Razor Blades and other stuff update (Patreon)

Apologies for the lack of updates this month.  I was aiming to finish Razor Blades around now, but it's going to be early next month.   I pictured it as a 3 week project but it's blown out a bit.  I thought itd be a 60 second film, but it turned out to be 90 seconds...  Another facepalm moment.

I still can't figure out whether it is good strange or bad strange.  I watched it yesterday and I thought  "this rocks!" then I watched it again just now and I thought "aww, it's flat."

I've shelved my audio side projects (podcast and associated song, new moancore tracks) and I'm ignoring all other temptations until Razor Blades is finished.

After Razor Blades I'm going to go hard on Fernando and the Disk of Chaos until it's done.  I needed a break from it and I feel refreshed and ready to headbutt it again.

There's a new grant from the local government film agency opening next month.  The amount of funding available is flexible (there's a set total amount and they'll split it up between however many teams they choose), and I'm trying to decide between three possible pitches:

- Fernando and the Phallus of Glycon 

Pro: Already written, so they can see for themselves that it is awesome.  Existing characters, easy to demonstrate has an audience.

Con: It's huge so probably too big for the scope of the grant, or if it was successful I'd have to do it in a limited style (might have to be a Metalocalypse style heavy reuse type of thing.  I'd take that opportunity over it not existing at all).  Also I'm halfway through an existing Fernando toon so it would be weird to shelve that to work on a new huge Fernando toon.  Weird!  

- Groanstaff

Pro: Uh...can't think of any.  It's set in the early middle ages, it's about a bard who has a staff that groans, not sure how appealing that is.  I've written two and a half episodes so if they like what I've done on it...  I should probably figure out how to talk this one up more if I'm going to write a pitch around it.

Cons: Numerous.  Big, expensive to do well, no local relevance, untested concept (this could be a pro depending on the attitude of the judges).  

- Collab song series.  More music videos along the lines of Calloused Hands, Final Form, Tobey Maguire.

Pro: Can show the previous ones are reasonably popular.  Really strong audience interaction.  Can link to Horse Person and Breaking My Heartichoke as examples of decent songs that I could use.  Can be tailored to budget size, big budget = 10 music videos, small budget = 3.

Con: Ummm I dunno, if they don't like my music then I'm sunk, and you know most people have terrible taste in music so it's unlikely the judges will hear my stuff and be like "hell yeh we need to fund this guy".  Also there's no thread or plot that runs through the songs, but that could be viewed as a pro...?  Also they tend to be dense, short projects and I know the previous grants had ridiculous expectations for length, the last one wanted 30-50 minutes with a budget of $30k AU, made over a short production period.  I didn't bother applying for that one.

The criteria emphasises that they'll look favourably on concepts that benefit the local scene, so I was thinking I'd pitch that they co-fund and I'd continue to use Patreon for the duration of the production period.  I'd pitch it so that most of the grant money goes to paying local animators.  That way I could produce things faster and give some work to recent graduates.  Yeh!  No one loses!  (except the taxpayer, but they lose no matter what)

After typing that out it feels like the collab song pitch is the strongest.  I'd most like to make the Phallus of Glycon, even though I know that animating something that large would probably drive me insane. 

So yeh that's what I'm up to.