Hello!
So I watched a 6 minute long stop motion video of two friends going to the park, sitting down next to each other on a bench and the whole gag is that they're texting each other on their phones. Everyone passing by is on their phones. Even a dog walks into frame and has a phone on a harness that he uses with his tail instead of playing fetch. The animation was okay. The social commentary was about as tedious and heavy handed as it sounds.
Why am I telling you this? At the very beginning of the film, it had a 3rd place winner stamp from some festival. I thought to myself "I can do better than that. I'm going to do better than that." I sat down and started thinking of storylines.
I've watched every episode I can get my hands on of "Lessons from the Screenplay", "Every Frame A Painting", "Just Write", and probably others I'm forgetting. I just finished John Truby's 'The Anatomy of Story'. I've watched every single best picture winner ever made (except Green Book, we still need to watch that). I can do this! I started this journey into stopmotion trying to make a masterpiece. That was a naïve mistake. It wasn't a waste at all, I learned a hell of alot with my attempt at Dasos. I spent all last year teaching myself and upping the game. I'm still far from where I want to be. I want to make it clear I consider my stuff 'Almost Good.' But I'm seeing stuff out there that frankly sucks and it's winning awards!
I hate to admit this, but I'm not a real artist. I've met real artists. Carina Fernandez is a real artist, Sam Mishlap is a real artist. I don't even like drawing. I'm not good at it because I don't do it enough and I don't do it enough because I'm not good at it. I enjoy making stuff. I enjoy lighting things. I love posting stuff and seeing the little 'views' number go up. Everyone compliments me on my okay stopmotion stuff. I love that. I love that I see crap all over YouTube and I know my stuff stands out in quality a little more than theirs. That's not what being an artist is about. That's just petty ego crap.
So this year, I'm going to make a 6 minute long (or longer) short and I'm going to submit it to every single festival or competition I can find. I want to win 3rd place or better at ANYTHING! I don't care what it is. I'm sure I won't place at Cannes, but as long as I can post a video that has a little festival stamp on it, I'll be happy! ... for like a day.
