Once upon a time I had a film under development here at the Worldwide Headquarters of Steve Ogden, Inc. about a bug who was having difficulties with his exercise equipment. The film was called, literally enough, The Exercise Bug.
Flash forward several years. I am not actively developing animated films at the moment, and have turned my attention instead to a variety of comics projects. One of these is an anthology I’m involved in. I asked one of my very talented illustrator friends to join us, and he agreed to participate but only if I’d write him something. So I spent Friday evening turning a 5 minute film idea into a 5 page comic idea. Fair enough. And although the main character is not a bug anymore, but a man, it’s funny how little it changed.
It’s funny, too, how hard I had to work to get that script down to only 5 pages, which had been our agreed-upon length. There were a couple of funny sequences I had to lose in order to get it there, but on balance, I think the piece is tighter, and funnier, for it. Those of you would-be writers out there – try forcing yourself to a page limit and see what happens. I think it’s good for a story if you can get down to that limit and retain the heart of your story and character beats. I find most stories can compress down a lot farther than we tend to think.
More on that anthology very soon.
Heh, I remember when you did the Exercise Bug
Have fun with the comics.
Yeah, it’s a trip down memory lane. You wouldn’t believe some of the old nuggets I’m pulling back out of mothballs. Remember our old friend Ferrell? Thank you for the note, Beth!