Communicating with the Client (J Thorn)

J. Thorn

14:00

To: pete taylo

No problem. I'll send a contact request and be ready in an hour ;)

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13:58 

To: J. Thorn

Hi James,

I had a bit of trouble with skype, i dont use it much and it was a bit screwy. long story short my new skype name is pete_taylo the skype call at 11 is still on though just a few technical hiccups.

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J. Thorn

20/03/2014

To: pete taylo

No prob. Just sent you a contact request in Skype. You can video call me at 11:00 and I'll be ready to answer any questions you have. Looking forward to it!

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pete taylo

20/03/2014

To: James Thorn

My Skype name is pete taylo.
Sorry it has taken me a while to reply, at first i did not know my skype name and had some trouble logging in, now have had a bit of trouble with conflicting deadlines and jobs. 11 am eastern time, which is 4 pm where i am.

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James Thorn

18/03/2014

To: pete taylo

Sounds great! 11:00 a.m. Eastern time. What is your Skype username?

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pete taylo

18/03/2014

To: J. Thorn

How about we do a skype chat on Friday to make sure all the crew understand what you want and so they can ask any questions that come up face to face?

They should all be in college that day, we could contact you around 11 if that is good for you. And don't worry i have taken the time difference into account so we wont end up calling you in the early hours of the morning thinking its 11 haha

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J. Thorn

17/03/2014

To: pete taylo

If you're all in class together, we'd just need one of you to Skype me and you can all gather around the computer. Or we could do a phone call. I think it'd be easier for me to give the synopsis that way, but I wrote a quick something below.

I agree. Having check-in points would keep you guys going in the right direction.

Quick overview of book 1 (with spoilers):
The main character, Samuel, falls to the ground from a noose in a strange forest. He can’t remember how he got there and he doesn’t know where he is. It turns out he’s in a kind of purgatory (called a reversion), after death and before rebirth. He meets other characters and all of their fates are tied together in some way that unfolds with the story. A dark cloud is slowly moving across the land, eating the world and so Samuel has to do something but he doesn’t know what or how and yet the cloud keeps coming. He ends up getting to the peak where he will either get released from the reversion or have to try again. The Great Cycle (God?) won’t let him out until he redeems himself. Well, Samuel doesn’t and the book ends with him going through a portal and the story begins again in the second book of the series.

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pete taylo

17/03/2014

To: James Thorn

I cant get hold of them too easily outside of college unfortunately. That is a good idea though, I will get everyone's skype names and stuff tomorrow in college.

 A good summary would be a good thing we could consult back to though so if we could get one of those but then do group skype chats throughout the production. For instance we wont do any animation until after we have done a storyboard and concept art so at that point for instance we could send you those things and then make sure your happy with the direction were going. We wouldn't want to work for ages making an animation just to make something that you weren't happy with or you felt didn't represent what you wanted to get across with the trailer.

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James Thorn

17/03/2014

To: pete taylo

Sure.  I can do that tonight. Would it help if I Skyped or did a Google Hangout with your team?

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pete taylo

17/03/2014

To: J. Thorn

Yeah that seem's like a good direction to go in. Would you send me an in depthish summary of the plot. Something i can send to the rest of the crew so they can get a feel of the book and its key plot points and such?

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J. Thorn

17/03/2014

To: pete taylo

1 attachment (25.9 KB)

Chapter 1.docx

Sure. I would suggest the first chapter (attached) or some portion of it. You could make the scene very creepy, dark. I don't know if you've ever seen Sin City (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/) but that's the kind of feel it should have. Very dark.

The key element would be showing Samuel falling from the noose and being in a world that is empty, desolate, and dark and he has no idea what's going on.

What do you think?

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pete taylo

17/03/2014

To: J. Thorn

Hey James.

It would be very helpful if you had a brief of what exactly you wanted us to show people with this book trailer. Maybe you want a specific segment of the book such as an opening monologue included, perhaps you have an idea of a certain style that you have seen and would like us to work in the vein of. Generally just an idea of what you want from the trailer, and how to really make something that you and potential readers will like.

All the best,
Peter

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J. Thorn

15/03/2014

To: pete taylo

Outlook

1 attachment (575.3 KB)

Download

View slide show (1)

Download as zip

Here's a link to the book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00997VFHM

Here's a short synopsis:
With a noose around his neck, Samuel arrives in a forest littered with caution tape and artifacts of the deceased. He struggles to regain his memory while fending off a pack of wolves and the mysterious visitors who seem to know more about this dying world than he does. Major, Kole, and Mara, new companions also trapped in the strange locality, realize they must outrun the ominous cloud eating away at reality. As their world collapses upon itself, Samuel must find a way to escape the Reversion.

Here's a blurb by one of the best horror writers today, Scott Nicholson:
"This is a great start for what promises to be an engaging, intense series."

Here's a one-minute video of me explaining the book for AuthorTales:
http://authortales.com/authortales-reversion-the-inevitable-horror/

I've also attached the cover.

