Posts Tagged ‘storytelling’

Jezebel and Tracy

Posted: 18th January 2013 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Jezebel", Episode 6
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On the conclusion of the skullhunters’ epilogue, and the difficult decision to usurp the vignette’s ambiguous ending to satisfy Jezebel’s storyline.

The skullhunter epilogue was a particularly challenging piece for me to write, a series of tough decisions leading to the showdown between Jezebel and Tracy four years after the original “Jezebel” vignette aired. I’m incredibly happy to welcome them back to the Night Zero stage one more time before the book is closed. Jezebel remains a fan-favorite character as well as a personal favorite, and it thrills me to no end that she has been received with just the blend of love and hate that I had hoped for her.

When the “Jezebel” vignette first aired, I kept my thoughts brief and vague to avoid spoiling what was to come from her, so it wasn’t until her appearance in Episode Three that I had a chance to lay out the history of her character. Her fundamental aspect was that she would have no secret motives or revealing backstory, that we never revealed a who or a why behind the chaos of Jezebel. Throughout her appearances in the various vignettes and serial episodes, all that’s certain is that she’s trouble.
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the Longest Day

Posted: 31st August 2012 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Digital Production, Episode 6
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On the meeting of Marion and Jill, and the considerable length of Episode Six in the scheme of Night Zero comics.

The scene that ran last week and this, entitled “Rescue,” is a brief but pivotal moment of Episode Six, as well as a notable crossroads. It is the intersection of Marion and Jill, two central characters of Night Zero and two of the most represented.

Marion was created at the beginning of the Night Zero serial, drawn from character ideas and discussions with Katrina. She began shooting on our first production day, attended every shoot for the entire first year, and appeared on every page of Episode One.

Jill was created at the beginning of the Originette period, drawn from character ideas and discussions with Krista. During the following year she attended more production shoots than any other actor (averaging more than one a month), and quickly became an iconic part of our world.
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The Second Eulogy

Posted: 13th July 2012 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development, Episode 6
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This week in Episode Six, we said goodbye to our second established character, brought in some new and returning ones, and finished up a scene we shot over fourteen months ago.

The two central characters of this scratcher-attack scene, the messengers Vanessa and Mandy, were created for this episode with their actors-to-be already in mind. This scene was the first time on a Night Zero shoot for both of them, but they took to the unusual style naturally and both gave solid, powerful performances. Many months later, each returned (on separate occasions) for their appearances in the Originettes (Vanessa in “Sorority” and Mandy in “Syndicate”), but through the aforementioned cuts and consolidations, their storyline in Episode Six was reduced to just this one scene we’ve come to finish.

This scene, or rather the two parts of this scene (entitled “Flanked” and “Mandy”) combined, are a far cry from what was in the original script. Part of that change was the result of shuffling around the sequence of events in the episode, and how the various storylines overlapped. Another part of the change was dictated by our location, as we were unable (despite numerous efforts) to secure a dead-end alley where the duo would more likely find themselves cornered. Additionally, an earlier scene was cut wherein Vanessa’s leg is injured, so like Jeff Goldblum magically understanding the aliens’ computer language, so too do we have a plot element (a messenger who’s too slow) that makes no sense superficially due to what got left behind. But who’s really paying that much attention?
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Navigating Episode Six

Posted: 8th June 2012 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development, Episode 6
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On the evolution of Episode Six’s story arc, and how the reality of production dramatically altered the landscape of Night Zero’s conclusion.

The conclusion of the escort and messengers’ scene has brought a close to the first act of Episode Six, with a total pagecount (including prologue) of 29 pages spanning five days on location. That’s about half the length and half the time of a normal episode in its entirety, and we’re just getting started. We still have a few major productions to shoot before it’s a camera-wrap on the episode, so I can’t get a good estimate on how many pages the final will be… but I expect it will finish at between 120-180 pages. Wowza.

From a design standpoint, I often envision Night Zero as a film or television show during conception and then fanangle those ideas into a comic book structure, with mixed results. A particular example of this is here in Episode Six, which was envisioned and written as a multi-layered weave of story arcs, with primary characters (Marion, Claire, Nadia, Valentin, Yevgeniy) making the big strokes while the originette characters (Lucy and Jill, Darren, Mandy, Drew) led City-centric storylines to flesh out the wider goings-on, occasionally crossing paths with each other and otherwise networking through the secondary characters (additional soldiers and messengers, who all have names but have not been named onscreen). It was an intricate web, a symphony of timelines that explored all over the New City before culminating in the epic finale. A web that, when translated into comic form, quickly fell apart.
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The First Eulogy

Posted: 1st June 2012 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development, Episode 6
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On the character of Jill, a strong presence in the last year of Night Zero, who’s passing marks the first major casualty of Episode Six.

The very first scene of Night Zero introduces the idea of messengers working in pairs (even though some, like Marion, prefer solitude), and from early in the development of Episode Six it was clear to me that while all our messengers would be featured, Lucy and Jill would be particularly important in the day’s events. We first met Lucy in the fall of 2010, when she and the other messengers gathered to hear Nadia Nazarov’s pre-battle speech. She was just one new face among many at the time, but even then I knew that hers was a face we’d be seeing again.
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Exodus

Posted: 13th April 2012 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Episode 6
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On the prologue of Night Zero’s final serial episode, and why the name “Exodus” was chosen for this final chapter.

And so begins the final episode of the Night Zero serial “City Planning,” episode six. “Exodus.”

After so many years, I felt it would be helpful to begin the episode with a recap of sorts, an explanation of all that precedes this story to refresh our readers on where the New City and its heroes stand. This was not part of the original script, and only came into consideration after the prologue had been shot, so it was an interesting task to cut the dialogue and filler portions from that scene and use it as illustration for the voiceover. Something we’ve never tried with Night Zero before, but I’m pleased with how it turned out.

These past two weeks have also given the Night Zero team a full workload with conventions, with our fourth annual presence at the wonderful Emerald City Comicon and our first bout at the more eccentric Sakura-Con. At both shows our new book Night Zero: Origins was a smashing hit, buoyed by it’s accessibility as a stand-alone title in combination with its remarkably low price point. It’s just twenty dollars, less than the cost of a celebrity signature at the convention or two tickets to a movie, and contains seven self-contained vignettes from the Night Zero world plus behind-the-scenes, director’s notes, and more. And like all our books, these are proudly printed in the USA, so you can support American workmanship and help the economy while getting some quality graphic novel stories at the same time. We start shipping next week, click here to order now.
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