Life
of Lewa- Behind the scenes
How
It Began
The
Life of Lewa series is a fan fiction role play which revolves around
the well
known Bionicle hero, Toa Lewa.
This
series is a tale of love, family, heart break, happiness and the
overall adventure of life lived through Lewa's eyes.
To
my slight embarrassment, it's basically a role play series that
quickly turned into a Bionicle soap opera.
It
all started on Thurs., Jan. 28, 2010; when I introduced
Bionicle to a new friend, in attempt to warm her up to Bionicle role
play, the sort I call animated still life rp.
My
friend was entirely new to Bionicle, but I was convinced she would
like it, and I was right. Her personality reminded me of Lewa, so I
handed her that character, and encouraged her to act him while I
played other figurines. Her reaction was classic, the first thing she
did was slightly grimace and shrug at the lime green figure handed to
her. She agreed to play along, but didn't much like the color
green..her reasons, because it clashed with her complexion. I
convinced her that the character was perfect for her to act, and
explained that her personality fit the role well. This warmed her up
to trying, and we started playing the very first episode, now called,
“The encounter”.
When
my friend first started playing Lewa in “The Encounter”, she was
unaware of the character's qualities, and used a Southern accent for
his voice. This made me laugh; and I stopped her before Lewa was
turned into a big joke, and explained he was meant to be more Irish
in quality, then showed her the scenes with Lewa from Bionicle the
Mask of Light movie. She caught on to his character and accent
better after that, and soon she started to love acting Lewa,
forgetting all about her taste for green.
After
the first episode, I found my friend was becoming hooked to the
Bionicle series, and toys; loving every moment of play time we could
get for rp.
From
that day onward, continuing for nearly seven months; starting from
from Jan. 28, 2010 till July 25, 2010, me and my friend
acted out episodes for Life of Lewa in the animated still life style.
(Animated still life is just play time with plastic figurines).
I
didn't expect our role play to turn into a story, but somehow it did.
I was expecting each episode to be random, and short lived; in fact,
the first episode acted was a test run and warm up rp session to see
if my friend would even like it.
Once
I knew she liked it, we continued role play, and she stuck to using
Lewa as her main character.
The
more we played, the more apparent it became that this story was about
Lewa, whom we liked putting through crazy adventures and mind
twisting scenarios. Lewa was never left out of any episode, and he
became my friends iconic character, while I acted pretty much
everyone else (and still do).
Soon
we found ourselves planning and creating complex ideas and story
concepts for our unnamed rp at the time, and each episode somehow fed
into itself and linked on like a chain to each episode before it. It
was no longer running on random; even what at first seemed random
somehow became a new puzzle piece that fit on to more complex
scenarios.
The
rp sequence in animated still life form was very exiting. Me and my
friend made phone calls and spoke about new ideas, stayed up late
acting and scheming during sleep overs, exchanged name and character
concepts, and had full episode idea discussions during long drives to
and from each others homes during the weekends.
Soon
the story formed into something extravagant and addicting, I will
confess. It was an art inspiring story that somehow became enchanting
to our creativity. I found myself making art, and objects pertaining
to this role play story; and all I could ever think about is what we
would invent next in the rp.
After
July 25, 2010 we had to change rp methods. A great many
episodes were played out in only half a year, and by the time July
came around the story had become an apparent story, and not just a
random rp sequence.
We
had to change acting methods due to a few life changes; but this
didn't stop us from continuing our play. We started up rp in a new
form I came to call vocal rp (voice acting of characters online
through video and microphone). We continued the adventure through
technology; something that took me awhile to get use to; and
continued the Life of Lewa series from there.
For
the next year and a half we carried out rp for LoL, never really
caring about the episodes already played, just looking forward to
acting the next new episode. We didn't actually record episodes,
because it was an embarrassment at the time, and we feared that if it
landed into the wrong bunch of readers, we would be in for trouble.
Then
it happened, sometime near the first week in December 2011, the Life
of Lewa series was put on hold for the next two years.
