You think you’re done but you still have to share it : |

Well I was hoping to work out today, yet here I am on my fourth straight day grinding away on a youtube video that I don’t even find too funny. I published the short version yesterday and it amassed 500 views. Fortunately through tik tok and facebook it’s gather around 2000 total.

I am happy that I receive more views than when I began but the amount of work necessary to complete these videos seems to exponentially increase. I’m beyond determined to shorten the process but that risks losing out on views, especially as I am growing.

My latest venture includes incorporating more impact sounds, zooms, and music. It isn’t difficult consider I download sound fx from splice. Every single aspect of creating these videos is relatively simple, and to be honest relatively quick. I only began creating the backgrounds for the scenes 2 days ago.

Every little detail matters. For this short I regret not having a “Oil is bad” note taped to Cowboy Bob’s sombrero. It would be easy to do and take a matter of minutes, however, late in the process that becomes an enormous time waste. I would have to create the sticker in photoshop, program it into character animator, export the puppet with the sticker, and copy and paste the transform effects from each composition in after effects. This is why I always speak of the process as one that compounds – each mistake made during step one of the process becomes ten times worse by step 5.

I have decided that I would like to divide the process into separate days. If I remain organized and disciplined, I can stay true to that format. It would look like this –

Day 1 – record audio

Day 2 – edit audio

Day 3 – Design puppet

Day 4 – Program Puppet, Record puppet

Day 5 – Create backgrounds in After Effects and export

Day 6 – Edit audio & yt short

Day 7 – Upload full length widescreen short

Each and every one of those goals is achievable with the exception of one. Time and time again I lose days designing the initial character. For this particular short I designed 4 new characters. I felt this was unavoidable as protestors come in groups of 4 (at a minimum). Regardless, it wound up being entirely uneccessary to draw side perspectives of each… because after drawing them I had to program them, and after programming them I had to record them, and after rendering them out I realized there was no way in hell I was about to draw a 3rd background in after effects from a side perspective. It is easy to create a single background – replicating that background and its elements from a different vantage point is tiresome, exhausting, and all around infuriating. If you watch the short closely you may notice I was too lazy to draw the kitchen chair from Cowboy Bob’s office from a side perspective – I could have done it, but God as my witness I WAS NOT about to do that. Every man has his limits.

Regardless, I’m relieved to be finished. This is probably my most controversial short politically but oh well it was bound to come out sometime. I hope you’re having a great week and continue trudging along – especially when you feel your work is worthless. It’s supposed to feel worthless – that’s why your competitors will stop trying while you run even faster.