I’m disappointing myself with this news, but I think it’s for the best. I’m putting production of the “Emptiness” animated series on an indefinite hold, and instead, I think I’ll rewrite it in a different format.
I was very excited about making a direct-to-Web animated series out of the story I came up with, but I realized coming home from work today several things:
- I have no real budget. I’m footing the bill for the series myself, and, although my bills have just loosened up a bit, I can’t really envision myself having enough money to do the series right, especially hiring voice actors.
- My animation skills are very limited. I’ve been playing around with the animation software I have, but it’s very tough to animate almost anything without resorting to expensive tools. And with no real budget, I have no expensive tools.
- I don’t think I have the patience. Even though the animation is fun to do (just very challenging), it would take me a week to do just one scene, since I still have my day job. On top of that, with no real budget, I only have my desktop computer to do the rendering, and it takes a very long time.
That brings me to a crossroads. I really want to continue with this story, and I want to do something innovative with the format. A video game is probably out of the question for now, mostly because my programming skills are limited and the story, as it is, doesn’t lend itself to interactivity. (Plus with no budget, I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on good programming tools. I know there are a lot of open source game development systems out there, but I’d run into the same time and patience problems.)
So I think I’ve settled on rewriting “Emptiness” as a traditional novel, perhaps with multimedia elements. I may also do a “platinum edition” (certainly not called that) with some 3-D artwork, almost like a picture book for adults. And there’s no reason I couldn’t later turn around and do it as an animated series.
I’m sorry if anyone out there is disappointed by this change, and thanks for your support.