You reap what you sow

 Hello,

Just coming back for a little update about WKTB.

I had a great talk at the Framed festival in Groningen. It was my first talk ever so I was really dreading that and it went OK, after the presentation lots of people came by to say that it was interesting to see my film come to life. It was supercool to hear and gave me the confidence to do such a thing again.

After all the work of making WKTB
it it was time for sending it to festivals. Festivals ain't cheap so it cost me quit a bit to send it some. There are a lot of festivals so sending them to the ones that matter or fit your film is quit daunting. I send it to some and some select the film and some others don't.

I think it is quite OK to find out what works and what not but there are a lot of festivals contacting you and wanting you to submit for a discount. In the beginning you are like yesss, cool that you found my movie. But after a while you think mmmm, this could well be a trick to get some cash.

Most of those festivals are OK but just have that in mind. Festivals that give away a gazillion of "awards" are fishy just saying.

But nevertheless I send my film around to underground horror festivals and some bigger ones as well. And well you can't tell in advance the movie will get in so in the beginning I was eager to find out. It ended up in some selections and after a while some rejections came and that is OK, it stings a bit in the beginning but after a while you are like yeah Whaevs, move on. But they still cost money so my wallet says auch.

The bigger festivals are much harder to enter so I had no real luck with those. I got into a couple but that's how it is. Nevertheless it won some awards as well. I got a cash price at the new-york indie shorts awards. Won at a festival in Berlin, and some smaller festivals in England and America. And won some more cash in my home province so that is welcome and levels out the money I had to spend at the festivals.

If you have a short and you want to send it to festivals there is a site called filmfreeway. You enter all the data and upload your film and from there you can send it to the festivals you find interesting. Generally it can cost from 5 dollar to 80. It depends on what you aim for. Most smaller indie horror thingies cost under the 20 dollar. If you go all out big festival then it will set you at least 50 dollars back. So you can imagine that part of the filmmaking bizz is a bit cost intensive. 

But I had some nice comments, here is a link: reactions

I had a great time at some local festivals and for genre specifically at Imagine Fantastic Film Festival here in Amsterdam. And the cool news was that I was selected for some training for my next endeavor called LORNA. I wrote a first script and got some helpful feedback and hopefully made it better:p

Lorna is a new story. The initial idea came when I went to a friend in Ireland 3 to 4 years ago. After that the first ideas were written down in 2020. Recently I went over it again after wrapping up WKTB and spend the last months perfecting it. I created my main character called Ben and have the world and feel all in my head. I dread some things like animation and I am seriously considering a mocap suit. And besides that I see what unreal engine is capable off lately and I am working out a workflow to get mocap into blender and into unreal and it works so perhaps that will be the flow.

But it is going to be a lot of work and the film will be around 20 minutes. So you can imagine I am really dreading to begin and spend all that time on it behind the computer. It will be fun eventually but this time I know what it will cost me in advance. 

When I have something presentable I will send it around to some studio's and perhaps there is some nice feedback that I can use.

But before making this I really want to make a violent thriller movie. This is something I have on my bucket list for quit some time and I was kind-off restless after finishing WKTB. So when developing Lorna I was quit content but since last week I had this restless feeling that made me a bit down so after soul searching I remembered that a full length filmed movie was next. That was always the plan after WKTB. It sounds crazy to even begin and expect this to happen but I am convinced that I can pull it off. No to a little budget and with the help of some friends this could work.

I want it dirty, raw, unfiltered and violent as F. The look and feel is in my head for years already but the story is in its first stages so I will take my time to get this right. It is super ambitious but I have to make this. 

If there are any updates on both projects I will share them fcuz.

My time was almost done:D audio and stuff

Hey you,

I freelanced my but off last year and this year was busy as well.

Recently I started to work at Mitsi studio by the way. Redrum was good to me in the beginning but the recent few years were kinda shit with lots of people leaving so I took the leap as well and not regretting it so that is good news.

WKTB

When dedicating so much time to a project one cant wait for it to be finished completely.

Well it took a bit longer than I would anticipate and that has some logical reasons. Music, ambience and sound effects.

When no money is involved and there is none Marvey Izijk aka mr Audio has graced me with his free time. And just like it was for me he also sees this as a great project with lots of things to learn.

So he took his time to collect all the good tools for the job and build up the knowledge that led us to the almost final result.

Yes almost. This week he gave me the first complete version with everything in it and it fits perfectly.

We sat many times behind the screen and talked about what to do and what not to. I am quit nitpicky since I have a music background and want everything to tingle my gut. If it does it is ok, if it does not...

When you depend on one person for such a big project they often wander off the path and procrastination occurs. I often found myself frustrated by this fact that my life's work dragged out too long and that sucked big time. Many times I asked Marvey to go on and set deadlines/goals to accomplish. Most of the time those were never met so it frustrated me more and more.

I got the fact that it was a learning process for the both of us but when you are done with a film it takes the joy out of it to wait for such a long time.

So staying nice was often a concern and I did not want to be that guy so that was not ok to be in that position. 

It also is a lot of work so I understood that it would take time but it took about 3 years for the audio to be at this point and most of those 3 years were squandered in my opinion.

Nevertheless I took some extra months after I was "finished" to tweak some shots and make a few extra where I found something lacking. So it made the film in that regard better. And when you have the time to distance yourself from the film it delivers a neutral look when you go back into it so I edited some more and altered the pacing and trimmed the fat so to speak. 

Would I change more if I had the chance, yes but I am content with the way the movie is. I would do some things differently but heck, this is the best I could do at that time in my life. And I am happy with it. It is dark as fuck and a scary short if I can say so myself. Most animations are not scary. The last few years "love death and robots" delivered some adult animations that I fancied a lot.

And recently Arcane, I am not by definition a animation/game lover but this stood its ground and was the best series I saw last year. I had doubts going in but they disappeared as quickly as they came. Best animation I ever saw. Great story, unbelievable visuals, animation style Gddamn. What not to like.

Back to WKTB

So now the first version is done Marvey thinks he will deliver the final version next month.

For now I put this version onto filmfreeway to submit it to festivals. It unfortunately costs a lot of hard earned money but I saved a certain amount to get it out there. By the time it will get into festivals the final version is ready to go.

All the artwork is done for the posters so those will be printed in the near future.

I made a trailer for the film as well including some nice audio from Marv.

Trailer WKTB

You can see more on my instagram.com/darkworx_art 

Now is the time to enjoy the ride I guess.

Framed an animation festival in Groningen invited me to speak about the process so that is gonna be scary so check that out if you will. 26,27 and 28th of may 2022.

Framed animation festival

I have lots of ideas in my head but limited time so it is quit the endeavor to go to new places in my head.

See you there.