Alan O.W. Barnes

I already have “Who Cares if You Listen”, which will become a more regular tutorial series on the subject of music and audio once my current degree program is finished.

The Comic Shop will be a tutorial series on Comics and Sequential Art.

“Who Cares” is essentially the tutorials I use for the Audio Program at the Art Institute.

“The Comic Shop” will be the tutorials I use for the Sequential Art degree program I’m developing.

This Sequential Art degree program in development has been sold, and I will be announcing the hosting college where It will be located in February or March of 2012. I can tell you the college is fully accredited (actually more so than any college I’ve ever worked for other than Vanderbilt), and we are developing a ‘face-to-face’ program as well as an online version.

I do not intend to leave AiA, but I will be doubling up my teaching activities to include both Music/audio at AiA and Sequential Art at this new school.

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Update Summer 2011

by alan on July 10, 2011 at 5:23 pm

Posted In: Commentary, News

Just a quick update about the state of things in general.

First, I’m only a year away from the end of my MFA in Sequential art (there was much rejoicing)! It’s been a hard road, and I’ve learned a lot… Not just about Sequential Art and storytelling.

Second, I will finish my fifth year as an instructor at the Art Institute of Atlanta’s audio production department this September! I’m astounded that time is flying by this quickly.

Third, I’m working diligently on my creative projects. I know you haven’t seen a lot from me for the last few years except for some short stories (none more than 11 pages long) and a couple of short films (none more than 5 minutes long), but I’ve been steadily composing some longer form works that I’m really excited about. I’m working with both visual and aural story telling, so I’m excited about the possibilities, and I’m even more excited about the results I’m getting as these projects develop. Don’t expect to see anything long form till about a half year after I finish school next summer, but once that happens I’m confident you will see a steady stream of projects for at least a few years.

Fourth, I have a secret project brewing. I can’t talk about it yet (so why bring it up?), I’m so excited about this one I had to mention that I meet with all the decision makers tomorrow morning. Right now it looks like a sure thing, so I think it’ll go through. Even if it does, I won’t be able to say anything about it till around February. I will say that if this project happens, it’ll usher in a whole new phase to my career, and increase my ability to produce quality creative work exponentially. If it happens it will put me in a position to give back to the creative community in an amazingly strong way.

I saved the most important stuff for last: My daughter Keira is a little over 4 months old now. I’ll blog some photos soon.

-A

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Thor Movie Review

by alan on May 16, 2011 at 6:25 am

Posted In: Commentary, News

on the con side:

The film obviously suffers from too many writers. There were no less than 3 opening sequences and one of them assumed I (or any audience member) was an idiot.

The love interest storyline reminded me of a made for TV movie where Battlestar Galactica found Earth. There were two male characters meant to sort of be like Starbuck and Apollo. When they got to Earth shenanigans ensued involving a girl. Suddenly at the end without any buildup or insinuation the girl professed her undying love for one of the characters.

Thor wasn’t quite as bad as this, but the relationship does hang on one conversation, one offhand comment, and a few ‘beefcake’ shots, which tell us why Jane was into Thor, but not why Thor was into Jane. I think we were supposed to feel that Thor liked her because she believed in him when no one else did. However, this contradicts his arrogance. By the point in the movie when Thor expresses any hint of humility several of the characters believe in him. I would’ve bought the relationship more if there was some ‘cheesecake’ to balance the ‘beefcake’ along with at least 2 moments where Thor genuinely got something emotional out of the relationship with Jane. I think the closest we had to this was a night spent explaining Yggdrasil, the world tree.

There are a handful of side characters that aren’t needed, and again feel like people who had a bigger stake in earlier versions of the script. The story tries to be too big before we understand the world, and that is it’s major flaw.

On the Pro side:

I totally bought Thor, his relationship with Loki and Odin, as well as the character turns of the movie. Not only did they deliver a living breathing Thor, but they delivered his arrogance with his charm. The story about brothers and their father was both simple and powerful. Well played.

The main point of the movie really worked, and delivered the big emotional impact all were hoping for. My wife loved it. Though I would add that there were 2 sides to theme at play, (the theme was something about family and the games a father plays when he is trying to teach his children. Both Thor and Loki needed to learn humility) and while Thor’s arc was solid, Loki’s was less so. I wish his story had been more well thought out.

I really liked conceptually what they tried to do with the multiple antagonists. It was clever, deceptive, and felt more real than many movies where the antagonist felt manufactured (the antagonist is usually just a bigger badder version of protagonist, ala Hulk, Iron Man, whatever…). In this case it was really a film about an internal conflict with outward ramifications. All external conflicts were there to drive the story, but they were not the story. The story was Thor learning humility. Interestingly, it was also about Loki learning the same, but again, that needed more thoughtfulness and clarity.

The teaser after the credits was fun. Unlike some of the previous Iron Man teasers it was nice to see one that both hinted toward the future and gave some insight as to what we just watched.

Most of the issues would probably have been solved by simply using fewer writers.

Bottom line: good but not great. 7.5 out of 10.

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