Neil Is Soooo Cooooool…



I recently picked up a copy of Hanging Out With The Dream King: Conversations With Neil Gaiman And His Collaborators and though I’ve only dug a few interviews into it, I am once again siezed with the wholly irrational impulse to try and figure out exactly how I can go about being Neil Gaiman.



As a writer and as a professional career, Neil is one of those pedastals I look up to now and again and think “Man, that’s what I’d love to shoot for.” To be this supremely talented, affable, no ego, certifiable artistic genius that manages to produce work to be proud of, in multiple mediums and rub shoulders with some really talented and cool people, not just collaborating, but becoming friends.



There’s something quite magical and frightening about the way Neil has come into his own. Personally for me, there’s no doubt as to his talent, what I find bewildering is just how readily it has come to be accepted by others, the timing of it, how he meets the right editors when he’s ready to do a comic, how he meets the right artists when he has a particular project in mind, how he gets the right publishing house 100% behind when it’s time to do a novel, a children’s book, or even a crew for a full blown movie.



Part of its admiration, part of it is envy, part of it is an appreciation for just how difficult any entertainment industry can be to break into, but I am glad–and hugely baffled–at the confluence of circumstance that surrounds Neil and the way his imagination–and by association, Dream, Death, et al–came to a generation that badly needed some kind of myth, some kind of story, some kind of narrative commentary about the human condition… And he gave it to us in the most unlikliest of forms, the burgeoning art of comics, rather than cinema or something.



Damn, I wish I could be Neil Gaiman.



I don’t think I’d much enjoy the fame aspect–and I suspect while he accepts it, he’s not particularly fond of it himself–but I relish that opportunity he has. The ability to exercise that kind of creative control when you know you have the imagination AND the talent to pull it off (Something I have yet to prove to myself, but oh well…) and then know that there are really good people out there willing to jump on and say “What can we do to make this happen?” is an artistic dream. But best of all, I think what I really would like about being Neil Gaiman is knowing that you make a difference somehow to people.



A lot of my friends (Or at least the ones that didn’t think they were too good for comics) have a deep and abiding love for the story of Dream. It’s been many things to them; the first intelligent comic they’ve ever read, a pushing of the genre’s boundaries they never thought possible, an inspiration that drove them to want to be artists or writers, or, perhaps best of all, a story that touched them, stayed with them, and somehow, in some way, maybe made them a better person for the lessons, stories and sheer humanity embedded in the tale. In a funky sort of way, it was the really deep love for the Sandman stories that even made my relationship with my fiance possible, since it was a kind of a signal, a secret handshake amongst readers. It was as if you knew that if someone else loved the Sandman the way you did, then you were both privy to the secret Neil was trying to whisper to everyone.



That’s something that I’d like to aspire to with stories someday. I don’t presume to ever write with the same intelligence and complexity as Neil, but I would love to be able to have the same effect. I would love to sit at a table at some convention after my books had come out and have someone come up to me and be unnecessarily nervous (‘Cause there is NOTHING about me to be nervous about, I’m probably the least intimidating human being on the planet) and try to communicate to me that somehow my stories and my characters reached out to them. The writing touched them. The writing found a quiet spot in their heart and said them “You are not alone, this has been survived through before, and you too shall make it,” and made some kind of difference. Helped them. Or at the very least let them feel not so alone and maybe a little bit more understood for a while.



Is that art?



I dunno, but that’s what I’d really like to do. ‘Cause that’s what Neil did for me.



Now About That Music



Things are starting to move a little faster now, true believers, much to my relief.



Yesterday I finally had a sit down and talked with the music guy that will be involved in the CG series that I still cannot talk about. He immediately scored HUGE brownie points with me by letting me rant about art, sociology, psychology, politics and cultural evolution without ever telling me to shut the hell up. Then he showed me his nice, shiny new music set up and play around with keyboard, which resulted in me tinkering out the opening notes to the Katamari Damacy theme song and then watching him riff off a few jazz and drum samples.



It’s really cool for me because there’s so much here to LEARN.



My normal exposure to the sound side of things in television has been mostly just doing voice-over sessions, and inserting “canned” license free music tracks here and there. This is the first time I’ll be working with a musician to create wholly original new tune-age, and I’m really looking forward to it. My initial perception of how music in film works has been shaped entirely too much by watching DVD extras on how sound tracks are created, and watching films like Almost Famous over and over again, so to actually see how modern musicians do their thing with high tech equipment when you DON’T have access to the London Philharmonic is looking to be quite educational. It helps that I still have some basic background in music (Guess those piano lessons were good for something after all) so I was able to at least communicate at a rudimentary level on his plane of understanding, although the important thing will always be MOOD.



Writing music for narrative television is, like film, an entirely different animal from creating jingle for advertising or creating songs for a straight up vocal/music performance. It is not about showcasing some vocal talent, it is not about layering sound so that you can explode the bass and make the crowd go nuts at the club, this is all about watching the moment on screen and then working with the musician to answer the question, “How, in tonalities and harmonies, can we carry the emotion, or even magnify and sharpen it? How can this music be part of the story? How can the music push the story along?”



It requires a certain way of thinking that I’ve ALWAYS wanted to mess around with, because I’ve always loved what music–when done right–can do for a story as a favorite melody rises up into the aural consciousness becomes this 4/4 time signature that instantly identifies the story, the characters, the feelings the story generates… in a simple collection of sounds.



I’m going to be making mistakes all over the place, that goes without saying, since this is my first time, but I’m looking forward to understanding how those mistakes occurred and what I can do expand my story telling sensibility to include the ear as much as the eye with the CG visuals, or the heart and brain with the characters and story.



Should be frustrating. But fun too.