Friday, July 21, 2017

Working with the "young bunch"

Where the heck were YOU when I
needed you?
Being "a certain age" is apparently the kiss of death in the movie business, much less the cartoon biz. Well, I cannot turn back the clock--so I better turn out the goods, right?

As mentioned below, I am working through a site called Artella.com, put up by some ex-Pixar guys. From our facetime meetings, I see they are mostly 20s-30s Most have spent with a long time, relatively, in the trenches of animation, which is crazy complicated--but maybe not so much in screenwriting, plotting, character development, adaptation of property, and other skills.

Anyway, I needed a video pitch of my project on Artella--and this turned into a monster project for me. I screened a number of videographers and concept artists (they do "still" drawings of characters). The videographers were two brothers, originally from Peru. They shot me for 3 hours...and boy did I learn again that acting is hard and I am no actress.

I also spent several days tracking down the rights to a version of the old Troggs hit WILD THING for my music.

I had my old filmmaking partner make a cut of the videotape and that did not turn out (long story). So I paid the brothers to cut it--and had to urge them to be bold, put in wacky touches--since when did young people become so conservative?

Then we tangled over the volume of the music...They wanted to dial it way back to almost an indecipherable tinkle...I wanted it raucous--you know, like in a CARTOON!

You can see the results to the right--it's under two minutes...

Yes, others also said the music was too loud, but I am OK with it and it's my call.

Sooner or later, you have to "auteur" this stuff.