During
this time I never stopped dreaming of concepts and new ideas, and
held on to the LoL story, even though it appeared to be retired. It's
during this two year break that I realized this rp had become
something great, something magical, something oddly captivating and
heart breaking all at once. Then it came to me, I realized it was
time to step out of the dark, and push this series into the light; it
needed a name, it needed to be written.
This
is when I started calling it Life of Lewa. The name seemed perfectly
fitting for the apparent theme of the rp, and holds a double meaning.
In abbreviation it's seen as LoL; we know that lol commonly means
laugh out loud. Then I thought, what is Life of Lewa like...? It's
comedic in many ways, but serious in others. What is Lewa like in
many cases, even in canon Bionicle story line? He comes across as the
passionate joker, right? With this in mind, Life of Lewa is a series
that may cause you to laugh out loud in some ways, but does in fact
hold it's serious qualities; thus the name Life of Lewa (LoL) was
formed.
I
started kicking myself for not recording the episodes that were
played over time; now that I was ready to write LoL, I found that
many of the episodes had been lost from memory through the years. However,
I didn't let this stop me. I realized there would be a lot of work
involved to making this story a reality for reading, and regardless
of not having full memory of most the episodes, I still have enough
memory of main episodes to start it back up.
I
look at LoL as a pile of paper work; some pages were unfinished
drafts, other pages were main story clips, and some pages were
connector scenes. The main story clips remained in the folder, and
unfinished drafts could always be tweaked and recreated; however,
some of the main ideas and connector episodes were lost in the wind.
Some of them blew away, and others got wet and blurred, to put it
metaphorically.
I
realized that the Life of Lewa series would have to be recreated and
reacted based off what few memories I have of main episodes played,
and blurry scenes that still exist in my head.
In
order to make this possible, I knew I needed to get back in touch
with the actress of main character, and secondary director of the LoL
series. It wouldn't be the same without some outside help. But first,
I decided to write the first chapter to introduce the idea to her, so
I sat down and wrote “The Encounter” based off the main memories
of first episode played. I did of course have to tweak things and add
in stuff that I know didn't exist in the episode during its started
days.
I
looked at writing Life of Lewa as a wonderful new start and take on
the series. Though most the original episodes have been forgotten,
anything new or added to base episodes still in memory will no doubt
be better because I have all the time needed to think out the
episodes and work on more complex ideas that will tie with each other
more smoothly.
How
Life of Lewa is formed today
After
introducing the idea of writing LoL into a readable story for many to
enjoy, and sharing the first written episode with my friend; she
gladly agreed with the idea of starting back up the rp so it could be
written.
Here's
how it works: Me and my friend act over camera and play out each
episode of the story. During our voice acting, I record the
conversation, which I then listen to after we end call. I then type
down the words we acted, and work off a draft, which is then made
into an episode chapter. This is the reason dialogue can get a bit
crazy in the written story; but has lots of life to it, since it's
written off winged acting. I tweak parts here and there to help it
flow better, but most of what you read is word for word dialogue from
voice acted sequences done on the fly.
Since
a large majority of original played story chapters have been
forgotten, we're partially starting from scratch on making the story,
while working off remembered sequences.
I
write down what I can remember of certain episodes, and then compile
them and see what should come next. It's sort of like filling in the
blanks; some of the sentence is already written, but it needs words
in between to help make it complete.
Most
of what you read in the Life of Lewa series is rethought, and remade.
What happens in each episode is going to be different than it was
when first played as an rp episode from the past; but in many ways
you could say that's a good thing; it no doubt is better rethought
than it was when first acted.
Each
episode is acted from start to finish. On the occasion I may write
parts that were never acted between me and secondary director, mostly
in places like touch up scenes and connector episodes; but there may
also be some episodes purely made on my own.
I
will also give fair warning, LoL is comedic in many respects, but it
can also be quite creepy. Some episodes may even be rated PG/PG13 for
some violence and adult themes.
The
LoL series is still forming, which means that's it's natural to
expect each chapter shared will likely be updated in the future if
need be. This simply means, nothing in the series is absolutely
permanent at this time.
