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PostPosted: June 15th, 2008, 8:19 pm 
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http://blog.ghostbusters.net/2008/06/fr ... -part-one/

You'll have to actually read it--the posted pictures provide some useful context, but a few of my favorite bits...

TooZuulForSchool wrote:
I have been doing character design and 3D animation for years now, and with those years of experience came a new appreciation for the character designs used in Real Ghostbusters. Successful character designs from film to cartoon only work when the artist visually captures a character’s personality, not the actor’s likeness. The great thing about actors is they can change their personalities when acting. This is why we can accept the same face as different characters in different films. But in animation, if a character begins to look too much like the actor that played them, it gets to be too destracting because in most cases, they never look quite right.

Look at this art from the talented Dapper Dan.


<<One of Dapper Dan's pictures of stylized actor-likeness style characters appears here in the article>>

Quote:
While very skilled and well done, the characters are a bit distracting because they look like the actors…but at the same time don’t. And by focusing more on the actors likeness and less on the character traits, the spirit is gone. Venkman lost his charm and charisma and now looks weathered and unfriendly. Stantz lost his boyish nature and pure heart. Winston no longer has the down to Earth, everyman sensability. Egon is the most accurate, if only because he is the most stylized.

An actor gets an entire movie to define their character. But in TV animation, you get a limited amount of time. Not to mention you don’t get the subtle changes in personality that a real actor can provide. So in animation you have to cut to the chase and define the character instantly with their visual appearance. That is where animation is at it’s most powerful. Each characteristic from body shape, colors, hair styles, etc has to define their personality. Plus these various characteristics have to be instantly recognizable.

--snip--

Designing characters for animation isn’t easy. But the artists behind Real Ghostbusters got it right!

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PostPosted: June 17th, 2008, 2:55 pm 
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A most interesting post. On all points, I do agree, but I must offer a different point of view.

Fanfiction is NOT animation. You don't have "viewers." Fanfiction (and fiction in general) has this wonderful ability to tap into an individual mind and conjure up the appropriate images, and let the imagination run wild.

When you have a conflicting image as there is in a movie/cartoon transition, there is a temptation to FORCE this image upon the readers. Unfortunately, this fandom is riddled with it.

I recently invited my creative writing professor to read some works of ours including CoG and give a professional opinion. He believes fanfiction to be an underappreciated forgotten corner of literature, and was actually familiar with Ghostbusters (and the RGB).

Unfortunately, he told me that "I think you're not going to like what I'm going to tell you."

His criticism:

"These pieces sounded more like an author obsessed over what the ghostbusters looked like, making personal political/religious statements, or commenting on previous bad writing decisions through the mouths of the characters rather than telling the story.

To be fair, this is a common flaw in fanfiction, and next to the dreaded "Mary Sue," is the reason people never give fanfiction its fair shake.

The writers of these, and I know one is you, (Vincent), are very talented, and have some great stuff in here. If you guys stop hitting your readers over the head with the baseball bat of description and let readers decide for themselves what their heroes look like, the stuff would be top notch. Your readers know what they look like. Otherwise, they wouldn't be reading Ghostbusters fanfiction."

The next day, the professor incorporated our talk into his lesson plan, and even made us write a piece of fanfiction as a graded assignment! he told us to choose our favorite franchise, TV show, whatever, and write a piece on it.


I think I agree with my professor.

The "personality" set off by the RGB cartoon is purely from visual cues. In fanfiction, it is the reader that visualizes everything internally. To some, Egon Spengler has a blond pompadour and wears a powder blue flight suit. To others, they think of the actor Harold Ramis. Both are valid Egon Spenglers, and the beautiful thing about it, is that one person's egon doesn't intrude upon another's. As my professor put it, it's "insulting to the reader's intelligence."

If the descriptions of the GB's are left subjective in fanfiction, it leaves a common ground for ANYONE to read. I will admit, reading a concrete description for Egon, like, five times in a single fanfiction is more annoying than creative. It says to me that I can't visualize these things on my own, and if I did think of him differently, it's wrong, and I should change it.


I've taken to eliminating ALL physical describing factors from the original ghostbusters to leave my stuff subjective to the readers. If they think movie Egon, fine. If they think RGB Egon, that's great. Which one do I think of? Does it matter?

I think it also would do wonders to close the distance in certain community gaps if we just closed this issue of fanfiction. Honestly, nothing is changing. The plot points are still there, and the character development is still there, and all of the visuals of their heroes are left up to the reader.

I think I'm going to submit this in all of the "tips for writing good fanfiction" sections.


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PostPosted: June 17th, 2008, 4:07 pm 
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Valid points. A bit off the intended topic--I just loved Too Zuul basically saying "There's a reason besides Bill Murray's obsession with his likeness that the characters in the cartoon didn't look like the movie actors".

