Why I Haven’t Made Any Shorts This Year
Intro
Welcome readers! This one will be a bit shorter. I wanted to take some time to talk about the lack of animated shorts/ stories on my feeds. Let’s get to it.
Section 1
Over the last few years, I have been the most productive I have ever been when it comes to creating work. When you count my shorts, illustrations, commissions and the full-time work I’ve done, it becomes pretty clear I’ve been fairly prolific. This level of work comes at a severe cost though, which is last year I went through the most severe burnout I’ve ever had. I’ve wrote about burnout on this blog before, so I won’t go into detail on this post. There’s only so much I could handle, and I didn’t realize I was collapsing until it was too late.
I decided to take this year to do things differently. I wanted to abandon having a scheduled life, abandon making short bite-sized films, and abandon things I thought that were negatively impacting my life. A massive detox and re-structuring of my life, if you will. I had never upended so much of my life before. I’m talking re-programming 12 years of work ethic. It was terrifying to do, but I couldn’t continue at the pace I had been, especially when I had not been getting the results in life that I had expected.
Section 2
Much to my surprise, as this year started and I stopped working so intensely, I have been far more creative and happy. My recent re-stylizing of my “Frame of Mind” stuff is a result of this new mindset. It’s the first step in a greater and more concerted effort to improve and grow as an artist.
I haven’t made any short films for about a year now, and I do miss it. What I miss more than that though is my ambition. Over the years, I traded ambition and quality for sterility and quantity. It started to hit me last fall that was happening, and I got upset with myself. I knew I was capable of so much more, and while the original plans I made for my “Frame of Mind” stuff was ambitious, after taking the time to review it, I will say it was misguided. I lept into the pool with no idea of how to swim, while ignoring the advice of others that did.
By taking the time away from production, I created an opportunity to learn from my mistakes and live more unrestrained and to go where my heart takes me. This has also led to me refining my abilities to create work that is more meaningful to myself and to others. This is something that has mattered to me for quite a while, and now I am finally starting to be able to execute it.
The last thing I want to say is that with all the extra time I’ve accumulated I have been able to flesh out my life. I’m more social (as much as you can be during this time), and I’ve developed hobbies (calligraphy, music, 3d modeling, etc.). This is something my life had lacked for a very long time. Music especially is something I’ve pursued on and off for almost a decade, so being able to finally sit down and learn, and to eventually apply it to my future work, is exciting to me. In fact, I am so serious about music, that I vowed to not make a film until I can also write the music for it.
Outro
So those are the main reasons: I wanted to detox from shorts and other negative things, I wanted my shorts to be more ambitious, I want to have a richer life and write music for all of my future shorts. I don’t have a timeline for when I’ll start up the process again, but after so many years of working so intensely, I can say that for right now I am enjoying the new path I’ve chosen, and am excited to see where it takes me. I hope you are too!