July Update: Tales of Zale TV Pilot, Short, Musical Pipers & Events abroad!

Dear Patrons,

It's really only been a month, has it? So much stuff has happened that it feels like so much longer!! Let's just jump right into the updates:

TALES OF ZALE PILOT:

When we last left off, I was scrambling to get enough posing done and get all the shots organized to keep our interns well set up while I was gone for France and Ireland - since I'd be less able to note things while there.

Thankfully, it all worked out and we've been chipping away at the animation tests ever since. We're pretty close to being done with the rough animation for the first 4 minutes of the animatic, in fact! From there, we'll pick out a couple of other scenes scattered around the episode, based on what we have working designs and layouts for at the moment.

When we began, I tried setting things up as functionally as possible, but I wasn't necessarily expecting to get so much nice and directly applicable material to work with. I'm really happily surprised!

I still can't show stuff properly because of the NDA on the animatic, but I feel comfortable giving a sneak peek at a couple of stand-alone shots that won't show any story and might as well have appeared at any other point in the series. So, I hope you enjoy this little 3 second shot at the top of the post!

Since we don't have that much character reference material at the moment, I made a little training course for the interns, just to get into the style. I might share that a little later, if any of you are curious to try the exercises yourself!

MUSICAL PIPERS:

Rambu's Musical Pipers is also still well underway and is shaping up so nicely! Since I've been gone, I haven't gotten to contribute so much this month, but I am still tinkering with another shot on the side.

SHORT FILM:

Wanna join my little journey on making another short film? Well then, come along!

Ok, ok - so I've had a lot of projects up in the air for the past half a year, trying to figure out what to do with my hands while we're waiting for things to hopefully move to the next stage with Tales of Zale. But one of those projects I'm actually starting to move forward on.

Enter Re:flection, a short film under 5 minutes, that I should be able to execute before or on the side of work on Tales of Zale. Unless something really major comes up, that's what I'm planning to do.

The story follows Mira, the reflection of a young woman in a bathroom mirror. She loves to be seen, but as the young woman starts to buckle under the pressures of the outside world, Mira feels more and more neglected - until one day, when she finds that her spot in the mirror has been taken by a person she no longer recognizes.

That's the general set-up right now, although it's still in the early stages of story development! With everything happening out in the world these days, I've honestly been battling with the worthiness of a story that turns it's view so far inward. But at the same time, I don't think the theme of "re-finding one's self-love" is ever going to be entirely irrelevant - even more-so when outside pressures grow as they do.

There are also a few more practical reasons why I chose to move forward with this project right now, rather than any of the others that I've been tinkering with:

• Limited scope: Less than 5 minutes, 1-2 characters, and 1 location should ensure that I don't bite off more than I can chew at this current point in time.

• Learning opportunity: The limited scope allows me to experiment with techniques, such as using Blender for the layout and background, and possibly the new version of Moho for the 'other' person in the mirror. These are tools I'd really love to add to my arsenal!

• Networking: It'd be nice to have another official short film behind me, and this one is a bit better suited for going to festivals, which is a really nice way to network.

• A path to funding: And very importantly, unlike some of the projects with bigger scope, I can actually see a feasible path to funding and a realistic timeline as things currently stand.

In terms of the timeline, let me share my plan, since I think that insight might also be interesting to some of you:

Ongoing:

• Sending early pitch material to potential distributors: This will mostly take place during pre-production when there's a little bit more concrete material to send, but I'll be keeping an eye out for opportunities in the meanwhile.

• Continual personal development on story and visuals: I'll keep thinking and tinkering with it!

June:

• (DONE) Apply to OFF (Odense Film Festival) pitch event: One of two national pitch events that I will be applying for with the project. Honestly, I don't count on these pitch events to be super productive (the ones in Denmark usually aren't), but I think it's still a nice way to keep the pitching skills sharp and test the early story development on an audience. Potential bonuses include networking, and a small prize pool that could be won (I don't count on it with this particular concept since it's lacking a bit more of a personal angle, but the prize will be added to the production budget if it were to happen).

July:

• Apply to VAF (Viborg Animation Festival) pitch event: The other pitch event that I'll be applying for. The exact same case as with OFF, only this one is animation-specific and I won't have to travel as far :)

August:

• Apply to Open Workshop: OW is an artist residency, but it also allows you to apply for up to 25.000 DKK (3500-ish USD) to be used for hiring other artists. I hope to apply for this money to hire a concept artist that can make key images and explorations that can be used basically as the short's art direction, and material for the future pitches and applications. I'd rather hire a concept artist than do these illustrations myself, because I think it's better to be pushed a tiny bit out of my own comfort zone and own habits at this stage.

• Apply for Danske Filminstruktørers Fond: Since I've now got a couple of Director credits under my belt, I'm eligible to apply for this small fund of 5000-20.000 DKK. It's rare to get the full amount applied for - most people get around 10.000. But even if it is a small amount, it can help pay myself a little bit for the writing and directing for a couple of weeks so that I can give it my full focus.