Ah well...into the fire I go :lol:

Besides a way of pointing out "No, this story is NOT set in a Movie Purist universe" ...well, let me put it like this. There was a time my dream was to be a comic book writer. One of the things I'd read somewhere about comic book writing is a reminder that "Every issue could be someone's first issue". It's why I do other little things like using the character's full name, usually the first time they're referred to in the narrative, once per story. Trying to describe the characters once per story is probably a hold over of that impulse also--a comic writer just tells the artist to "draw Batman standing there". I guess I've wanted to do a little more than go "Egon Spengler is standing there". To "Draw" that picture of Egon standing there with words. Multiple times per story...yeah, that's obsessive. And I'll try to look out for it in the future, especially as this site is chock full of pictures.

I don't know if this is one of the scenes that inspired this, but Vincent's seen the first chapter of "Eye of Aretpo"...it's a scene with John and Eric, and they're looking at a poster of the original Ghostbusters. I do go into long descriptions, with an eye to accentuating Egon and Ray's resemblances to their children without just bluntly saying "This guy looked like John, the other one looked like Eric". And it just felt unfair to go "And two other guys" after being that descriptive.

John and Eric, on the other hand, are original characters. I do get to decide how they look. And as original characters it's far more likely that someone could stumble into that story when it's inevitably posted on FFN totally unaware of who they are. They may not have read "Future Shocks" or "Gemini Rising". Indeed, "Eye of Aretpo" is being intentionally written to not require massive familiarity with what has come before--what I think everybody needs to know is in the narrative.

So tell me then, in all seriousness...should describing John's rat tail and Eden's blonde hair be out of bounds now, too?

:sigh:...This shit's beginning to wear me down. How many other fandoms have to go through this crap? It's enough to me start wishing the cartoon producers did try to make the characters look more like the movie actors, just because it would have prevented arguments like this. :roll:

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PostPosted: June 17th, 2008, 5:17 pm 
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Fritz wrote:
How many other fandoms have to go through this crap?


Off the top of my head? Transformers probably has it worse.

And I've seen months go by where in an issue of Superman, Ma and Pa Kent still had color in their hair and looked somewhat like the actors playing them on Smallville, while in the EXACT SAME month in Action Comics, they were old and gray.

But yeah, for the most part no other fandom has to deal with picking between two radically different but equally canonical looks for the exact same character.

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PostPosted: June 17th, 2008, 6:48 pm 
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Transformers..."Truk or Munky"...all of a sudden I really do feel better. :lol:

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PostPosted: June 17th, 2008, 7:42 pm 
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Not to mention Beast Machines is the genuine canon ending of Generation 1.

Man do I feel sorry for those guys.

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PostPosted: June 17th, 2008, 8:21 pm 
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TheRazorsEdge wrote:
Beast Machines i.

aaaaaaaa , do not speak of that it hurts us . hissssssss

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PostPosted: June 17th, 2008, 11:05 pm 
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Fritz wrote:
Besides a way of pointing out "No, this story is NOT set in a Movie Purist universe"


Out of curiosity, does that even need to be said? I personally don't worry about it. I like both the movies, AND RGB. I'm not a "purist" for either.

I like letting people decide for themselves.

Fritz wrote:
...well, let me put it like this. There was a time my dream was to be a comic book writer. One of the things I'd read somewhere about comic book writing is a reminder that "Every issue could be someone's first issue". It's why I do other little things like using the character's full name, usually the first time they're referred to in the narrative, once per story. Trying to describe the characters once per story is probably a hold over of that impulse also--a comic writer just tells the artist to "draw Batman standing there". I guess I've wanted to do a little more than go "Egon Spengler is standing there". To "Draw" that picture of Egon standing there with words. Multiple times per story...yeah, that's obsessive. And I'll try to look out for it in the future, especially as this site is chock full of pictures.


That's within your rights.

I avoid it purely to leave it up to the reader. I've managed to still give plenty of description without it, and it's worked so far with Mito-Conundrum. That's been the story I've used the OGBs the most.

Fritz wrote:
I don't know if this is one of the scenes that inspired this, but Vincent's seen the first chapter of "Eye of Aretpo"...it's a scene with John and Eric, and they're looking at a poster of the original Ghostbusters. I do go into long descriptions, with an eye to accentuating Egon and Ray's resemblances to their children without just bluntly saying "This guy looked like John, the other one looked like Eric". And it just felt unfair to go "And two other guys" after being that descriptive.


Meh, that again is up to you. I could offer a suggestion to keep it flavorful but keeping the references vague...but I can't truly presume to give you that unless you ask for it.


Fritz wrote:
John and Eric, on the other hand, are original characters. I do get to decide how they look. And as original characters it's far more likely that someone could stumble into that story when it's inevitably posted on FFN totally unaware of who they are. They may not have read "Future Shocks" or "Gemini Rising". Indeed, "Eye of Aretpo" is being intentionally written to not require massive familiarity with what has come before--what I think everybody needs to know is in the narrative.


As original characters, John and Eden are totally up to you.

Quote:
So tell me then, in all seriousness...should describing John's rat tail and Eden's blonde hair be out of bounds now, too?


No. Keep it. Even if the reader sees Egon in his movie version, Egon could always carry the recessive trait for blond hair. A rat tail is merely a hairdo. It's not hereditary. My cousin had a rat tail when we were younger, and my uncle has never had one (nor would he ever).

In fact, if the need is there to assert your opinion over your readers, John and Eden could be your subtle cue to the RGB universe.

