Imperial Command of the Raccoon General

Thoughts and Memoirs of a Ring-tailed and Masked Dominator of the World

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General of the mighty Raccoon Army

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Rove: Trying to breathe life to a dream?

ROVE.

For the past few weeks I've been working on that project tirelessly. It's been a long journey from discussing the minor concepts and giving birth to the idea that is ROVE, to the point of doing artworks, conceptuals and printing them all out on paper.

Why Rove? Because Rove is simply a word meaning to wonder around, something I have been doing and something perhaps Roza has been doin too. But in the context of the story, Rove is about a group of people lead by one female protagonist, wandering about the vast expense of galaxies, encountering the bizzare, mystical and unexplained even, towards the one goal. And contained within that goal are the many underlying questions and philosophical theories on life, society and perceptions to it. What's more interesting for me about Rove is that I can come to love a project whose main protagonist is neither sexily dressed nor capable of kicking major butt. Aiyana Muri, and that is a name I'd never be able to come up with, is a nice girl, she's smart and independent. She looks nice, but she needs not nor tries to flaunt it. She is the kind of girl you could take home to meet your mother.

What is Rove? Rove is our project, an idea for an animation series but for now spearheaded only by a concept of getting a cool trailer out to entice people to it. Rove is an idea, a channel to put forth questions and perhaps visualize philosophical theories. Above all Rove is an outlet for me to projet my creativity and test out conceptuals. Rove is the dream project I'd have always wanted; the right content, the right material, the right work environment and the right people. In basic terms however, Rove tells the story of our stated protagonist, bestowed with the ability to see into the past of objects, persons or locales. Aiyana Muri, driven by such visions, leads to her being hounded by a clandestine authority whilst she tries her best to seek answers to her questions.

The cast of Rove is created mainly through a series of discussions, compromise and shared interests. I have never been more satisfied with it, for never in my entire life have a I ever had such varied characters. On my own, I would never have pushed beyond the boundaries of my 'safe' zone. There would be no redheads, colored hair, purple robes, and many more. I stuck to what I like best and that was it. But with Rove, I went beyond such borders, either through sheer curiosity or propelled in doing so by an equally eager team member.

And gosh, how I love redheads now.

The process of Rove is what makes it worth the while.Whether or not the RM50,000 grant will come into our greedy paws is another story, because for our efforts, we are already winners. We have transcended beyond our norm (for me at least) and we have worked to completion a project that imbues the (often conflicting) tastes of my team member Roza, and I. We trumped over the odds of logistics, resources, time and manpower to complete this, and for that we have won.

Far from being idealistic and Utopian, I admit we had hiccups and a number of disagreements along the way, but for all that we managed to get through it, and that for me is admirable. But more so was the amount of passion and ideas pouring into Rove. I'm sure Roza would have drawn upon what she knew as I have drawn upon my past works and ideas. We were eager to impart a bit of ourselves into this. A lot of character concepts came from Roza, despite the fact that I drew them all. So truthfully I think a number of the characters are Roza's creation, not mine. But I did most of the tech designs, based upon all my past references and works so at least that was my big piece. Nevertheless our differing input seems to drive us to progress further I think. We were like super-charged Energizer bunnies when it comes to seeing this project bearing its fruits.

The best part in the concept of Rove is that it is not finished, but has merely just begun. There is room for still so much more inputs and ideas that can be implemented to enrich the Rove universe. I would hope for it to be like Star Wars, for it is not just a story, but a whole universe and a culture in its own, because my only regrets are that we do not have more time to put even more content and materials to show to the MDC panels, and we would perhaps be better off if we had more of the right kind of people joining with us, brainstorming and visualizing their own piece of what is Rove.

Will this take off? I hope so. Because while we are pitching for a grant, and yes past getting the grant we would hope to get a contract of sorts to do a whole season (which is quite a BIG wish...) but for this to take off, it requires not that mentioned grant or MDC to want this project. I think what makes it take off even if we don't get anything is our own persistance and conduct in bringing forth this idea to life. How we do it, how far would we go... that is what matters.

The real reward in the entire project is in the process,... and the people you work with.