SERENDIPITY
Now serendipity definitely had a huge part to play in all of this (on multiple occasions) for example: when I shot my four silent short documentaries in 2006, they were very big (completely out of the blue) unplanned accidents, I never thought that they would edit together so well to music...and that the footage would be so good (you see a lot of it was only one take because that’s what documentary making with animals is like. The music itself too was also a accident, because I bought the wrong classical CD...which is rather embarrassing...but, my only line of defence is, that there are actually eight famous classical composers with the name Strauss...I just thought “oh waltzes, I want those!...oh there he is...waltzes...Strauss”...and bought it….it’s kinda stupid I know, but there it is. What’s strange is how well the music syncs up with the visuals which is either serendipity again or perhaps classical music just naturally fits to these things.
With my first animation...that too was a odd story where I was animating a walk cycle (a extremely difficult task as all animators know) and found the legs of the character floating / sliding...like he was in the air...so I then accidentally had him taking off...I thought to myself “well I could put a rocket on his back here”
GETTING CONCERNED THAT THINGS AREN’T GOING FAST ENOUGH
For quite a few years I was really on edge about time wastage...as the years go by you cannot help but think about your situation…”I’m not making any money here”…“I’m not leaping forward fast enough”...“I’m wasting my twenties”…”I’m incredibly frustrated because I’m not doing the films with miniatures, sets and actors”.
It's still occasionally one of my major concerns for me...that I suddenly have this moment where I REALISE that a large amount of time has gone past me, without me even realising that it has. Seven years has pretty much flown past, and I feel I’ve not really got very far along the road to making money at this.
WAS I A JACK OF ALL TRAITS AND MASTER OF NONE?
...it is true that I have never become a master of say character animation or upping my technical direction game...I’m really not a technical director but you have to realise that I do take on that job as well as all the other jobs too (on all of my projects)...but I think the projects suffer for this reason.
Some people will tell you you’re a jack of all traits and master of none and I don’t think they realise how damaging that can be to a young unconfident mind. These organisms are usually people who are not trying to be independent directors and don’t fully understand what they’re talking about.
DAVID P. BAKER
Now pretty much about 80% of what David says I already knew...but, it’s what you forget about, over the months / years of working away that he urgently reminds you with.
David’s shake up / earth shattering moment / knock blow into reality boost / tragic moment for me was, that if you want to make money at this (and haven’t been making money at it) and want to remain 100% independent, then you are going to have focus on targeting / reaching the audience for six months after you have made the film...it makes perfect sense, I mean what is the point in making these things...pouring every single piece of your soul into making the film to then rush and not think it through properly / end up only showing it to a handful of people. The right people need to know that there is a film out there they might be interested in. So it becomes very much a game of patience and hard work...your going to have to be very much a committed to six months of no filmmaking.
This for me is earth shattering because I make solo animations...which have very small runtimes and very, very large production times...I’m really not quite sure where it goes to next for me.
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