New Animated Scene! + TV-Series Progession and More Pitching

Dear Patrons,

Thanks to those of you sticking with me in these odd times! I hope you're all in good health. It took a little while to get back into things with the new workspace, but luckily not as long as I'd feared. Got a pretty stable internet connection set up, and TVPaint autosave is cranked up to every 5 minutes as to not lose too much to the crashes. It all seems to be working out for now. Working from home I'm also able to enjoy being around my birds who are nesting and have laid 3 eggs, so it isn't all bad!

Anyhow, I've decided to divide the update up into sections again, so without further ado let's jump right into it!

EPISODE 3 ANIMATION PROGRESSING FASTER:

Above you'll see a little sequence of rough animation from Episode 3. You might notice that some of the shots look slightly different than usual - well that's because those are animated by former classmate of mine Myra Hild (online, since the borders are closed)! Thanks to the Open Workshop's support we've been able to fund her helping out on the project for two months, and wauv, it really speeds things up to be two on the team. Of course, there's still a lot of work involved on my end in directing and making notes for the animation - it needs to get to a point where I can at least make it consistent with the other shots in the clean-up. I'll attach an example with some notes I had on Elva's claws today. Not all my notes are super pretty, but hopefully, I'll get better at that along the way as well. Anyways, I think Myra is doing really great! I find myself sometimes taking the simpler route with some of the shots these days due to time constraints, but she really goes all out. It brings a lot of life to the performance that I might have had a hard time putting in myself otherwise - though I'll of course still have some fun with shots near and dear to my heart ; )

*Oh, one note on this scene though: there is some editing and sound that's off and that's because I'm just working on a temporary premiere file till I can return to my usual workstation. So, for now, I'm just focusing on the rough animation and keeping things simple - that's all there's room for on this computer!

STUDIO, WRITER AND INTERNS:

So I think I can say at this point that the studio that I'm working with to bring Tales of Zale to life as a TV-series is Nørlum. We've been having a lot of at *least* weekly meetings discussing how to move things forward, and for now the intent is to apply for development funding at the Vest-Danish Film Fund when they have their series deadline in August. We've also been in talks with another very promising production company that could really help in this process. 

Now I should empathize that just because things are progressing smoothly for now, that doesn't mean that this TV-series will actually happen. There's a lot that can fall through along the way, but at least for now, things are going in the right direction.

I've been having meetings with potential writers, one of whom seems really promising. We're still waiting on word from that other production company before making a final decision, but I mean having too many good choices would just be a luxury problem, right?

While we don't have a budget right now the studio is taking interns from Sheridan who I'll get to work with come May. Just, you know, online and all. So I've been having meetings with potential candidates on that front as well - think we've found 4 that suit the project pretty well and I'm looking forward to getting to know them more! There's still a lot more planning to do, but I think I'll leave the details of this whole thing for another post at a later date. Anyhow it should make for some good initial directing experience!

ANIMATION PRODUCTION DAYS:

APD might have been canceled, but it continues with an online version in the first week of May. There I will be able to pitch Tales of Zale directly to broadcasters and financiers. I'm a bit nervous to be honest, 'cause a one-on-one meeting is quite a different beast than presenting in front of a big audience. And holding a normal conversation and improvising in front of cool business people I don't know... somehow I feel more comfortable presenting in front of a big audience! I'm sure that too will be good experience though.

CONCEPT ART:

Been working on and off with a super duper cool concept artist (you know who you are) and I can't wait to show you all some of the stuff he's been tinkering with. A little later though!

So unless I'm forgetting something that's been the main events since last update. Lots of meetings and a good amount of animation! Even despite the times, things are pretty good. I mean, if stuff gets delayed because of Corona that just makes for more development and animation time on my end, so I'll be fine! (... I mean, at least I'm privileged enough to feel that way for now since it's somewhat contained here while things are closed down.)

I can only hope that you're all managing to stay safe and in somewhat good spirits out there as well. Please be careful for yourselves and those around you. 

See you around,

- Sif