Ultrafoot from Sam Niemann on Vimeo.
I had vowed I would finish, that I'd never completely abandon the project, and I've finally made good on that promise.
The neglected little tyke had no budget and no schedule. I'm sure the band had long ago given up on me, and so, even as I promised not to forget him, the poor fellow was easily deferred by any other project that seemed interesting.
On top of that, I probably made every production error possible. When I started, it was intended as a portfolio piece. I employed, and even feel I innovated, many techniques I thought the cartoon would show off. But before I finished they became standard procedures and are now kind of quaint.
As a director, I really didn't know what I wanted. I, or in some cases others, would spend hours on a background painting just to have it discarded.
This rough layout, if you could even call it that, was handed to the talented Jessica Buuck.
She did this sketch, which after a few revisions, became...
...this lovely painting.
She did many such paintings for me. Unfortunately, I just didn't feel they stylistically fit. I like to think Jessica's work wasn't wasted, though, because of how strongly it inspired my final version.
Here are a couple other examples of hours of misguided effort:
So there's that.
I also thought I could use Ultrafoot to build a staff for my growing studio. Many talented, but in some cases inexperienced, people were willing to volunteer their efforts toward the project with the idea that when paying work came along, we'd have our work flow in place and be ready to hit the ground running. Unfortunately, the real result of that was I spent long hours instructing, fixing, revising, rather than getting real work done. (This blog contains some of those demonstrations if you care to check them out)
Not to mention, I'd worked on it so long that during it's production digital video standards changed and I had to reformat everything to increase the resolution.
And finally, though not least, since starting the project I had a son. And then a daughter. My day to day life became exceedingly full. I felt I could only afford two modes of being; either earning money, or caring for the children. If I wasn't doing one, I was obliged to take up the other. That made the notion of "unfunded side projects" frivolous, and I often even felt guilty if I stole a couple hours here or there for them.
But I stuck it out! The kids are school age now. My wife has paying work. I found myself "between projects" as we say in the freelance business, and finally had a few solid weeks to devote to finishing Ultrafoot. It's all I ever needed but have been unable to arrange all these years.
