2020 Plans Part 2

Intro

Hello! Thanks to all of you who have been reading, and continue to read. The last blog was a really long one and took a while to write. There were a lot of things on my mind that I wanted to get out. That said, where the last blog was more about my mentality about my content, this one will be on the new content itself.

To preface everything, I will be splitting my content into 2 classes. The first class will be story-based content, and the second class is supporting content. The goal is to better separate what I like to do, and what works well for social media. This is important because what I like to do doesn't really align with what works with social media. Instead of climbing up a mountain to fit what I like to do in the confines of what works with social media, I've instead elected to create content specialized for social media. This separation is important because I'll be allowed to take my time to do the things I want to do without forcing myself to stick with harsh deadlines that burn me out. With all that said, let's dive in.

Story Content

As I've said in my previous blog, storytelling and short films are my passion. That hasn't changed. That said, I want to focus on creating deeper and richer stories. I really don't think I've put my all into a short film since 'Quiet'. I've grown a lot and I know that whatever film I give my heart and time to, will blow away the work I've done previously. I couldn't do this before because of the strict timelines I placed on myself to get animated shorts out regularly. Now that I have figured out a way to separate my content, I can really take my time and put my all into my longer shorts.

With that in mind, I do have a lot of stories to tell. I have small stories, large ones and everything in between. I will be spinning off my shorter stories into a sub-series. I'm still trying to figure out a name for it, but right now it will be called 'One Shot Stories'. These shorts will be very limited in animation and under a minute long. They will also come in still images as well. The goal here is to keep telling stories but not to go nuts with animating. As I said before, I want to keep telling stories and this is how I'll be able to do it. These stories will be the primary style of stories going forward.

Larger stories will continue under how my previous 'Frame of Mind' shorts have been made; however, they will be released much less frequently. I haven't made up my mind yet about how frequently I want them to come out,  but I'm leaning on about 2-3 of these shorts a year. The goal of these shorts is to start producing film festival quality content and to push my storytelling abilities to the limit. The foundation for this style has already been laid out but now I want to give myself the chance to properly explore my ideas.

Lastly, I would like to start making films divorced from my 'Frame of Mind' series again. That means making larger films like 'Quiet' or 'Flight' again. The size of these kinds of videos are yet to be determined, but I'm leaning toward 4-6 minute shorts. This also means they will be coming out far less frequently than any other content. I'm hoping I can do one of these every 2-3 years. This is exciting for me because it's been a long time since I've made films like these, and I've grown a lot as an artist. I would like to put my experience to work and see how far I've come.

So that's it for the story content. I've done my best to structure things in a way that prioritize my health. I am also trying to enable stories to come out that aren't animated either. I've come to really love the versatility and portability of my iPad, so I'm trying to move as much work to it as I possibly can. In the past few months I've been a lot more active since I've purchased my iPad, and by moving an even larger proportion of my work to it, I'll can both be more active and more productive. This new structure for my primary content will also give me as much time as I need to produce great shorts without any extra physical burden, which is something I've been dreaming of for many years now, and I'm excited to finally see it come to fruition.

Supporting content

So there's a lot of good changes coming to my shorts and stories, but the things that will give me my new footing is all of the supplementary content I have planned. This is where the real changes are taking place. If you've kept up with my writing this year, you'll know that I wasn't very happy with my non-short film content. I've thought about that a lot this past summer and I've made some much needed changes.

Where my primary content is focused on stories and storytelling, the secondary content will focus more as a collection of things I want to do. From sharing my thoughts to making silly trailers or just animating a quick cycle. This content will be where I do my experimentation. So what is this new line-up of content?

Blog Highlights

The first new thing, blog highlights have already started rolling out. I've been putting more and more work into writing my thoughts out, and these highlights will help give my blogs a bit more character and personality, while sharing important highlights to those who have yet to visit my site.

Educational content

This consists of a few different things: quick tips, behind the scenes, and tutorials. I get told a lot that I have a knack for teaching, so I thought it would be cool to be able to have some type of content dedicated to giving back in some way. 

Discussions

These consist of some of my musings/ thoughts, things about me and other stuff like lists or reviews. This type of content is more for reaching out to my audience in a way where I can put more thought into something before spewing it out into the world. If you know me personally, you know I can also have some hot takes, and this new format is perfect for me. I would probably say this is the new stuff I’m most excited about. 

Art/Video

So since I’ve been animating short films, I haven’t had much time to do any art, or small animated exercises or loops. I want to fix that so I’ll be making an effort to do so. I also want to add collages and make silly trailers as well. I think the best way to sum up what I’m looking to do with my art and video projects are to experiment a bit more with the things I’ve already made.

That’s a lot to take in there, but I’m excited about all of these new opportunities to get my work out there. The listed supporting content should compromise the bulk of my future uploads as well. The purpose of all of this planning is so that I can extend the life of my older work, satiate my audience and discover new ways to grow. While it is a lot, this new stuff will be much, much quicker to make, which will allow me to show something in-between (get it?) my short films. The bonus of not killing myself over this is extra juicy too. I should also clarify, this new content will not be shown every day of every week. It’s essentially keeping the doors open for my creativity to flourish. If I feel like animating one week, or throwing together a collage another week, I’m free to do so. I am not working on all of this stuff with the assumption of I have to stick to a tight schedule. It will function as my mood changes, so I can always work on something that I find interesting. The other perk to all of this is that it will allow me the necessary flexibility I need to change and adapt. I’ve been really slow to change with my art, and it’s something I’ve noticed for a while, so I went through great lengths to fix that weakness of my.

Currently, I am in the testing phase and making pilot projects of everything I talked about today. Some of what I’ve talked about here have already begun to drop on my instagram, and I’ll be rolling them out when I can. 

Lastly, the best part of this new content is that it will also have a positive effect on my primary stuff. The things I make for some of these projects will all contribute to making my short films better in some way. One of my goals with ‘Frame of Mind’ was recyclability, and I’m finally at the point where that can start coming into play. Of course, I don’t want things to grow stale, so I will continue to evolve my art style over time, but having a set of base assets I can always work with will go a very long way to helping my production capability.

Outro

Thanks for reading through my last two diatribes! I know it’s a lot, but this is something I’ve been thinking about constantly since August. There are a lot of exciting new things coming, and from the work I’ve done already, I feel way less stressed out. I think the format of the new content is more appropriate for both my sanity and what people like on social media. While I did, and will still prioritize video, having this other stuff as backup to help uplift my work is a big help. It doesn’t feel like I’m throwing my stuff into the ether anymore, and that’s helped with keeping my sanity in check. Hopefully something out of all of the new content I have planned will interest you. Thank you for reading, I do appreciate it. See you next time!