Fritz wrote:
:sigh:...This shit's beginning to wear me down. How many other fandoms have to go through this crap? It's enough to me start wishing the cartoon producers did try to make the characters look more like the movie actors, just because it would have prevented arguments like this. :roll:


This may be MY fault.

I seem to be the only person in the fandom who is completely neutral in respect to Ghostbusters. Everybody else seems to have the absolute need to "hunker down in one of the bunkers of the "Movie purist" faction, and the "RGB purist" faction.

I think I'm the only person who thinks the whole concept of "choosing sides" for this completely retarded.

My only concern is the fact that Egon is a brilliant physicist who loves Janine Melnitz and is one of the founding members of the ghostbusters.

Other than that, pretty much anything goes.



If the dividing line is a necessity, then it's a necessity. I can't stop it, and I probably shouldn't have even opened my mouth.


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PostPosted: June 17th, 2008, 11:13 pm 
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DrVincentBelmont wrote:
I seem to be the only person in the fandom who is completely neutral in respect to Ghostbusters. Everybody else seems to have the absolute need to "hunker down in one of the bunkers of the "Movie purist" faction, and the "RGB purist" faction.

I think I'm the only person who thinks the whole concept of "choosing sides" for this completely retarded.

My only concern is the fact that Egon is a brilliant physicist who loves Janine Melnitz and is one of the founding members of the ghostbusters.

Other than that, pretty much anything goes.



If the dividing line is a necessity, then it's a necessity. I can't stop it, and I probably shouldn't have even opened my mouth.


Nah, I'm with you, Vince. I don't see a reason to choose between RGB and the movies either and frankly, emphasizing the dividing line is a good way to alienate half your readers.

There are absolutely exceptions though.

Comparing John and Eden's looks to their father's is a perfectly valid reason to specify what Egon looks like.

Or if you're doing a story set during or not long after EGB, you can mention Egon having a ponytail, or finally getting a haircut, because him letting his hair grow out was a characterization thing in the first place.

Describing characters of your own creation, whom the audience might not be familiar with, is absolutely fair game too. I also do that whole "introduce each character by their full name the first time they appear" thing, for instance.

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 3:03 am 
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I don't know what my status is as a fan fick righter . I have just tried to look at your guys work and try to mach it .




DrVincentBelmont wrote:

Fritz wrote:
:sigh:...This shit's beginning to wear me down. How many other fandoms have to go through this crap? It's enough to me start wishing the cartoon producers did try to make the characters look more like the movie actors, just because it would have prevented arguments like this. :roll:


This may be MY fault.

I seem to be the only person in the fandom who is completely neutral in respect to Ghostbusters. Everybody else seems to have the absolute need to "hunker down in one of the bunkers of the "Movie purist" faction, and the "RGB purist" faction.




well not really, I wouldn't say I hunker down in one or the other . Granted I do tend to lean more to the cartoon but I don't think to the point of what your thinking .

To me it just seamed that most every one was going with the cartoon , so i just thought heck that's fine with me .



DrVincentBelmont wrote:

My only concern is the fact that Egon is a brilliant physicist who loves Janine Melnitz and is one of the founding members of the ghostbusters.



there is that same for me with some other things .




TheRazorsEdge wrote:

Describing characters of your own creation, whom the audience might not be familiar with, is absolutely fair game too. I also do that whole "introduce each character by their full name the first time they appear" thing, for instance.



good to know, I've bin starting to do that as well .

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2008, 6:31 am 
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Please let's not say that anything in fanfiction is "out of bounds". I've dealt with a lot of creative professors myself, and if there's one thing I've learnt it's that you can show a piece to ten different "experts" and get ten totally different sets of feedback.

My first ever creative writing teacher basically said, Don't ever describe anyone. Then last semester I showed a piece to a different teacher, he thought it was amazing (whereas most other teachers would give me a dozen or so points for improvement), and he said, "There's only one thing that bothers me. I don't know what either of these girls look like." (One girl was pretty and other wasn't. I said I thought the reader could imagine their own idea of a pretty girl and a not so pretty girl, but he said no, he wanted description.)

I personally don't think of my fanfiction as my way of offering up a movie or an animation (and I'm not assuming anyone else does, because I don't know). I think of it as writing. But I also think of it as writing where I can describe as much or as little as I like, use substitutes for "said" if I feel like it, slip in the odd adverb etc. because it isn't going to be marked by a professor.

Fritz, if you take my advice, you won't worry about what any professor says (if you asked more than one you'd probably get conflicting advice anyway). Fanfiction is supposed to be fun. If any one of us took a piece of fanfiction to a creative writing class, or at least any of the ones I've been to, it would be at best heavily criticised and at worst totally ripped apart. But if there's any writing with which you should be allowed to follow your heart, it's writing for an informal fan community on the internet.

As for having to pick between cartoons and movies, I guess I can't realistically say I don't do it. Obviously I take most of my inspiration from EGB, but I also take a lot from GB2 and some from RGB (not so much GB1). That's how I do it. Whether writers want to discriminate or not, surely that's their legitimate choice - I don't see the need for it to cause arguments.

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