is available at the Volume Three info page, so support Night Zero and buy your copy today!

We’ve now entered the final act of Episode Five, a little number I like to call “the Three Speeches.” If this were a movie, there would be sweeping camera shots of the speakers building up in volume and cadence, inter-spliced with close-ups of random members of each party, all underscored by a dramatic musical crescendo with plenty of horns and gravitas. Which is exactly what I’ve attempted to recreate here, but without sweeping camera movement or underscoring music. The photographic novel does have limitations.
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the Potentials

Posted: 28th January 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Concepts & Development, Episode 5 - "Reversals"
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On the development and design behind the messengers at home, and their parallels to the Potentials from BtVS.

Since the very first episode, we’ve talked about “messengers” as some collection of runners and soldiers and spies, but the only evidence thus far was Marion’s regular presence and Natalie’s appearance in the Special Delivery vignette. In my design, however, they’ve always been a sorority of survivors, a sisterhood of support and cooperation that makes them a powerful force in the post-apocalypse. And now, finally, we have the chance to enter their realm.

When you take a world with supernatural creatures, form a collective of young women to fight them, and put them all in a house together… it’s hard not to draw a parallel to the Potentials of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season seven. I was aware of this when designing the messengers’ scene, but rather than trying to find a way around it I opted to embrace it.
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Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil

Posted: 21st January 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development, Episode 5 - "Reversals", On Location
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On the exchange between Valentin and Jezebel, following the protest attack and Dariya’s death

The Valentin/Jezebel scene we recently came out of was not the first meeting of these two characters, as eagle-eyed readers know, but it is their first significant exchange even though it arrives so near the end of the serial. We always knew this scene was coming, but its tone changed significantly as we discovered more and more about the two.
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