2020 END-OF-THE-YEAR PREVIEW

Dear Patrons,

Thank you so much for sticking with me over this crazy year. I hope you've all managed to get through in one piece - or if not, that you will be given plenty opportunity to pick yourselves back up in 2021.

The end of the year ended up coming a bit suddenly for me. For these past two months I've had my head buried in work even more so than usual, with the French directing job taking up the majority of my time. During previous parts of the job, I've been able to stop working at a decent time of day and often had time and energy enough to continue on with some more Tales of Zale work afterwards. But these months things got a bit out of balance. For one, because creating a 20 minute animatic and getting it ready before Christmas was just always going to be a challenge. After all it takes a whole different level of focus and mental energy for me. People who have followed me since the ToZ Episode 3 animatic was in the works, know that I love doing lots of iterations and really feel out the story and test the waters at this stage! I think we ended up at something rough but pretty good - although there will still be a bit of opportunity for some final adjustments in some places.

Another thing that just made it all a little bit tougher was that I had to go to Copenhagen to help my mom after her eye surgery, which took a bigger toll than expected. It wasn't too bad on it's own, but it just added a little extra to the rest of it. And then I've been trying to find a new place to live because my time at Open Workshop is almost up, as well as trying to plan the writing process for the Tales of Zale sample scripts which begins next year. So plenty to see to!

- Anyways, that's just a small update on how the past month looked, since I got so delayed that the monthly post got merged into the end-of-the-year post. Like last year, it didn't seem feasible to make a whole update video in time, but I'll be writing about some of the highlights of what has happened. Despite the general theme of the year, there have actually been plenty of positive events to be happy about! 

Oh, and since I'm technically not allowed to show a lot of the visuals that we've worked on, I won't be able to make a whole new Patreon art book this year - but I'll show some highlights here and there that haven't gone public yet, so I hope you enjoy!

TALES OF ZALE EPISODE 3

(Work in progress comp Bernardo Bordeira)

First off is as usual a preview from episode 3. And it makes sense to show the same "first half" that I showed last year, but with updated progress. Back then, that first half was as far as I was with the rough animation. This year, however, I got to finish the rest of the animation and get started at full throttle with the clean-up! As you can see, most of this first half has been cleaned up and I've started work on some backgrounds here and there. And there's a good bunch of clean-up done in the later half of the episode as well, so although it can feel like a painstakingly slow process, we are making some good progress. If at all possible, I'd really like to make next year the year that we finally finish this episode! 

- Though I still don't just wanna rush it : )

NEW PARTNERS

(Early Zale concept thumbnail by Phoebe Mao)

While the web-series is still it's separate entity that I keep on tinkering with as always, 2020 was a pretty exciting year for Tales of Zale in many other regards as well. I finally found a producer for my dear little project in the folks at Nørlum and Stegelmann Films. Though we are treading on pretty untouched ground for a Danish production of this kind and there are still many uncertainties, I do believe that at this current point in time, this has been the best option for this project. Although it doesn't give the project any sort of certainty for finding funding or getting green-lit, working with this particular team ensures that ToZ will keep it's soul much more so than it would under ordinary circumstances. Working with a team that values the projects' core to such a degree is pretty unusual in this field, and I certainly count my blessings. Only time will tell where things go, but for now we managed to get some initial funding from the Vest-Danish Film Fund for working with a writer to write 3 sample scripts. Although the funding came with the requirement that we find a writer who lives in central Jutland, which proved quite challenging and caused some delays in our plans. Still, for now we're good to begin writing in January and I couldn't be more excited!

NEW COLLABORATIONS

(Color sketches by Zachary Johnson / Danfango)

This was the year where I decided to really jump into working with other people on my projects. It seems like a no-brainer, but it's always been hard for me to ask people for help. Thankfully everybody whom I've had the pleasure to work with this year brought so much enthusiasm and creativity that it made this first step for me into the best experience I could have asked for.

Due to corona she wasn't able to come over from Sweden, but early on in the year Myra Hild joined for a couple of months to finish working through the rough animation of episode 3 with me. On the never-ending clean-up track I was joined by Josh Goff and Viktoria Binder Knudsen for a while, as well as by Micki From Johannsen and Giorgos Chatzellis during their internship periods. Especially during the times where I was busy with the French project, or directing Sheridan interns or preparing fund application, these absolute troopers helped make sure progress was always steadily being made on episode 3. I'm extremely thankful for that.

In this latter half of the year, Bernardo Bordeira has also joined in helping with compositing on some scenes. Although I'm struggling a bit getting enough shots ready for him, since final backgrounds is still something I'm holding off on most places - that's a whole different mindset I have to get into, so I'm trying to get as much of the clean-up out of the way beforehand!