• Apply to Vest-Danish Film Fund (development): Without this fund, none of this would be realistic. I'm planning to apply for it twice. This first round is for development money, and it is going to be a bit tricky. You can apply for up to 100.000 DKK (14.000-ish USD) for development, though it can be expected to get a good deal less. At this time of the year, these types of funds are often going to be depleted, and because of that, the chances of success when applying are lowered a lot. I'm going to be crossing my fingers that they may still have some "small money" lying around. If I get it, the money will go towards making the animatic and hiring a 3D artist to model the bathroom (then I can set up the cameras and use it in the storyboarding afterwards). If I don't get it, I'm going to do all I can on my own in the good old 'Tales of Zale - Flickering Lights'-zero-budget style.

September:

• Pitch at VAF and OFF while continuing story development: so long as the project is accepted into the events, of course.

October-December:

• Storyboarding, 3D layout & animation tests: Hopefully, with the support of Vest-Danish Film-Fund I'll be able to keep things neatly on track and bring in people as needed. If I don't get the support, then pre-production will likely move a bit into January as well.

January:

• Rest and reflection!

February:

• Apply to Vest-Danish Film Fund (production): This is going to be the big one. Most short film grants I see from them lie around 350.000 DKK (50.000-ish dollars). And let's be frank, if you compare it to French short film budgets, this is peanuts. Especially when applied in a country like Denmark where there are no tax rebates on production and the individual pays around 39% in taxes with a high cost of living. But! It's still a whole lot more than nothing, and should be enough to hire a few other animators to help over a couple of months. I've seen this grant often stretched thin over 10+ minute short films where the quality really suffers. That's exactly why I want to keep the scope smaller so that we can focus on the quality of the execution, and where if worst comes to worst, I can take the project over the finish line all by myself.

  In order to apply for this production fund, you need a production company attached. Luckily Nørlum (the same company I'm producing Tales of Zale with) has already agreed to fill that role. Secondly, the application is going to stand a lot stronger if some sort of distribution plan is set up at this point. So that is something I should try to sort out before February.

There are more funds I could apply for if I were to set up a co-production with another country. But with me not having too many other festival short films behind me (Flickering Lights only sort of counts in this context, because it wasn't specifically made as a short), I deem that it'd be better to focus on the national and local funds, try to get the best possible film out of it, and hopefully use that to open up more funding paths for more projects in the future.

So for now, work on the developmental pitch bible is underway!

ANNECY:

Ahhh it already feels like so long ago, but I did in fact go to Annecy as well last month! It was a jam-packed week where I met a staggering amount of people, both familiar faces and completely new. And in fact, Zale was represented there as well:

This was by the Nordic booth, where the Norweigan ambassador also held a speech during the Nordic breakfast:

I also got to meet some internet friends, like here where the few of us attending from the Musical Pipers team met up for the classic Annecy tradition: cheese fondue!

I went to a bunch of the internal events, like the Disney Party, and Cartoon Saloon's 25th anniversary get-together:

I also made sure to attend as many pitch and broadcaster events as possible, meet up with all the folks I knew from all over, and hang out at the cafés when possible. Plus, I did catch at least a few movies. Frankly, a wonderful time, although I did end up catching a bug that haunted me into the next week at the Director's Lab.

I'm really bad at remembering to take enough pictures, but here are a couple of scenic ones too:

DIRECTORS' LAB:

I continued directly onward to Boyle in Ireland, for the Director's lab arranged by the Irish Film Institute and Studio Meala. Every day, we had a new Director in animation present their craft and their path into directing. It was super reaffirming and interesting, and frankly I wish it had been longer. Especially since I had to take most of the Thursday off to recover from my Annecy bug (I held out as long as could with lots of soup and tea!).

It was this, along with the techniques presented in Annecy that gave me that last push towards laying a plan for the short film.

Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate Irish nature when the weather is nice?

SLACK ARCHIVE:

This is just a heads up! So, Slack recently changed their terms of service, and they are deleting everything from old servers unless you pay them. So I've decided to archive most of the old back-and-forths from our previous development, because I think they are really nice to preserve. I'm going to put them up for Curious Foxes, since it's been a while since I did anything exclusive for that tier, and this is mostly supplementary. You've already seen most of the material in what I've shared so far, this just puts things on a timeline with a few added discussion points and WIP sketches. So there's something to look forward to, Curious Foxes :)

ROUND-UP:

Ok, this was a BIG month. I'm sure I've missed something, but if so I can hopefully catch you up on that later. Last update was a bit more quiet, so I suppose this balances it out nicely. So I'm curious to hear what you think! Excited to see more bits and pieces of Tales of Zale animation? What do you think of the short film concept and plans so far, is it something you'll be curious to follow along with? Ever been to Annecy... or Boyle!?

Anyhow, I've already shared so many pictures, but since I happen to remember it, let me leave you with this month's bird pic:

All the best till next time!

-Sif