Doug Daulton

Storyteller (Words & Images)

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Final Draft Templates for Comics

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It was Antony Johnston who first switched me on to the joys of Final Draft, and gave me a copy of his own comic-book template to go along with it.

Since then I’ve developed my own version of the template, which more closely resembles traditional screenplay format – right down to the pig-ugly Courier font. You can download it for Final Draft 6 here.

Many thanks to Andy Diggle for making his comic book template for Final Draft available again. If Andy’s template does not blow your skirt up, you might also check out the source material from Antony Johnson, another professional comic author. Thanks to William Satterwhite for the heads up on Johnson’s template.

Interested in the work of Andy Diggle and Antony Johnson? Check out their blogs by clicking on their names.

From Russia With Love!

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Well, we are here. Actually, we’ve been in country for four days now. The weather has been … well … Russia in winter. Translation: it is freeeking cold! 😀 The flights over were uneventful and the trans-Atlantic flight in Iberia Airlines was particularly nice.

We spent the first few days of the tour in Sergiev Posad, a small but historically important town about two hours outside of Moscow. We stayed at the Abramcevo Hotel which, despite a slight resemblance to the hotel in “The Shining“, was a very nice place. While in Sergiev Posad, we toured a rustic Russian home, took a traditional sleigh ride and toured the nearby monastery and fortress. All of this touring took place during the two coldest days on record in the town so far … 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily, we were all well prepared for the cold.

Yesterday, we packed up and headed into Moscow. So far, we have toured Red Square, the Kremlin and St. Basil Basilica. I have to say, the tour of Red Square was very surreal. As a high school student before the fall of the Soviet Union, I remember news of long breadlines, people regularly freezing to death in Russian winters, religious oppression and general despair in Moscow. Now, it is clear that capitalism has taken a firm foothold, churches of all sorts are flourishing and prosperity, if not already present, seems right around the corner. How times change! Kelly and I both feel most fortunate to be here.

The Road to Open Water Diver

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Today, I took the first major step in fulfilling a lifelong goal … PADI Open Water Diver certification. I had a lot of fun at the course taught over at Scuba Dogs. The instructors were great! At the end of the course, we played underwater frisbee and toss. That was an unexpected treat after intense practice. Rolling over in 15+ feet of water and looking up without holding my breath was a pretty amazing experience. I cannot wait to do it in the open ocean.

WETA discuss 3D Effects in LotR

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Alias traveled to New Zealand for the world premiere of The Return of the King and to meet with four of the key players at Weta Digital to find out more about the 3D effects in the third movie. Scott Houston, chief technology officer at Weta Digital; Randall William Cook, animation designer and supervisor; Matt Aitken, digital model supervisor; and Jason Schleifer, senior animator and creature technical director offer up their thoughts on working on three back-to-back movies, their successes, challenges and what’s next for Weta.

Alias Community » WETA – Return Of The King

Alias/Wavefront, makers of Maya, chats with the digital effects folks over at Weta Workshop. Interesting stuff for 3D and film-making aficionados and professionals alike.

Neil Gaiman on Blogging

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Re: Journal – by burrows
William Gibson just stopped blogging [williamgibsonbooks.com], stating that informal blog/journal writing gets in the way of writing fiction.

Is there a conflict for you between maintaining your journal and writing fiction? How do you manage your time / ideas / approach, in order to stay active in both?

Neil [Gaiman]:
I’ve enormously enjoyed the immediacy of having the blog. In some ways it sort of bypasses established promotional and advertising systems. It means that, for example, if I’m giving a talk or doing a signing, many of the people who would have wanted to know this, know it. So while Steve Martin and I were both headlining at New York Is Book Country, and his face was on the ad material, mine was the talk that sold out. And if he had a blog, and blog readers, and so on, like I do, his would have sold out as well. It also means that I have several hundred thousand people cheerfully being some kind of a knowledge pool, for when I need to know things (especially techie things, which are always very mysterious to me) and more questions always being sent in than I could ever answer.

From Neil Gaiman Responds at Slashdot

I found this snippet really interesting. It is very telling about the power of the blog/online journal. Not only can blogs be a non-intrusive, opt-in marketing tool (intended or no); the medium also provide an unprecedented means of two-way communication between artists and thier audiences. This recipriocal and potentially symbiotic exchange has tremendous potential.