While at ABC Digital I was tasked with creating abc.com’s April Fool’s Day joke. The gag involved celebrating Castle’s 100th episode by photoshopping Nathan Fillion into every homepage slide.

Photoshopping other people’s faces onto someone else’s body is one of my favorite things to do. I mean that in the creepiest way possible. But, aside from the first ‘CASTLE’ image, where it is literally Nathan Fillion’s face on a bunch of different bodies, the rest of the slides required him to be dressed up as a certain character presenting a book.

Conceptually this doesn’t sound like that much of a challenge. Until you realize there are no useable pictures of Peter Pan or Abraham Lincoln on GettyImages. And, finding an image of someone holding out a book and presenting the cover is surprisingly difficult.

I had a couple of days to do these and each image presented it’s own challenges. For instance, the one of The Chew – Nathan’s hand is comprised of four different images! People don’t hold books like that!

As the slides were completed the show producers came up with an idea for a ‘Once Upon a Time’ slide. Here is the story of how that went down.

5:30 PM (Two days till due date): Producers have so far loved the work and have an idea for another one that involves the mystical world of Once Upon a Time. Since captain hook is a character on the show, we brainstorm a bit and think it would be fun to make Nathan Fillion Peter Pan. He will be showing off his new book “HEATER PAN” (Castle joke.)
Things like “just photoshop Nathan as peter pan, and he is flying and he is holding the Heater Pan book. But it’s an old time book. And he is wearing tights! Yeah!” are said. I nod (silently panicking.) Don’t get me wrong – great ideas, but all I can hear is a ticking clock.

9:00 AM (Nine hours till deadline): Initial freak-out sets in.

I find a couple of images that need to be comped together. There is the ‘Peter Pan boy’, ‘Cell Phones!?!’ guy and creepiest of all, a man if full spandex leotard jumping. Sure.

I merge all these together and create this beautiful gem. Nice, huh? I color corrected the spandex and beefed up “Cell Phones!?!” guy’s arms. Also, we need Nathan’s face.

10:15 AM: I haven’t done anything for fifteen minutes besides stare at the comp I just did and think of all the work I have ahead of me. Maybe I’ll get some water. That will help.

11:45 AM: I add some detail to the Peter Pan costume, a couple of rips and stitching. Add a “dirty fabric” texture to it. Give him a belt with a sword, some sweet chest hair and do a first pass on rendering some shadows.

It’s usually at this stage that I find what I have done brilliant. Until 10 minutes passes then I see how terrible it is. I could spend another two hours making his costume really cool and unique but the deadline is looming.

12:10 PM: I’ve spent that last twenty minutes looking for stock images of shoes he would wear at those specific angles but I have come up dry. Crap. I will worry about that later.

1:30 PM: I have stress eating the crap out of some mac & cheese. The Peter Pan figure now looks terrible post-lunch. I decide to move on and create Never Never Land. I will have a better idea on how to shade/distort the figure once he is in his setting.

2:00 PM: In an effort to research Never Never Land, I have stumbled into downward YouTube spiral of watching Rufio video’s. What’s that guy been up to recently? Must move on. I find a picture of Hawaii, a pirate ship, a cave and some light rays. This will probably be good enough.

2:30 PM: I could have spent an entire day just working on this image but I just don’t have time. “I’ll just blur it real good!” Brilliant idea, Patrick. That will be good enough.

3:00 PM: I drop in Peter Pan and realize this looks totally off. It’s going to require lots of additional edits and rendering. I don’t know what I was thinking which his jaw/neck! He looks like Quagmire.

4:00 PM: He is getting there, quick anxiety attack. Maybe drink a glass of water. Or five.

4:25 PM: I have to pee now.

5:15 PM: Running out of time and I need to comp up the slide. I will crop it so I won’t have to worry about the shoes. Also, I should probably add in the Captain Hook character. And the logo. And the Tune In. And a Call to action.

5:45 PM: Send to the producers for final approval. Finished.

Even now it’s full of things I would love to fix and adjust but that’s just the business of working with tight deadlines. I realize it ‘looks’ photoshopped but that’s part of the joke. Or at least that’s my excuse.

Synopsis: Two close acquaintances meet for dinner.

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Synopsis: Originally Performed at Patrick Bristow’s Improvitorium

This is a spec I wrote for How I Met Your Mother just before season 6 premiered. Unfortunately the story of this episode was remarkably similar to the season 6 episode ‘Bad News.’

Synopsis: coming soon

Preview:

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