Speaking of backgrounds, somebody who knows a whole lot about the subject is Zachary Johnson, aka. Danfango! Being one of my very favorite artists out there on the wide web, I was so amazed to get to work with him this year, to the extend circumstances allowed. I'm still really blown away by the "quick sketches" he did while exploring some initial Tales of Zale concept art. They really talk for themselves!

(Color sketch by Zachary Johnson / Danfango)

And, can't forget of course, that somebody else I got to collaborate with this year was all of you! Or rather, everybody who sent in video testimonials during the summer. The video we put together with everybody's help no doubt helped a lot in securing some of this initial writing funding - and I'm sure it will help a lot in future applications as well! Thank you to everyone who sent something in, as well as everybody who intended  to but weren't able : )

INTERNSHIPS

(Concept art by Phoebe Mao)

Like I mentioned, Micki and Giorgos interned with me on episode 3, but over the summer I also had the pleasure of having four online interns from Sheridan College: Phoebe Mao, Megan Babchuck, Max Jayzeh and Aiden Guo. (Look out for their graduation films in the future!) Here a lot of our work was focused on initial concept and character explorations with a mind on future applications. This is work that will no doubt prove invaluable in the future.

EVENTS

To no-one's surprise, it wasn't a year of many events. I had just gotten to France to conclude the last module of Animation Sans Fronitère when the lockdowns started. So the rest was cancelled with a postponed symbolic conclusion. Still, I was happy for the relations I got to build over the course of the program.

I at least got to participate in the virtual version of the Animation Production Days, normally taking place in Stuttgart. It was through a limited invitation through ASF, but it was still a program that allowed me to speak directly with broadcaster representatives and gauge their reactions to my Tales of Zale pitch. Right now most of those broadcasters have put their decision-making on hold during these uncertain times, so what we could get out of the event was limited at this moment. But it still provided valuable information.

WOLFWALKERS INTERNSHIP RESULTS

(A page with some birds I drew in the Wolfwalkers art book. Photo credit to Albolong, my own book has yet to arrive!) 

Two years ago, I went on an internship Ireland at Cartoon Saloon. This year, the film that I worked on finally came out! I believe I've written about the internship before, so I'm not going to dwell too much on it here - but needless to say it's super cool to finally see the work on screen! During my time there I got to work on effects, animation tests, character sheet fix-ups and clean-up tests before specializing more in the bird character of the film. There I got to help define the way it moved and actually animate some shots for the film, which I learned so much from! I've brought a lot of that experience on with me to Elva's animation and design in episode 3 : )

ZALE SHIMEJI NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

Oh hey, wanna know something else cool? If you've seen one of the few later streams I got around to this year, you may have noticed Zale wandering around as an interactive desktop pet. Well that desktop pet was made by Josh Goff, and he's put it up for anybody to download now! There are lots of little unique animations and surprises if you have Zale stick around for a while, so definitely give it a try if you're curious: https://www.deviantart.com/jolumaya/art/Tales-Of-Zale-Shimeji-DOWNLOAD-for-WINDOWS-and-MAC-865059270 

WHAT'S NEXT

(Early concept sketch by Megan Babchuck)

So what's next? Well, there are still a lot of uncertainties for the coming year, but I have some rough ideas. First off, writing the 3 sample scripts for Tales of Zale with the writer is going to start mid-January and continue for 3 months from there. We'll also have a meeting early in the year with the TV-series team to figure out what deadlines to set for ourselves, what to aim for and which platforms to target with the scripts. Events are still likely to be limited, but we'll figure out a strategy around it.

For the writing part it's best if I stick around in Viborg for that, so I'm going to have to find a temporary place to live now that my Open Workshop residency has run out (there are a lot of people in line for the residency because everybody's stay got delayed this year). I plan to stay until the writing concludes and then go to Copenhagen for a while. Partly to catch up with some friends, and partly to just have a period where I 100% focus on making progress on Tales of Zale episode 3 again.

Then, if the world situation seems alright for travel or I've been lucky enough to get a vaccine towards the later half of the year, I may have to go to France for the production of this project I've been directing. But that also depends on how long it takes for it to get funded, so we will see.

Right now, what I really want to do is finish the web-episode and continue to create a solid foundation for the TV-series. It's still going to be a transition year in many ways. I'm not going to be too settled down, but rather focus on finishing and continuing to build the things that I've started. Can't know for sure what the year will bring but I'll continue to give it my all!

I'll see you for the next monthly update, when we've hopefully gotten started on writing the sample scripts. In the meanwhile, I hope you all have a happy New Year!

- Sif

(Early concept sketch by Megan Babchuck)