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.
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.
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.
