Okay, okay- its not a time when we look forward to, but we know it'll happen osmeday- someday, TBC's material won't be as fresh or funny as it used to be, and they'll decide that they've jumped the shark and will quit. Either that, or T-shirt sales will go down and they won't be able to support themselves anymore. Or maybe they'll say one day "We're adults now! Let's go do something more with our lives!" No matter how it ends, we have to face the facts: Homestar can't last forever. So day Homestar will have to run- away!
Or can it? At the wiki, we have many devoted fans who I'm sure would hate to see Homestar end. So, I've decided to develop a company I like to call "Project: Jumpshark".
Project: Jumpshark is a company I've decided we should put together so that once TBC retire, Homestardoesn't have to. We'll get the finest in animation, voice, and comedy writing to help us out to keep Homestar from thriving and flourishing years- heck, even decades- after TBC call it quits.
But, of course, we can't just take your word for it if you say you're "an excellent Strong Bad" or "pretty good with Flash" over the internet, because- hey- you could be lying, or YOU might not be up to OUR standards. So we hold an audition of sorts... there are several departments you can work for if you want to audition. Underneath are a short description of each one and how to audition-
Writers
The writers- oh, the writers! Now, I know that there isn't really any complex scriptwriting involved in the way things work now, since TBC mainly improvize when theyre doing the voices, we can't nescessarily count on the people providing the voices to write our stories, so we need script-writers. It'll be yours to come up with decent dialogue and storylines for the letters to Strong Bad we recieve, plus ideas for Big Toons, and for Shorts based on the content in the Strong Bad E-mails. Basically, the way this works, we'll have five writers which we pick at random to write for emails and Holiday Toons, and then the other four can work on concepts for Shorts or Big Toons, which we will be passed by the Consultant (more on them later) and approved or DISSAPROVE'D! To audition, either write a script for a Big Toon or write a Strong Bad E-mail based on an email in the "Emails you've set Strong Bad" thread.
Voice Actors
Now you can finally put your great character impressions to use!Although you may not be able to write some of your own material, the voices are still definitely one of the most important parts. No matter what else you change on the site, if the voices are still the same, the old fans will still feel at home. That's why I'm going to strive to get authentic sounding voices for ALL characters. The voices of the characters will basically just be reading off a script that the writers make. However, we will encourage the voices to ad-lib whenever they feel it would add something to the scene, because it will add some of the original off-the-cuff feeling Homestar runner has to this new style. However, please not the Consultant/Editor (more on them later) can cut out anything you say that they deem inappropriate or unnescessary or that they just don't find very funny. The voice actors, while they might not feel very independant in the creative process, have the honor of being the very center of the site. To audition, send in a .wav file of you reciting at least 3 lines of the character you're trying out for.
Animators
Once the script is written and the voices are recorded, its time for the animators to come in and animate the techniques described in the script, or suggested by the vocie actors' ad-libs. Although the animators may also not feel as independant, they can feel free to alter ome of the descriptions in the script to make it better or funnier, and also put in visual gags in the background that they find humorous, as long as it gets passed by the consultant (more on them later). We'll probably have several animation teams, one for every style (20x6, 1936, TGS, etc.), just to diminish the amount of work for each animator, but of course, we know that the regular-Free Country style will get the most work, so only apply for a job in that if you have more free time. To audition, send a lnik to a Homestar animation you've done (merely post it on Newgrounds or a Tripod or Geocities site if you don't have a website) and try to get as close to the current style of whatever your auditioning for- unless, of ocurse, you have an idea on how to improve the current design!
)UPDATE: Okay, okay, with my minimal knowledge of flash, I didn't realize there was a difference between designing and animating characters. Okay, so, if you want to DESIGN characters, please post a fewpicture of your best shot at the current Homestar design (copy/paste doesn't count
). If you want to aNIMATE, ask for permission from one of the designers to use some of their designs and do a small animayion, of either just movement, or using dialogue for Marzipan's Answering Machine, but animated, toshow off the mouth movements)
Store Managers
Now, obviously, Project: Jumpshark has to pull in money to pay for the domain and other supplies somehow. So, we'd keep the store open. And to manage it, we would have what we'd call Store Managers. They would be srota like engineers at the disney parks- they would come up with ideas for products and ways to realize them. I can safely say, since this is a wikiforum-based company, I can assure you some of our products would be more fan-based. By that I mean 2 things: a) We'd take polls to see what kindof products the fans want and, ultimately, which ones would draw in the most money and b0 we'd publish some works by fans. Personally, I'd love to see some T-Shirts with willDrawForPocky (t0_t3h_m00n) art on them, or a purchaseable software version of snowthrower's excellent Compy 386 emulator. Again, all ideas will be passed by the Consultant (more on them next). To audition, please come up with a few concepts for products you think would draw in fans and money and show them to me.
CONSULTANT aka GOD
Finally, the much-aformentioned Consultant. this will be the Big Guy, the one person that everything goes thru. He(or she, but I'll just refer to them as he for now)'ll be the boss- he'll approve scripts, approve the voice acting, approve the animation, and approve any possible prodcuts we'll be selling. This person will be there for solely one purpose- to make sure that Homestar- though using a much different style to produce the cartoons- still remains very similar to the classic TBC cartoons. As such, they need to be someone that Homestar means very much to, and who has a vision on how to keep the website alive and growing. So, to audition, you must write an essay about a) what Homestar means to you personally and b) how you would make sure it stayed alive, and what you would make sure would or wouldn't happen under your leadership. If when I recieve all the essays, I don't think anyway is suited for the job, I will take this position.
All in all, you may be thinking "Why do we need all these people for what's being done right now by- basically- only two?" Well, there are many good reasons, but the most satisfying two are these...
a) TBC are basically jacks of all trades. They are masters at all topics listed above. because they are so talented, it would be hard to find two-or even five or six- people to replace their work. This way, we can have really good people in all areas, not people with strengths in one area and weaknesses in others, yet who run the whole thing.
b) Becauase this will be mainly volunteer work (we may get some of the money from sales for our efforts, but more than likely, not much), and you people are probably already loaded down with school or owrk, I'm sure none of you are very willing to drop everything and just start running Homestar Runner. This way, everything is evenly distributed, and nobody works harder than necessary.
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