Box Peek March Update (Patreon)

I imagine many of you woke up today, saw that it's April 1st, and thought "Oh sweet, today is the day for a new Box Peek update." That enthusiasm is warranted, as it is indeed time for another monthly update.

Production Update
I'm in the coloring phase of Episode 7. While this technically puts me ahead of where I was with Ep 6, it's hard not to think about where I would be if I didn't get sick last week. The coloring phase rules though because it's a chilled-out activity that requires minimal creative decision making. I guess cutting is more brain-dead but it always stresses me out for some reason.

I expect Ep 7 to be finished by the end of this month, but with jury duty coming up this week we could get a whole wrench of justice tossed into the operation. Not that I want to neglect my responsibilities as a citizen, but you know, I gotta finish this thing eventually.

Behind-the-Scenes Thoughts
This month I'd like to talk about rules. Whether they're explicit or not, every work of fiction has rules. I mean even non-fiction, like Steve Harvey won't host Family Feud with a balloon tied to his wrist the whole time for no reason. It would be hilarious but it would break the rules of Family Feud, right?

With Box Peek I'm primarily concerned with narrative rules, rules of the world, and my own  production rules.

By narrative rules, I guess I mean abiding by a genre. Box Peek is having fun with Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh/Beyblade, the types of anime designed to market a game or toy. The weird part is that while I'll take similar scenes, tropes, and archetypes from these types of shows, it's not really strictly a satire, since I just wanted to make a show of my own that takes place in one of those kinds of worlds. That hopefully comes across as early as in the tag of episode one, where we see Jordy's opponent having a sad real conversation with his wife, which isn't a goof on a regular scene you see in kids' anime but is more of a "If this is true, then--" exploration. Every episode ends with a unique song smashing to credits, which is more of an HBO series thing than any anime. Box Peek as a show exists in this weird genre of part-homage, part-satire where I can obviously do and show whatever I want, but I still like to play by Pokemon-like rules (like shouting the name of the episode) whenever possible to help establish the viewer in a Pokemon-like world.

Rules of the world are pretty similar and honestly were pretty fun to figure out. Just stuff like What do people like to do, What is the history of everything, What is the money called, What is the same/What is different? is pretty fun to figure out when you're creating your own universe. This kind of stuff was never really a frustrating challenge since it's all fun to work out, especially on a comedy show where you can make something canon just because it's funny.

The rules of production are where I got caught up a few times with Episode 7. Everything in Box Peek is made of the same paper, except for all the shiny stuff in Jordy's box summoning sequence, or the actual light from Allio Vulla's Ultra Bright Beam Box Mod, or The Bronze Fang's fang, or that one piece of paper behind the mannequin. Everything is made of 2D planes, except for some tables, some background objects, and all the boxes. I basically have a lot of self-imposed rules that I break all the time whenever it's convenient for me. In preparing Episode 7, there were a lot of times I've second-guessed the materials I'm using, or what should be presented in 3D vs 2D. I don't want to stray too far from the look of the show or what the audience has accepted as the world's visual style.

For instance, if I just had one character played by a real life action figure or 3D CG model, it might be a funny gag, but it breaks the entire world we've built up til this point. Suddenly it's a world of stuff instead of a world of living people. It's like how you learn day one of improv to hold a phone in the air instead of sticking out your pinky and thumb, or never to comment on someone's actual clothes. We as an audience accept that the improvisors are holding objects and becoming other people, but breaking those rules destroys the world the audience has agreed to believe in. On the other hand, I can recognize I'm just making a weird internet comedy show with paper puppets. As long as I stick to the rules most of the time, it's okay to use an actual flash light or different kind of paper when it's useful.

The rule I'm most proud to have stuck to is that while I've used compositing to combine several shots together, all effects have been practical. It would have been much easier to After Effects a beam of light coming from a box, or make Jordy's Boxporter blink on and off with a simple filter, but I truly believe it adds value to the world (and thereby the show) that these things are visibly tangible to the story's characters and to the audience. Also every tongue uses the Ruby Red colored pencil. Rules are rules.

Rule number 2 of weekly updates is always write too much. I'll be back around this time next month. See you then!

And, as always,
Thank you for your patience and support,
--Kyle