November Update: Animation Break-Down, Future plans, Merch & Short Film

Dear Patrons,

Phew, it's been one of those months where so much stuff happened that it's quite the task to sit down an summerize. Let me go ahead and do my best, though!

TALES OF ZALE:

This month's preview is pretty exciting! Actual cleaned up animation! This is something that I've been wanting to do for a while as a proof of concept test for a while. I felt that it'd be easier to show the break-down via video rather than text and pictures, so check it out above if you haven't already. I managed to get it recorded just in time before losing my voice to a cold this weekend!

Now, let's start talking TV-series updates. This one is a little tougher. As you know, we're having the big broadcaster meeting here in November. The date has actually been set now - it'll be at the end of November. But I want to temper your expectations a bit ahead of time. While we have only received great feedback and enthusiasm so far, from what I am hearing through the grape wine, their budget allocated for animation may have been cut for next year. This will have come as a surprise to many, as even the higher ups had pushed for the opposite. On top of that, we didn't manage to get production tax rebates into this year's political finance plan either, so that puts animation in Denmark in a really tough spot. We're the only country in all of Europe that don't have any! It's not looking all that great in other places around the world either at the moment though. You're probably familiar with the many layoffs and the possibly impending strike in the US - but even culture juggernauts like France have had their animation budgets cut as well. I only just learned that one of the really big studios in France where I had my first directing job also seems to have gone under.

So yeah, times are tough. Of course, we can't know anything for sure until we have the meeting. But under these circumstances, I'd expect that their strategy will likely shift towards quantity over quality to fill out the content need with their limited resources. Which doesn't work out well for Tales of Zale.

On the other hand, if things do go in that direction, I think it'd make sense to run down the clock and wait for "better conditions" by returning to the indie approach in the meanwhile. Which is kind of exciting. Not so much from a financial stand-point, but mainly because I am rearing to get back to animating on Zale & co again as soon as possible. Just doing this month's animation test felt like a major boost of energy. I'll wait and see what sort of verdict we end up with though.

Maybe it's me just warming up towards that possible outcome, but I've been really eager to sneak in some more work with the characters this month. Other than making the rig and clean-up test, I also sketched out a small little comic. Right now I've only colored the last panel that you see above. I'm going to start out with keeping it simple, one panel at a time and see what time allows. If I get carried away, it might be fun to turn it into a small motion comic and post it as a short. That could be a nice format while waiting for the full release, but let's see. Also, here's the original sketch:

On top of that, I also started brainstorming some pin ideas. I've really wanted to make some enamel pins for a while, but I've been struggling with finding a fitting motif. I feel that I got a bit of a breakthrough when I started giving each character a specific flower to associate with.

Zale has dandelions! He'll find a way to sprout up through any hardships. He'll also go where he's maybe not wanted, haha.

Elva has thistles. She's prickly, hard to get close to, but has a lot of inner strength. Did you spot the thistles in Flickering Lights? Although I didn't really put a lot of detail into those backgrounds, so maybe they don't read so well.

Sesam has daisies. Daisies are associated with innocence and cheerfulness. They are also pretty simple and straight-forward flowers, which suits him nicely!

Evelyn has an orange mystery flower! Since you haven't gotten to meet her yet, I'll leave it open for now.

Morpheus has white lilies. That's another one I want to leave open.

Are there any of these characters/motifs that you'd prefer to see as pins first?

 Speaking of Morpheus, I also cast him for this year's Halloween illustration! If I'm being perfectly honest, I'm not happy with the rendering. But I was on the go, and the whole illustration thing is something that I've got to gently easy myself back into. Nonetheless, it was nice to be back in procreate for a bit! 

REFLECTION:

Let's start with the bad news: we didn't get the DVF funding for this project. Bummer! But expected. Nonetheless, this month we started the visual development with the support of the Open Workshop. That meant that I could have Maria Kruse on for concept development. In the last update post, we'd just gotten started with some of the key images. This month, we finished them. I think I'll dive a little deeper into the behind the scenes of each image at a later date, but this month's post is already pretty image heavy, so for now I am just showing the final stills:

Originally, it was my plan to also have a finished animatic for this short by the end of the year. But if I am taking ToZ back into my own hands then the calculation changes a bit. In that case, I'd rather do what I can for the series right now while I am still between projects at work. I'm still working through some feelings on this subject, because I am giving myself a bad conceous for not finishing what I originally set out to do. But shifting the goal to just be finishing the short film's pitch bible should still be enough to accomplish what I wanted, so I think I just need to get over myself on that front.

PIPERS:

I've still been chipping a bit away at Rambu's musical pipers whenever I had a moment. I know I have plenty of other stuff to do, but I actually ended up asking for a couple more shots. It makes me happy to be able to contribute to another passion project like my own, and in these trying times I think it's extra important to hold on to the things that make us happy.

JUL MED ASTRID LINDGREN:

As I mentioned in a seperate post, the short film which I animation supervised last year is now showing in Danish cinemas!

HULLET I HÆKKEN: 

On top of that, the TV-series which I animation supervised on this year is also premiering on Danish TV. It was supposed to come out this Friday, but for some reason it was very suddenly changed to the next instead.

CARTOON SPRINGBOARD

I also attended Cartoon Springboard this month, where I was part of the anniversary panel, talking about my experiences working on Tales of Zale since the pitch. It was super fun and inspiring - and also a good way to take the temperature on the animation industry in the rest of Europe at the moment.

Despite the challenges, I hope we managed to give a hopeful spin and encourage the young talents in the early stages of their projects. They deserve all the best!

ZALETROT CHALLENGE

The #ZaleTrot challenge has concluded! With so many awesome walks in so many awesome styles. I've been editing it here over the week, but discovered that I'd have to approach it a bit differently. Originally, I'd planned to use a 1,5 minute snippet from 'Break my Stride', but I found that there wasn't really time to register and appreciate the different walks, so I'm extending the video and retiming the edit now.

SHOP

This month the shop also re-opened. Just on a small scale, but enough to cover any Christmas needs!

ROUND-UP:

Ok, ok, this was just one of those months where so much stuff happened. Of course I'm keeping this project-focused, but on a personal level, my last remaining grandparent was very seriously hospitalized, Chia (the flightless canary) which I've been spending a lot of energy helping the last couple of months died before my eyes, and let me just say, if you've found the global news particularly emotionally taxing this month, you are certainly not alone on that. That, on top of what's going on in my local and global animation industry, the news of what is to be expected from our broadcaster negotiations, and so much more, has certainly been a very discouraging combination.

But when all is said and done, I think it's important to focus on what we can do in the given moment rather than the things that are out of our hands. I have a policy of countering anything negative with something positive and that tends to make me feel better. I don't intend to push the bad feelings away, but I don't want to revel in them either. For now, I plan to take care of myself, work through the cold that I managed to pick up, do something nice for someone else, and then get back at it with doing what I love. One day at a time.

Likewise, I hope you all take good care of yourselves till next time!

All the best,

-Sif