Hey, long time no see, I’m still alive, and I’ve realized I’ve let my different social media slip a lot, which I can assure you wasn’t intentional, well . . . partially, I’ve come to a few conclusions since my last post, nearly two years ago, firstly the scope of my project Fade was impossibly big, even to get the first season done on my own would eat up years of my life, and almost no-one would see it in the end.
Secondly I’d been juggling Fade, college work, other projects and personal stuff, and it all became overwhelming in the end, so I took a break, focusing only on college work. that break has now become two years, and while I still very much want to keep working on Fade, distance and hindsight are really highlighting how foolish it is hinge so much of my time and future on something so massive.
Third thing I realized is that I’m just straight up bad at collaborating and being in charge, I work to please everyone and plan for everything, and when I miss something it shatters myself esteem. Along with Fade I was working on a small project and honestly it didn’t go well. I was inspired by a classmate’s story and wanted to make something with a similar theme, my story would have actually been similar to Cartoon Saloon’s Wolfwalkers film, but I made the foolish mistake of telling them, they made the argument that they would like to see their story made without changes, and from that point on I never really felt in charge. Now let me make it clear, I don’t blame this person for sticking to their idea, it the situation was reversed, I might have said the same, but it illustrates my own inability to stand up for myself, and its something I really need to fix moving forward.
I’ve also realized I need to incubate myself and my skills, I’ve finally realized how much I don’t know, and how little I can do with just myself, I’m in a unique position with this pandemic, I’m able to work and practice solely on my craft, and in the last six months I’ve noticed a big improvement, and compared to the early Fade concepts I’m leagues above where I was, but I’m still far from going professional. As for working with other people, I’m stumped still, but I’ve had some insight: Money. A budget shifts the dynamic a huge amount, its something to offer people, and its a type of leverage, because its tangible it can be used, so it is encouraged not to waste it, but this leads to the part that is stumping me:
Well I’m going to try be smart about it, I’m working on a much smaller project, a small, self contained story. I’m going to save up a small amount, to advertise a Kickstarter pre-campaign, this is mostly just going to directing people to a small website with a landing video and an email form, so people can sign up for updates, then once I’ve got the pre-production done, I’ll make a Kickstarter for the short, if that's successful, I’ll use that budget for hiring animators and artists, and save a little for the next ad campaign. At least, that's the theory to it. From the research I’ve done it becomes easier every time you do well, so its really just staying at the table long enough.
Lastly is a problem I’ve realized I’ve never really admitted online, I’m terrified of social media, I love looking through it, but the idea putting stuff out there and getting back what feels like blank stares kinda sucks, or worse getting back hate, I released an animatic trailer for Fade a while back, and it got a genuinely vitriolic hate comment, this guy was offended by the quality of the video. Now its clear the guy had no clue what an animatic was, and he might have been just jealous, or tolling, or just misdirecting problems in his life at the video, and I’ve been playing it off for laughs, but it stuck with me. The main reason I like making stories is to try connect with other people, not validating myself, to get an emotion that I feel and plant it into someone else, I feel that endeavor is one of the most important things in the world, and that comment kinda shows a failure to do that. That video was unrelatable, it was confusing to him, alien, and I felt like a failure because of that, it still hurts even though logically its just a bored dude on the internet, and since then I’ve gotten plenty of praise. but it still worries me that I’ll get more people like that.
I’m also worried about the speed of my work, everything I do is pieces of a bigger work, so I’m reluctant to throw them online because its not the whole picture, but to build a following I need to be posting stuff regularly, and I just don’t have the mental endurance to do that daily, so I’m at a little bit of a loss on how to proceed on that front. Maybe this is a way of starting?
Ah, I didn’t mean for this to get negative, I’ll give some positive news too, I’ve finished college, and I did a final year film, well, its more of a proof of concept, but I’m proud of it:
https://vimeo.com/424300549
I’d love to pitch the show to somewhere like Netflix, I have no idea where go to even apply but the solution is just more networking in the industry, I’m confident I’ll find a platform for it at some point.
I’m also working on another pitch for Animation Dingle’s big pitcher event, which I’m hoping to get to this year, I don’t want to post anything about it just yet, but I will once the event is over because I’m really pleased with where its going!
Other than that things are all quiet with me, if you read through all this I’m really grateful! hopefully it won’t be another two years before my next post!
~~Marc out
