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DIY Days In Los Angeles, Story Telling, Possible New LOVELAND Characters: The Inspector & The Hater?

On the 19th I’ll be in Los Angeles to talk about LOVELAND at the DIY Days conference. Lance Weiler who’s co-organizing the event reached out about the project and just gave LOVELAND a nice little write-up in Filmmaker Magazine as an innovative startup approach. I feel in very good company here. (Fun inchvestor fact: I traded Bre Pettis from MakerBot—mentioned in the article—10 inches for a freshly screened MakerBot shirt and hope to see people making use of their 3D printers for LOVELAND.)

Talking to Lance and getting ready to share ideas and experiences with a conference full of filmmakers and storytellers is getting me really excited. I have a dream for LOVELAND that it develops into a whole story universe of characters and things and places and games, with a narrative driven by stuff that actually happen during the course of the project — things that happen with inchvestors, on the property, in Detroit, in the world.

The development of the first parts of this story universe are happening organically alongside the development of the rest of the project. Sometimes for shorthand I say I want to do things that are “1/2 Disney, 1/2 Google, and 1/2 something else”, which to my mind means something with characters and magic and entertainment, along with a strong online component where people engage and interact with LOVELAND through software tools, along with…whatever crazy stuff happens. :) 

LOVELAND story and characters have been on my mind as I think about how to introduce it to a broader audience in a way that’s fun and inviting enough to really attract and engage people.

For those who’ve been following along, Inchy, the main character (or characters plural — I like that there can be a lot of him) jumping around above with his deed and magnifying glass, is a recognizable figure, sort of our Mickey Mouse. I want to keep developing him, figuring out why he’s here, what he’s doing, how he works. If you’ve seen the last couple videos (1, 2), you’ve seen him have one main experience so far: teleporting from the Plymouth colony and getting smashed across the city by a zombie robot. I don’t know exactly where that fits in or what’s going to happen to him next yet, but it should be fun to follow, because it’s definitely fun to work on.

Yesterday I read a fascinating article about Mickey Mouse getting a makeover for the first time in a loooong time. Check it out. One of many interesting truths here:

Keeping cartoon characters trapped in amber is one of the surest routes to irrelevancy. While Mickey remains a superstar in many homes, particularly overseas, his static nature has resulted in a generation of Americans — the one that grew up with Nickelodeon and Pixar — that knows him, but may not love him.

Maybe Inchy and Mickey should hang out? That would be cool to make. :)

In brainstorming characters yesterday, two leapt to mind that I think could add a lot, and that might start showing up in videos and other places: The Inspector and The Hater. 

A couple weeks ago I bought this sculpture from local artist Jack Spack and asked if I could modify it and use it as a character. He said, Sure! So I’m going to play with tweaking this tall, lanky, mechanical dude made from piano parts and try and make a character called The Inspector:

Basically, The Inspector will be a property inspector that works for the city of Detroit who’s going about his business checking things out, making sure stuff is up to code, when he stumbles across LOVELAND, meets Inchy, and flips out because he’s never seen anything like it before, so many little plots of land for so many people. His bureaucratic mind goes wild, but he ultimately likes what he sees and becomes The Inchspector, focused on keeping LOVELAND safe and protected.

The Hater comes to mind as a dude who simply HATES EVERYTHING ABOUT LOVELAND. He hates it! He hates me, he hates Inchy, he hates all the inchvestors, and he loves saying so. When I started thinking from the point of view of The Hater, it’s just very cathartic to intentionally include an element of criticism and dissent and self-effacement in the storyline. It’s funny, but the model I’m attracted to for The Hater is the vintage 1997 battle rapping Eminem who laughs to the beat and attacks people in clever, angry short bursts (note: there are some four letter words in the vid):

I don’t know if The Hater will rap, but if any rappers out there are reading this, get in touch. :) And any artists generally. If you want to help work a story universe of character art and videos get in touch. For serious.

Anyway, as they say in France it’s le all up in the air. Back to the drawing board!