PeteBL
09-06-2006, 08:45 PM
First of all, hello! This is my first post here, obviously. I feel a bit ridiculous posting on an animation forum, I'm really not much of an animator yet. I've only been playing around with it for a few months now, but I'm pleased with the bit of progress I've made.
Anyway, about the idea. If you aren't familiar with it, MST3K is the common shorthand for Mystery Science Theater 3000, a thoroughly awesome show (google it if you must). This idea was originally conceived as a fan video but has now become a completely different, yet heavily MST-inspired, show.
This is a project that I've been working on for a few months now. Though it's far from done, I think I've figured out enough to give a pretty accurate idea of what I intend for the show to be. So, ladies and gentlemen, I offer:
The V.H.S. Hole
(V.H.S.:Video Hostage Situation)
Premise: Held captive in the sub-sub-basement theater below the home of Dot Ironmacher, Pete O'Brien and "pals" are forced daily to watch one of among thousands of old VHS tapes and report on their quality (or lack thereof) to Dot via webcam as she travels the world.
Backstory (just a bit for now):
When her videophile husband dies (under suspicious circumstances, of course) Dot gets a pretty sweet ball o' dough from the old man's life insurance policy and decides to finally see the world.
Unfortunately, he left behind a huge collection (more of a heap really) of oddly labeled VHS cassettes that he'd been accumulating for nearly 30 years. She has no clue what's on the tapes, so she can't bring herself to just throw them away, but she has absolutely no desire to actually watch any of them.
The solution? Force somebody else to do it, natch. Luckily, for her, those somebodies are pretty easy to find, and even easier to dupe.
Characters:
Dorothy "Dot" Ironmacher - a matron you would not want to patronize. (BTW, she is the only main character I have yet to finalize a design for).
Pete O'Brien - the everyman host who is lured into this situation with the too-good-to-be-true offer of free room and board in exchange for "house-sitting" for Dot. A smart guy who makes dumb choices.
Dennis Ironmacher - Dot's rather dorky nephew with a confidant-bordering-on-arrogant personality, an unwavering opinion on everything and a dark sense of humor. But you might really like him, if you don't get to know him.
Traci - A worldly and world-weary cat (yes, a talking cat) with a biting, sarcastic wit. Spent a majority of her 7 year life (that's about 45 in human years) as a stray before being taken in by Dot. She's definitely been around the block, literally and figuratively.
Barnaby - A talking, monocular cactus (mmhmm, that's right, a cactus) who knows only what he's seen on TV. Having watched close to 20 hours of television programming a day for almost 30 years has made him a virtual font of pop culture trivia. Despite all this "knowledge" and his gruff, grouchy old man exterior, he is still extremely naive.
Well, there you have it. That's the basic concept, as it is now. If you've made it this far (Thanks!) you may be wondering what these characters look like. So here they are, in the "Hole":
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a110/PeteBL/holeanimatedgif2.gif
(left to right: Traci, Dennis, Pete and Barnaby)
And yes, the final animation will be much better (hopefully, anyway), this is just a test.
For more related (there's not much yet) and unrelated artwork please visit my DeviantArt page: http://petebl.deviantart.com
My first goal is to produce a pilot episode using a riffworthy short film (under 10 minutes) with very short host segment wraparounds. The whole thing will probably come in under 15 minutes.
That's all I have so far, there's a lot of planning and work still to do. I'm slowly gathering a team to help me write the show and to voice characters, so if there's anyone interested, please speak up. Right now I plan to do the animation myself, but if I could get some assistance with that, it would be awesome. My goal is for fairly simple animation, as I'm very inexperienced.
So, how bad an idea is it? ;)
~Pete
Anyway, about the idea. If you aren't familiar with it, MST3K is the common shorthand for Mystery Science Theater 3000, a thoroughly awesome show (google it if you must). This idea was originally conceived as a fan video but has now become a completely different, yet heavily MST-inspired, show.
This is a project that I've been working on for a few months now. Though it's far from done, I think I've figured out enough to give a pretty accurate idea of what I intend for the show to be. So, ladies and gentlemen, I offer:
The V.H.S. Hole
(V.H.S.:Video Hostage Situation)
Premise: Held captive in the sub-sub-basement theater below the home of Dot Ironmacher, Pete O'Brien and "pals" are forced daily to watch one of among thousands of old VHS tapes and report on their quality (or lack thereof) to Dot via webcam as she travels the world.
Backstory (just a bit for now):
When her videophile husband dies (under suspicious circumstances, of course) Dot gets a pretty sweet ball o' dough from the old man's life insurance policy and decides to finally see the world.
Unfortunately, he left behind a huge collection (more of a heap really) of oddly labeled VHS cassettes that he'd been accumulating for nearly 30 years. She has no clue what's on the tapes, so she can't bring herself to just throw them away, but she has absolutely no desire to actually watch any of them.
The solution? Force somebody else to do it, natch. Luckily, for her, those somebodies are pretty easy to find, and even easier to dupe.
Characters:
Dorothy "Dot" Ironmacher - a matron you would not want to patronize. (BTW, she is the only main character I have yet to finalize a design for).
Pete O'Brien - the everyman host who is lured into this situation with the too-good-to-be-true offer of free room and board in exchange for "house-sitting" for Dot. A smart guy who makes dumb choices.
Dennis Ironmacher - Dot's rather dorky nephew with a confidant-bordering-on-arrogant personality, an unwavering opinion on everything and a dark sense of humor. But you might really like him, if you don't get to know him.
Traci - A worldly and world-weary cat (yes, a talking cat) with a biting, sarcastic wit. Spent a majority of her 7 year life (that's about 45 in human years) as a stray before being taken in by Dot. She's definitely been around the block, literally and figuratively.
Barnaby - A talking, monocular cactus (mmhmm, that's right, a cactus) who knows only what he's seen on TV. Having watched close to 20 hours of television programming a day for almost 30 years has made him a virtual font of pop culture trivia. Despite all this "knowledge" and his gruff, grouchy old man exterior, he is still extremely naive.
Well, there you have it. That's the basic concept, as it is now. If you've made it this far (Thanks!) you may be wondering what these characters look like. So here they are, in the "Hole":
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a110/PeteBL/holeanimatedgif2.gif
(left to right: Traci, Dennis, Pete and Barnaby)
And yes, the final animation will be much better (hopefully, anyway), this is just a test.
For more related (there's not much yet) and unrelated artwork please visit my DeviantArt page: http://petebl.deviantart.com
My first goal is to produce a pilot episode using a riffworthy short film (under 10 minutes) with very short host segment wraparounds. The whole thing will probably come in under 15 minutes.
That's all I have so far, there's a lot of planning and work still to do. I'm slowly gathering a team to help me write the show and to voice characters, so if there's anyone interested, please speak up. Right now I plan to do the animation myself, but if I could get some assistance with that, it would be awesome. My goal is for fairly simple animation, as I'm very inexperienced.
So, how bad an idea is it? ;)
~Pete