VLD Pro Event Appreciation Day
This was queued for the 1st of July. Apparently editing the post and saving that edit somehow means it gets published days earlier. The pitfalls of using Tumblr with big clumsy paws I suppose... Sigh....Β
First off, Iβd like to thank everyone who has been reading the nonsense Iβve posted. Iβd like to thank the mods at the Voltron Positivity Event. Iβd like to thank my followers, amazed I can use plural now!Β
We should all thank the creators of Voltron, from the humblest intern to the head of Dreamworks, every voice actor, every artist, every credited name, every coffee boy, every guest star, every single writer... There are too many to name them all, just look at the IMDB, so much talent, hard work and dedication! Thanks are due to them all.
Iβm not sure I want to thank Playmates toys for the dent the Legendary Lions put in my wallet...
Though, Iβd also like to make a note of thanks to one fan in particular...
I really don't want this to come across as too notice me senpai. However, I think that may be a little unavoidable. Keep in mind though that I'm considering the term purely to mean a more experienced student to whom I look up to. A student, practically a tutor, for my favourite ship in the VLD Fandom.
@honestlyprettychill That's not exactly a name people here will be unfamiliar with. I'm certain that a huge number of Voltron fans appreciate and admire their work. Doubly so, if like me you have thirsty Plance that needs constant watering. Even some members of the VLD cast have commented on HPCβs honestly beautiful artwork along with their other fan works.
So, I'm hardly alone in my appreciation of what HPC does, but let me share my perspective anyway. When I write, I tend to have one of a few things on in the background. These can range from ambient sounds and non invasive music or they can be more frenetic and energetic pieces depending on the mood I'm going for with whatever I'm writing at the time. Right now I can only hear the sound of the wind and the birds, just to keep my work calm and reflective. What anyone who writes anything will often tell you is how awful writer's block can be. That sudden drag to a halt of any and all creativity flowing from you. It can be very difficult to overcome. Some take long breaks, some work on other projects, some just power through. I do a combination of them, though probably need to power through more often. What I've found when writing Plance sections, the easiest way for my writer's block to be shattered is by taking a moment to watch this...
As soon as this comes on, I'm swept up emotionally into the moment. The shared happiness these two characters can offer one another, the warmth and care, the strong narrative symbolism they both evoke in the other that only ever seems to grow deeper the more you look. Plus, the tune is sweet and the animation always makes me smile, which is a bonus.
Now, I'm no animator. But according to the scribes of Google, the average animation runs slightly less than a motion picture. That for every frame of film, a drawn image is shown twice or in some cases four times. I'm also no artist, so it's tricky to tell precisely how many individual pictures per second HPC's Animatic translates to on average. So, taking a bit of a wild stab in the dark, we'll go for about 3.5 pictures per second. Given the runtime, minus a little intro and outro, that gives us about... 315 individual images in such a short time. Again, I'm not an animator, (I'm barely a writer most days.) but given my limited understanding that animation programs can create transitional frames and such, that seems entirely reasonable an estimate. Please someone feel free to prove me wrong, I'd love to know the real figure!
Still though, to my point at last...
A picture is worth, they say, a thousand words. So that means that in essence, HonestlyPrettyChill has written in animation, three hundred and fifteen thousand words all devoted to Plance. The equivalent of an entire extra large novel's worth of Plance, and all contained in a such a short and sweet animatic.
How can anyone who writes not be both inspired, humbled and frankly made a teensy little bit jealous by that...?
So, when I look to those heartfelt frames, realise that I have only begun to scratch the surface of those thousands of words they evoke, I am in no small way inspired. I am sure I am not the only one.
Thank you, @honestlyprettychill
