Dark Cloud and Klaatu are a characters I want to share with the world through multiple mediums. I want her to become a cultural archetype, like Zorro, or Spiderman. That means I have to start somewhere, and starting with a Graphic Novel isn’t a bad idea! Now that the first one has turned out so well, and I can certainly tell more Dark Cloud stories via Graphic Novel than I can film, I’m certainly I’ll be sticking with that medium for the foreseeable future.
But a Film Franchise is still a goal, too. Down the road, some. More coming on this later.
Like the mood music? That’s the sound I’m going for in the Film adaptation.
The initial purpose of the Graphic Novel was to built the fan base for an eventual film – but guess what: This has all turned out pretty decent as a Graphic Novel in itself! Also, by Graphic Novel means, I can tell a lot more Dark Cloud stories than if I were only going for film. So I’ve adjusted my focus a bit.
Coming from a screenwriting background, then adapting back to Graphic Novel, isn’t a bad move in itself. Given the competition to make a screenplay stand out? You’d better be good at story-telling! So the quality of my story-telling went up.
Still, the Graphic Novel adaptation had to come first. Why? Read on, Dear Viewer: Also, bear in mind that I wrote what follows before I saw the Graphic Novel results, and realized, “Hey! Why don’t I focus on telling stories this way, too?”
The competition for a film is ferocious. At any given time there are 10,000 screenplays being waved around in L.A. with people trying to get them made – and those are just the ones with representation! (an agent.)
…But there are much fewer Graphic Novels vying for attention…
You wouldn’t believe how picky script readers (yes, that’s a profession,) can be. Although they are looking for good stories, the sheer volume also makes for looking for the least little thing to ‘File 13’ a script and say, “Next!” There’s always someone out there who understands the art of, “Saying the most with the fewest words,” better than me, but I want to tell this story! So after a few rejections from readers I decided I didn’t like the odds, and that I needed to put the story in a format that I could both share with anyone, including those not in the business, and also demonstrate how rich was the world and everything in it that I’d created. There are a lot of little touches in the Graphic Novel that are a no-no to convey in a script, such as Dark Cloud’s costume, which has it’s own symbolism.
A Graphic Novel is also something that people enjoy reading. Hey, let’s face it: Just like everyone else, if someone asks me to read a screenplay, I groan. As a person who’s creative visually, I hate to read for pleasure, especially with the knowledge that the author is trying to get me to visualize the story that they’ve written. Feature length screenplays are about 1/2 inch thick, black and white, consisting of any combination of the roughly 26 symbols that make up our alphabet. I hate slogging through them. A lot of people in this industry are the same way. Plus, if the author doesn’t have an agent for them, as an author, then chances are very high that the script is so bad that I wouldn’t use it to line a hamster cage! It’s true. Most material out there from unknowns is gut-churning BAD.
But there’s a secondary consideration as well: Fan Base
Hollywood does not like ‘New’. (I’m finding this is true in the Publishing world as well.) A lot of material is recycled. This is understandable. It takes a lot of money to put out a film, let alone one that gets Cinematic distribution. (I’d still like that if I can get it, but there are other factors as well…) Investors want to know they are going to get their money back. You say, “Godzilla!” and a million people line up down the block and around the corner to see it, so investors know they will get their money back.
Dark Cloud is ‘New’.
Big Media hates ‘New’.
To show potential Investors that this is a really cool project with something important to say, I really have to start generating the audience first, before funding for the movie version is ever even considered.
So let me start by creating Graphic Novels…
Plural.
Did you enjoy reading Dark Cloud? (That sentence applies once the first Graphic Novel is available to the public.) Then go to the page called ‘Stay Updated! =D’ and Sign Up! =D (I won’t sell your email, I promise.) This is solely for the purpose of showing potential Investors that people want more Dark Cloud stories. It’s also a numbers figure that I’ll point out to Publishers and Distributors for the Graphic Novel(s). I footed the bill to create the first Graphic Novel. Will they help out with the second? Or beyond that? I need to be able to demonstrate, in a real business sense, that this is all worthwhile.
Oops! There’s one more reason to sign up: You get to be notified of any major developments in this project. Want to know what goes to production, when, and when it’s going to be available to the public, or even just project gossip? Then Sign Up! =D
Help me show the Media powers that be, that there’s an audience out there that does, indeed, want to see more of Dark Cloud. =D
Sandra