Changing Direction

Why change course now?

Well, it's not a huge change of direction but it is a definite change. Previously, this project was a narrative short. 3, maybe 5 minutes in length, telling a story about a girl who ventures into a surrealistic, tin-toy themepark that's laid abandoned for many years. She's chasing a lost pet. X, Y and Z happen and the high point of the drama is that she gets turned into a tin toy herself. She's reunited with her lost pet, now a tin toy as well and the film ends, all bittersweet 'n' stuff.

It's a fine enough story, as far as it goes, but at the end of the day, it wasn't serving our needs. Because when it's a narrative, it's all about the story. Everything serves the story - art direction, wardrobe, camera angles, pacing, etc. The decisions being made are storytelling decisions and a great story can rise above less-than-great execution.

But I'm not a storyteller. Nor am I an aspiring director.

If I'm aspiring to anything, it's to be a better technical artist. At the end of this project, I'm not hoping to get calls from people wanting me to direct the next Cars. But if they called wanting me to be a TD on the next Cars, well, now we're talking.

What I'm excited about with this project is becoming a stronger modeler, a better lighter and a kick-ass texture artist. The problems I'm looking forward to working through aren't whether this one shot should be framed from over the protagonist's shoulder or from directly overhead. I'm looking forward to breaking down each shot and figuring out how to build it so that it renders in a reasonable amount of time. I want to come up with a bunch of great, technically challenging shots and see them all the way through the pipeline. That's exciting to me.

And that's why the project's changing course somewhat. Now it's more of a trailer than an actual short. We're cutting down the narrative elements to the absolute bare bones and keeping only the coolest shots. We're shortening to trailer length, circa 30 sec.

At the end of the day, it's gonna look cool. It's not gonna leave you wondering what happens to the girl, as much as it'll leave you wondering who the hell made that and can I get them to make my next project?