Rachaos Screenplay - First Draft & Production Projections (Patreon)

Hey all!

I apologize for this taking so long. This is a beast of a screenplay, clocking in at whopping 131 shots! This is by far the longest screenplay I've written to date[1], with the previous longest screenplay being Rabbit.Hole Episode 3, sitting at a pretty 88 shots. It’s also gone through several rewrites before this draft was completed—there’s a reason it’s called “rev3”; that stands for revision 3, and in this case, each revision was a complete decimation of the screenplay and rewrite from scratch.

Regardless, though, it’s finally completed, though not final. Individual shots may be tweaked, some may be added or removed, and dialogue will very likely be adjusted. But this is the skeleton of the screenplay I had in mind since I posted the high-level outline weeks ago.

In terms of final video length, it’s really hard to accurately judge runtimes based off shot counts—some shots can be less than a second long, where others can be upwards of a minute, in extreme cases. Just judging from the amount of content in this project, though, I am expecting the final number to fall somewhere in the 15-to-20-minute range.

Naturally, that means that production time is going to be rather long. Throw in the fact that I am going to be spending a few weeks around the New Year[2] with my family, and I expect that this project won't be ready for release until sometime in February. Forever and as always, don't hold me to that.

I previously said I thought I was done with asset production. That was before I completed the screenplay. What remains should be trivial—some banners, an alternate skin and some shaders, and maybe the off scenebuild asset or two, and should only take a day or two to put together.

I also need to start corralling voices. I have long had in mind a particular actress for Rachel (been wanting to do something with her for years now), and I’ve a particular actress whose been longing to voice Nyotengu for almost as long. I’m not going to drop any names until I’ve had a chance to discuss the project and roles with the people I have in mind, and have successfully cast the roles.

All in all, the hard preproduction is all done now. I am hoping that by December 1 I will be able to begin full production of Rachaos, and I intend to drive hard until the morning of my leaving to be with my family. While I am away, I will try to get some work done, but I expect production to be glacially slow, if it happens at all. For all intents and purposes, consider those weeks I am out to be hiatus.

As a final note, I have previously stated that Blue Star Episode 4 preproduction would begin 4 weeks after Rachaos production began. That was back when I was eyeballing production beginning mid-November. Obviously, that isn’t going to happen anymore, and those “4 weeks after production began” would fall squarely on my hiatus.

As such, I will likely end up spending most of my “work” time during my hiatus on writing preproduction. The privacy demand of writing is far less than that of animating or asset work; though I will also try to put together the assets needed for Episode 4 during my hiatus as well. I will prioritize building a new DazV5 Jack, because DancesWithWolves (who has done minor texture work for the past few projects) wants to experiment with building her tattoos, and I want to get him as much time as possible.

I will try to make weekly Patreon posts whilst I am with my family. Don’t expect much from them, though.

And for those of you reading this who don’t have access to the $5 WIP tier, this is a fairly average weekly update. If anything, it’s a bit light, clocking in at just over a page. If you like to be kept in the loop like this, I would consider upgrading! You certainly get more out of the $5 tier than any of the lower tiers. And, honestly, more than any of the higher tiers—$5 is the only tier that gets regular updates, just by the nature of the work.

That’s all for now, folks! As always, the screenplay is attached to the bottom of this post, as a text file. Please feel free to share your thoughts on it!

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[1]: Blue Star Episode 3 isn't being counted, because it technically never had a screenplay - one of the many reasons it took two years to produce and why I constantly assert that it was a preproduction catastrophe.

[2]: About 3 weeks total, from around December 19 to around January 9; exact dates haven't been locked in yet.