For the past two years I’ve been doing animation projects on the side and posting them online. My eventual goal was to be able to turn an animation out at a respectable rate, like one or two a week, by developing my skill and using my own tools. Granted, I haven’t done much work lately as I’ve been busy with trips to foreign lands and website updates, but I think if I wanted to I could actually make some pretty good stuff once a week; I’d just have to give up my day job.

To most filmmakers this would be a no brainer: “Leave my dead end job to make internet short films? Sign me up!” The first problem for me though is that I like my day job. It pays me money for things I like doing. The second problem – which is a big one – is that nobody really watches my films. They’re cute and I love making them, but my most popular short has one one-hundredth of the views on youtube than a cat that boxes; though to be fair that cat is precious. One could argue that if I put out videos more consistently I could develop an audience on my own, and I would agree, but I’m not sure I want to be that guy.

I think it may be time for a change in direction, and I think I have the answer. I’ve been afraid to do a longer form project ever since The Emperor’s New Clothes wrapped years ago because of the sheer amount of effort that went into what ended up being a somewhat mediocre result, but doing the Movie Monkey shorts has taught me a lot about what makes interesting viewing and I think I’m ready to try again. It will take a long time – possibly years – and I may exhaust every resource and friend I have in the process. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

While I’m working on it I will try to blog about the progress I’m making, if only to give myself something to look back on. I can’t say what the end result will be, but life isn’t a hero’s journey; that’s what makes it interesting.

I’ve been working on some updates to the site for a while, and I’m just starting to test some of the new features:

• A new photo album. I’ve been meaning to find a good place to keep my photos for a while, and decided to merge it in with the site. It will mostly be vacation photos and other nonsense, but I’ll try to make it interesting.
• I’m moving nicreations off YouTube. This is a big step forward for the site but a good one in the end. I will still post some videos on YouTube, but for the most part all new videos will be hosted on nicreations.com
• iTunes and iPhone support. Nicreations is now iPod and iPhone compatible! Even better, most of the videos are available as a iTunes podcast! To subscribe, open iTunes and select Advanced | Subscribe to Podcast…, and paste in the following URL
  http://nicreations.net/movies/player/itunes/itunes.xml
  The videos should be iPod compatible. Changing my rendering setup to support these new formats was very complicated, and it will take some time to work out all the kinks.

Try out these features by clicking the links above. If you have any problems, leave a comment on this post and I’ll look into it (yes, this is a desperate plea for posts. For once I’d like to moderate something besides viagra spam).

I’ve been working on some nicreations.com updates, but unfortunately one of the side effects is that I broke my RSS feed, and quite honestly I’m too lazy to fix it I’m not sure how to fix it. I’m not really sure how many people have subscribed, but since I think it’s less than 10 I’m just going to wait for them to complain.

One of the stranger episodes of Movie Monkey that I’ve made had to be “My Filmography”, where the Movie Monkey has a surreal conversation with his maker.

I’ll admit it was pretty out there, though to be fair “out there” is pretty par for course for a Movie Monkey episode. But maybe a little explanation might help. In 2005 the Kansas Film Commission was having a summit at the Lawrence Arts Center, which is around the block from my house. At this time I was just getting started working on the Movie Monkey and I thought it would be a good way to network with other filmmakers.

One reason I never made it as a filmmaker, besides the fact that I’m not an asshole, is my cynical nature. To make it through finding money, production, post production, and distribution, you have to believe that your film will change the world. I, on the other hand, said “wow, nothing I make will ever make a difference” and got a job instead.

So this summit was something of a culture clash. I would be talking to people between sessions, and the conversations would usually go something like this

“So what are you working on?”
“Well, I have a job.”
“On a Movie?”
“No, just the regular type”.

At this point I would notice their eyes move past me, as if to say this guy can do nothing for me. I must find someone important. After a while, I started to realize these people think the most important thing in life is making movies – above religion, above politics, above family. Is your worth as a person really defined by your filmography? The more I thought about it, the more I could see where it comes from. If you read trade magazines you get drilled into your head that “you are only as good as your last picture.” Combine this with the dream and passions of an independent filmmaker, and you have a weird new religion.

So thats what the episode is about – the church of Entertainment Weekly. To anyone who is a member – filmmakers in particular – might I suggest that there is much more out there than making movies and the business of making movies. Like watching videos on the web deconstructing movies.