The following will be discussed in this article:
- My Initial Plans.
- How I Plan On Continuing.
- How Close I Am to Starting?
My Initial Plans.
In December 2022, I intiated a poll on my YouTube channel in which I asked everyone how it would be best to spend my efforts. I gave two options, one of them was to make a film, something which would take years to not only work upon, but additional time needed to set everything up and plan it’s release in a realistic timeframe.
The second option was for me to release shorter episodes to be released periodically, an option I agreed with but wanted to have a level of certainty towards before continuing into 2023 with a narrow focus and a goal to accomplish.
This idea intitially came to me in November 2022, when I went to Malta. Often spending time in my hotel rooms waiting, I used this time to draft ideas for myself. Nothing to occupy my mind and with influences from the recent release of Tales of the Jedi, I began to draw upon the sheets of paper provided by the hotel and I began to come up with small episodes to be released. If the vote went down the film route, then these stories would have had to be adapted so that it can be told over a feature length (at least 45 minutes long), but everyone agreed with the short episode idea, and as such I can confirm that I have begun work on turning one of these rough, hotel room sketches into a script.
How I Plan On Continuing.
Whilst working on the first draft, I have began using Adobe to a good extent alongside it. Yesterday (11/02/23) I watched a video on the Papa Meat channel, the second channel to MeatCanyon, where he did his usual thing of taking something from pop culture and turning it into a twisted rendition of his own creation.
I took this as a slight inspiration for me, and then began drawing Emperor Palpatine in his Revenge of the Sith (2005) senate speech declaring the Empire (red robes). Today (12/02/23) I took the intial illustration and began creating the background for it, as well as providing some simple mouth openings to use for speech patterns. I went through the ropes of recording myself do the entire speech in a weird sort of comedic way, then putting that into the Photoshop document so I could match the mouth movements to the audio.
However, I also did experience some hardship. Upon exporting the MP4 from Photoshop, I created a Premiere Pro document so that I could begin to include different shots of the senate building, Palpatine during close-ups, long-shots, medium-shots taken from low angles etc – bearing in mind I had recorded the whole speech, so I could take the time (and still can) beging piecing together different animated shots. The hardships I faced during this though, other than my computer being slow, was that Premiere Pro couldn’t work with the video driver on my laptop – so when it came to previewing footage of what I had done, it wouldn’t play back.
I also realised that it had taken me a fair amount of hours to create a five second long animation, albeit including recording the speech, but like the video of the black-eyed man during last year’s Daily Worb Challenge (another 5 second long animation), tha had taken me all day to do.
Therefore following my day long struggle for a somewhat small outcome in the grand scheme of things, I have decided that I won’t be able create a 5 minute long animated story either without immense struggle by using my current laptop or without investing in a computer that can handle the Adobe applcations I intent to use.
I will spend my time doing what I have been, writing the first script, however today has been informative in that the goals I have in mind may require better resources in order to get there, at the quality that I want it to be.
Oh, and that Palpatine animation? you can find it below:
How Close Am I To Starting?
Following the struggles I am currently facing, and given that I haven’t yet completed my script, I am still very much in the first stages of getting things ready. There are other factors to consider, such as voice acting (and the attainment of voice actors), crafting the stories following the one I am currently making, and developing a work pattern that gets the job done.
However, with persistence, I will discover what I need to do over time. Today, as an example, has led me to understanding the trials and errors that have gone into making something as simple as a five second long clip – and when I do go on to taking my time crafting something of a higher quality, I want to have the process down so that I can spend my efforts worrying about the quality of the animation I’m making and not worrying whether I will even be able to export it as a video in the first place.
There is a lot of work to do before we will see anything of great substance, but rest assured that I’m working hard to ensure that I do the things I need to do, giving myself, and The Worb in general (as a platform) the tools needed to create good stories.
Many thanks,
Will
The Worb 