The long hiatus from posting journal entries should tell you something about how smoothly this production is going. We've now reached that incredibly stressful point of the season, when I start getting late with every task and I get no sleep and no days off (or nights for that matter) for months on end and I start wigging out and wanting to cry all the time. I look like hell and feel worse. Doc actually had to hug me to calm me down the other night. Somehow I found the time to get hooked on "Lost," thanks to the season 1 dvd that came out a while back. But anyway...

PRODUCTION UPDATE: Since the last time I posted, Doc and I have turned in a script a piece. Mine finds Team Venture (whoever they may be these days) at a White House dinner and brings Bud Manstrong back into the fold, and Doc's is the continuing story of Orpheus and his search for an arch enemy, with the help of some colorful friends from his past. We're currently finishing up the tenth script of the season--another joint effort, which of course was due a week ago--which introduces a mysterious woman from Dr. Venture's checkered past and the Monarch's attempts to move on with his personal and professional life. Ben Edlund is supposed to turn in the eleventh script of the season in this coming week, which I can't really tell you about since I've only heard snippets of the plot (which sounds funny, of course). After that, Doc and I will only have two more episodes to write to finish out the season, one of which of course has to be some sort of fantastic season finale. It's hard to believe we're already at this point. Despite the crushing pressures of the production, things have gone by terribly fast this year.

I flew out to Los Angeles last weekend to record Patrick Warburton's Brock lines for the 6th-9th scripts (formerly called episodes 206-209, they're now forcing us to call them episodes 21-24, which is confusing as all hell). As usual, he was great and it was great to see him. I also recorded Brendon Small for a few different supporting roles, and once again his rambling improvisations proved hysterical enough that I'm now trying to figure out what to cut from the scripts to accommodate them, time-wise, in the episode. Ron Lynch, one of Brendon's Home Movies cohorts and a talented stand-up comedian of note, also dropped by to lend his dulcet tones to a beloved character. And last but not least, mighty Dana Snyder, Master Shake himself, kicked ass as not one but two characters, one of whom is a member of a team from Doc's last script which deserves its own spin-off series. It was a long but thoroughly entertaining day of recording, followed by a fun night out at Brendon and Ron's weekly (I think) comedy cavalcade at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. And to top it off, the gothampublicworks kids I met at Comicon took time out from their busy toga party schedule just to stopby and say hi to me, which is always a pleasure.

Currently, our character/prop/background designers are working on the episode we're still writing. With deadlines looming and passing by like ships in the night, we're stuck giving them a list of the designs we'll probably need for whatever story we're writing. Which sucks for them when the final draft comes in and we've cut stuff they worked very hard on due to space and time constrictions. We try not to make a habit of it. These guys (and gals) are doing an amazing job this season, and they've done it, like everyone else on this project, under loads of pressure. The color department kicked into gear about a month and a half ago and are blowing me away. They're currently working on the third episode, the script for which is perhaps a little too close to my heart, and they're blowing me away with what they're doing with it. I may have mentioned in a previous post that we're taking a slightly different approach to the background style this season. It's more painterly and closer to the style of the pilot than to the first season--out with the comic-booky black outlines, in with something that evokes both the old Jonny Quest/Scooby Doo look and the jazzy advertising art from the 60's I love so much. I leave you now with two quick glimpses of their work for the first and second episodes respectively:

A hallway from Castle Ünderbheit...




...and the never-before-seen bathroom in the Venture compound's living quarters (presumably where Dean practiced "being a boyfriend" way back when).





Good night...we love you...

JP

P.S. King Kong!