I'll provide you guys with whatever you need ;)

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pete taylo

15/03/2014

To: J. Thorn

Thanks for the quick response, great to hear your interested.

To start with it would be great to get a synopsis of the book you want a trailer for and an idea of what you want in the trailer i.e. segments of story, characters etc. Then we can work from there.

All the best,
Peter

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J. Thorn

15/03/2014

To: pete taylo

Peter,
I am definitely interested! Your work looks exciting.

I would be happy to provide you with anything you need, including free ebooks for your team.

Thanks,
James

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pete taylo

15/03/2014

Outlook Active View

Showreel 2014

Play video 00:00:40 Added on 15/03/2014

Dear J. Thorn

I am emailing to see if you are interested in having an animated book trailer for one of your books. I have a university studio of a few students with a complement of modern software and gear for animation.

Here is a link to my personal showreel "Link". I and other students in the studio have worked on professional briefs such as the Animated Exeter ident and Lightstream event.

If you are interested or have any questions please contact me and we can discuss this further.

Kind regards,

Peter Taylor

J Thorn, Continuing Contact

I have been in contact with J Thorn via email. We have discussed the book trailer and what he might want and have arranged a Skype chat between him and the rest of the crew this coming Friday. Hopefully we can get a good idea of what exactly he wants the trailer to be and it also allows any of the crew to ask questions that could help move the development along.

J Thorn, previous book trailers

When looking up on J Thorn the author to learn more about some of his books. I found some of the book trailers he already has. He has a few book trailers which are mostly live action, there is one witch has a simplistic animation element to it but nothing too extensive. Which shows he could be interested in animated book trailer (because of the fact he already has a slightly animated one). But he is still open to the possibility of commissioning one.

Third year green light Productions

I have had quite the hard time with getting onto a third year green light production. At first (and still i suppose) I was in Lauren's third year production as an editor, I was given the role by Jordan who was her producer for the green light project. While i was very interested in the production it seemed i was given no work and hadn't managed to get hold of anything with which to make an animatic of and was most definitely not in the loop. Unfortunately Jordan was also having trouble getting hold of her and it seemed she was very unwilling to let anyone in.

I have also helped a tad with some storyboarding on Lucinda's project, at first i did some looking over the storyboard, talking through it with her and giving her some notes that i thought could help improve her project. Later I also did some drawings for her revised storyboard.

Me and Jordan wished to practice some 3D animation and Lucinda said we could play around with some of her rigged models she made for practice. I was exited about the idea of a bit of 3D practice as i had never done any before. When the time came that she had finished the models though, she seemed under the impression that me and Jordan had volunteered to do animation for her production. This idea scared me greatly because i had never done any 3D animation before and really didn't want to spoil her project with substandard animation. She then later on did limit what i had to do, so now i only have to do a single shot with a head movement, which i feel is much more my speed really given my beginner status.

Due to the fact that the communication with the project leader with Lauren's project and the fact that i was not getting anything to do from it, Toyin savied in and tossed me a bone asking if i wanted to be the editor for Donna's project, of which he was producer. I was extremely happy with this because i had not managed to get much work in a third year project other than that, apart from a few panels of storyboard drawing.

I feel Donna's project is much easier to work on because she is a much more reachable and approachable project leader. When i need information when doing the live edit i can simply go up and ask her my query, which is very helpful.

The Party

Today me, Sophia, Glen and Billy had a meeting to do with our studio practice role of human resources. We discussed what we could do in our human resources role, multiple ideas came forth, organising bowling for the group, movie showings down in the studio thatre and a retro party with old gameing consoles and old cartoons for not just the animation but for the whole first floor (or at least our little hallway of rooms). We decided to try and see who would like to do what out of our ideas befroe we make any final by going around the room and checking to see who wants to do what on thursday which is the day when all years will be in and we should be able to get a whole studio wide opinion on the activities.
After we have discovered which activities are most popular then we will begin to think of arrangeing them and assigning roels within our human resources group.

Further into the Book Trailers

We discussed in college and it seems like multiple people, Toyin, Amy and Glen can work on the book trailer and Jordan and Sophia are potentialy interested.

Now i just need to contact J Thorn and see if he wishes to have a book trailer made by our little studio group. One of the reasons i chose the idea of a book cover trailer is because with self published authors it can be hard for them to find resources like book covers and book trailers and things such as that, and with the rising popularity of self publishing could be quite the sought after buissness.

Investigation into the book trailers, and more possibilities

I looked at the authors that i could get in contact with about animated book trailers and also gave some thought to what book trailers would i like to make and who from our mini studio would wish to join me.

In my mothers writing circles she knows a variety of authors, not a massive amount considering her books have always been in the romance genre and sub-genres within that but she did know one dark fantasy author J. Thorn who when looking at his stuff i though i could definitely enjoy making something for one of his books.

But alternativly while searching through authors via a bit of remembering work i had done in the past for outside clients in the film course I ended up thinking abouta hedgehog charity i had started a project for before, and possibiliteis for animated adverts to go on youtube and such for local animal charities that may want it, such as Woodside.