2010 feels like it just got upgraded somehow. Feb’s dead, baby. Feb’s dead.

I just finished putting a new board together for one of several projects I’ve got up on the wall at the moment. Busy year this. I’ll break some of this down and let you know what’s filling my days over the next couple of posts.

Last week over at Sleepydog HQ we had the first development meeting on the project that’s taking shape in the wake of Slingers. No idea how much I can tell you about that at this stage, although we will be blogging from the development room from time to time so stuff is bound to leak a little. I guess it’s safe to say that it’s sci fi (sort of) and police procedural (kinda). But only in the same way that Slingers is a sci fi heist show – we tend to build on those basics pretty fast and as ever are being outrageously ambitious. Hope to introduce you to the show as soon as possible but for now I can’t even tell you where it’s set…

Another meeting on this tomorrow so I’ll tweet when I can. And Toby seems to be in Canada. No idea why…

I’m currently throwing a bag together for an early morning flight as I’ll be spending a few days in Ireland to work on a new (sorta secret) project. While SLINGERS sits with the network (can’t spill any beans yet, but we’re getting there) I’m taking the opportunity to get stuck into something… criminal.

This offer came in a roundabout way via SLINGERS (suddenly being taken seriously by people who have been doing this for a long time is very cool) and breaks down into myself and an industry pro squirreled away putting this new concept together. Already had a preliminary meeting that went really well and this week we begin working on the framework. When we’re happy with that we’ll start throwing some meat on the bones.

We just started work on the other shows on the Sleepydog slate and there are some really well received concepts now starting to maneuver into position behind SLINGERS. Can’t talk about any of them yet, but I’ll be using the blog as a research dump for some of them as we start to bulk them up. The work I’m doing now goes quite a bit beyond writer, but that’s something I’ll get around talking about once I have the time.

Hoping to be back in LA in February – some really interesting meetings already lined up and I hope I can talk about some of that stuff as it unfolds. Then as a sort-of break I’ll be heading to Portland in March to catch some of Con-Con before driving down to San Francisco for a little road-trip (and research).

Couple of meet-ups too I expect…

Lots of time to fill in hotel rooms between now and April which is generally good news for sizemore.co.uk. Also starting to pile up a few posts in draft form and have an ever growing list of blog fodder to get through.

You have been warned.

The new Sleepydog website and blog launched today. I’ve been working with Sleepydog for maybe a year now. First with the social media stuff and more recently with the TV stuff. I consider myself lucky to be part of a team who has had so much success in creating so much cool content. Best of all, whether its working on Amplified, joining in at CreativeCoffeeClub or figuring out the perfect crime for our new show there’s never been a day I haven’t enjoyed.

I only work on a couple of the projects that come out of the office – in lots of ways it reminds me of the Googleplex setup, just without the creepy Stepford Wives atmosphere – but there’s always a lot more going on than I know about. Well worth adding the new site to your RSS reader to keep up – these guys tend to move fast.

Oh and I’ll be blogging over there too.

Also a good place to see some Slingers concept art:

Our heroic Mech Five, Junior, does his best to protect Marti
from a next generation Mech in episode 1.10 “Six“

Toby Moore’s Cool Curve presentation is now online:

This is the presentation he gave both at the Tuttle and Reboot from an original concept worked out with David Terrar and David Tebbutt. The video is a cleaned-up version of this talk, but now filmed (properly) by Laura Kidd, further tweaked and distributed just about everywhere by Phil Cambell.

The content of the presentation has been refined through lots of feedback, but this is the first chance to put it in front of as wide an audience as possible.

I’ve been hanging out with the Cool Curve for a couple of months now, testing it on people, catching reactions to it and generally building up a picture of what it covers and where it still needs a little TLC. I’m very interested to track the feedback on this so if you can free up 20 minutes and a coffee please give it a whirl and let me know what you think.

At 19+ minutes it obviously needs editing down and I also think there’s a couple of natural pauses in the flow that will allow us to split the presentation up. The latter part regarding Chris Brogan’s “conversations are rivers” and how that should be developed feels like it’s going to grow into something that works as a stand alone piece. I’d love to see The Cool Curve refined a little more and given to the guys at Common Craft to play with.

That said, I’m a big fan of Toby’s drawing over powerpoint style and this makes a great jumping off point for conversation.

When I first started talking to DT and Sleepydog about the Cool Curve I was immediately struck by how my own creative (and not so creative) endeavours fitted within the structure. That’s something I want to discuss further as I’m not usually comfortable being pigeon-holed between two axis, but this is such a resilient little idea that it’s hard to dismiss, even for a contrary SOB like myself.

More to come once the video has been digested a little further… (it’s also up on Google Video and Vimeo)