Update September 9th, 2021

This journey started on November 13, 2018 and now I draw it to a close. After almost 3 years of dabbling and learning and creating and failing and succeeding, I declare, I've completed my objective of creating an animated short. It took many shapes and many forms, but "The Spacewalk" has been completed. It's based on a short story I wrote back in 2018. It tells the story of an astronaut who must race against the clock to save her spaceship from impending doom. All the exterior shots have been done in 3D. During this project I have animated approximately 14K frames of film. And I'm darn proud of that. I don't usually toot my own horn, but this has been an achievement for me. And now moving on and moving forward I go.

Original Post

I've been at this project since November 13, 2018.

My goal is to create an animated project. I started by thinking, I'll do an animated short, then it evolved to making an animated series, then it changed again to a feature and yet again to a hybrid comic book and movie.

You might be thinking, why can't this guy make up his mind? Well, I've been asking myself the very same question. Why can't I make a decision and stick with it.

After much self analysis, it comes down to what story I want to tell. I've watched many short animated films, and some of them, I think are awesome. More importantly, my hats off to every one who made one. It's a lot of work.

But every time I sit down and try and write a short film, I end up with a much longer story. Maybe, that could be due to a lack of discipline. But, it's not that I can't write a short story, it's that I don't like the short stories I end up telling. I like to follow a character as it grows and faces difficulties and I can't tell this type of story in a short form.

The next devil I have to face is the one that asks: How the hell are you going to make an animated film? Do you know how many people and how long it takes to make one of these?

Yes. Yes I do. It takes a team of close to 200 people 2 years of full time work to finish an animated feature. Basically, it's impossible (or near impossible) for one person to make an animated feature on their own.

The self doubt devil continues: You're a dreamer! You'll never pull it off and whatever you do is gonna suck! You're not a pro.. just quit while you're ahead.

(by the way, I've actually been told that. Not in the exact same words, but the meaning is the same)

To the devil of self doubt I say, who gives a damn? Maybe I won't ever finish it. Maybe it's not about the end product. Maybe it's about the journey. There is some truth to that, you know? Many times, the satisfaction which comes with achieving a goal, quickly dissipates. The satisfaction associated with the journey, the challenges, and the many mini goals achieved along the way is what lasts a lot longer. Maybe it's that type of satisfaction I'm after.

In fact let me state it plainly. I'm after the journey. I'm after the growth which comes with the journey. I'm after the adrenaline high I get when I face a problem I know nothing about, spend weeks or months at it and figure it out at the end. I'm after that.

Now, you know why I'm making this project. Now you understand why I don't care about sticking with a specific plan. It's cause the more I learn the more changes I make to my plan. And this is quite normal. In fact if anyone sticks with a plan and never changes it when he gains new knowledge, I would say that man or woman does not deserve the new knowledge in the first place. It has fallen onto deaf ears.

The next question you might be asking yourself is: What in the name of googoogaga is an open movie project?

Well, I think I have a loose definition for an open movie. It's a movie project which is open to the public during its production. I'll try to make as many assets as legally possible available for free to all. I'm making heavy use of 3D kits, which are not in the public domain, like kitbash3d. However, anything I use from the public domain, will make it back to the public domain. I even put up the script I wrote.

Maybe others will find it useful and use it as well. I'll also blog/vlog the knowledge I acquire along the journey for others to make use of.

Okay. I blathered on long enough. If you follow the blog below, you can see the journey I had thus far...