Easter Egg

Consider this a blanket perk.  All donors, regardless of donation amount (so it can even be a $1), have the opportunity to sneak in an easter egg into the finished product.  It can be an inside joke, a secret word, a nickname, a symbol, a sly reference to some of your own work, a subtle wink to your personal heroes, almost anything you can imagine.  You will have all of November to think about it and get back to us with your ideas.  Then our artist and writer will brainstorm ways to slip it into a frame of the story.  We will email you what episode to pay careful attention to in order to find your easter egg.  Think about your favorite pages from Highlights magazine or Where's Waldo back in the day, and you'll get the concept.  So please, come play with us!

The Story

After many years questing for a way to rid herself of a magical curse, Ardra relinquishes hope and resigns to settle in Mortu’us Lull, a city colonized by the cursed people of the world.  However, Ardra finds no solace there.  Instead, she discovers a population of insufferably morose individuals, who fill every waking hour at the local pub complaining about their curses and competing for sympathy.  As much as these whiny villagers are a nuisance to Ardra, she is a curiosity to them.  Not only does she refuse to participate in their habitual lamenting, but she is also stubbornly reticent about the nature of her own curse.  Still, she worries that if she doesn’t find a way to feel at home amongst her afflicted peers in Mortu’us Lull, then cursed as she is, she may never truly belong anywhere else.

The Inspiration

I took all my worst habits—procrastination, pessimism, self-preoccupation, and overall dissatisfaction—all the things that undermine my ambitions and self-confidence, and I boiled them down to their root causes. Then I re-imagined them as magic spells and created a fairy tale scenario where all the cursed individuals of the world are collected into one place, Mortu’us Lull.

There’s Hamish, the drowsy barkeep, who hasn’t had a wink of sleep in countless decades. Ellard, one of Hamish’s most faithful patrons, haunts the inn’s pub for no other reason than to moan to people about his interminable hunger.  And consider Ketra, who is frequently found in attendance waxing hyperbolic about her once admirable beauty now ravaged and deformed by an undeserved hex. In fact, Hamish’s pub sees a lot of business and bellyaching from citizens with all manner of magical torments from hideous transformations, incurable ailments, and even more curious conditions.  Ultimately, this is a story about the dangers of complacency and the necessity of hope.

Why a Motion Comic

Originally, I conceived this story as a novella, but there was something about it that refused to lie flat on a page. So I decided to put what little skill I acquired in film school to work, and I re-imagined the story as a 7-episode motion comic to be shared on the web.  What I love about cinematic storytelling is its eclectic nature. It’s a visual art. It’s musical. If done right, it’s literary. There’s hardly an art form it doesn’t represent.  

And there’s the collaborative aspect as well. Writing can be a very solitary act, but filmmaking is by necessity a team effort. After volunteering for various theater projects, I made the acquaintance of many talented actors, whose voices kept turning up in my head as I scrawled out the dialogue of these characters. And re-imagining this story as a motion comic created the perfect opportunity to work with a remarkable artist whose work I have silently stalked on deviantart for over a year. Lucas Ryan took a handful of adjectives and a few descriptive sentences and transformed them into such perfect representations of these characters that I felt like I was meeting them for the first time.

A confluence of imagination has occurred on this project that is in itself thrilling and somewhat magical. So when you support a labor of love like this one, you’re not just supporting one starry-eyed writer but a whole host of passionate artists from voice-over actors, animators, graphic designers, composers, sound editors, and the list goes on. Just imagine the Karma.   

What I love most about shows made for the web is the ability for an audience to interact so instantaneously with their entertainment.  And that starts right here with this campaign. As a donor, you’re not only helping to create the project you want to see, but you can help shape it. And I’m trying to generate various ways you can participate with how it grows and develops. I’m dying to hear about what kind of curses you want to see represented in Mortu’us Lull.  What characters do you like most and want to hear more about?  

Help Us Get This Project Moving

Your support and donations will help to provide for:

-production costs – including equipment, software, composition, et cetera

-promotional materials to help spread the word

-webhosting charges – including hosting and domain name

-rental fees for recording studio time

-postage costs – for promotional materials and perks

-Indiegogo costs and surcharges

A small project like this can use all the support it can get. Even if you can’t support us financially, please help spread the word about Accursed on facebook, twitter, and social media. We truly appreciate every bit of help you can give.