Skip to main content

Playing it safe is dangerous- I like fiRE

Although I'm the worst marketer in the world I'm an avid follower of Seth Godin's blog/books and he wrote something this week that was very important to me-
The smart way to do it is to be unique before you get lucky and become famous. Take a listen to an old Talking Heads record or a house designed by Wright early in his career. They were unique before they were famous. This takes more patience, more guts and a lot more weirdness because the thing you're doing is actually interesting before it (if you're lucky) becomes popular. You might not end up as Oprah, but your uniqueness is yours, and it can pay off long before the masses choose you merely because you're the famous one.
Now I know my visual style/animation style/filmmaking style is unique BUT those things can easily be copied- I believe the other thing that makes me unique when added to the other elements is that I make full length animated films mostly on my own- so I need to keep doing that-

This past week when I was in a bad place- feeling low- I started getting thoughts about "playing it safe" and COUGH those thoughts were suggested to me by a third party-

Now that I'm back to my normal ridiculous, impractical, impossible, stubborn state- I have to say I'm not interested in playing it safe for the sake of playing it safe-

Everybody and their baby daddy's brother makes short films/videos on the internet these days- yeh its more accessible- yeh its less of a challenge- yeh its more manageable- yeh its more practical- but I really don't give a fuck about any of that ^_^

Right now I have three completed feature scripts-

One of which there were discussions of breaking down into a short series- its a sci-fi script- its flash- its "cool" but it has no message- there is no art in it- its just a movie- I'm sure it would make a good sci-fi action movie- but lots of people can make a good sci-fi action movie

Another one is pure schlock- sex-horror exploitation- blah

NOW the third one is pretty dark, deals with molestation, abuse and ritual murder of children BUT it also has a whimsical and magickal edge too it- the characters are dolls in a fantasy world  designed by me- the story is my retelling of the myth of "god" and the "devil" NO ONE else would make this film- NO ONE ELSE COULD make this film- so that's how I know its the one.

Whether I do it alone or not I'm starting work on the animated feature film God Lives Underwater in September and I plan to finish it by Xmas 2013

YEH I know it would be smarter to do a series but who said I was smart? ^_^ My rationale is this- making this film this fast is a step closer to make a full length animated film in 12 months- every 12 months- if I can't do this next one by the deadline then I'll do the smart thing-

I'd like to AT LEAST have a trilogy of original animated feature films- so that's what I'm going to do for now. That's what excites me- keeps me alive- thats my passion!

Admit it! I bet some of you were disappointed when you read that I was going to switch to making a series of shorts- I can't disappoint you so imma keep delivering strange films faster and faster ^_^

Whatever the case we should chase our passion for as long as we can- if that boot comes crashing down and stops me I'll stop-until then imma keep running forward- even if it means I do so alone.

Practicality is abound and so is safety- M dot Strange is supposed to be a fool- I'll let everyone else do it "the right way" and I'll make it my own way.

These don't look like people who want me to play it safe? So I'm not ^_^








Comments

  1. Fuck Yes! That's the M dot Strange i've grown to love!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good news with God Lives Underwater! I for one was hoping for another feature instead of a series.

    And yeah, fuck safe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. they are all dressed in black shirts, it's strange

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mike, Blue looks like Cortana from Halo3 , Blue is AI ?

    ReplyDelete
  5. You are a modern day bard finding your part in this retelling of a classic cycle.You and your work reflect the healing path and how it is allways a search for something. The soul of man searching for the eternal soul of life from illusion to life. Plotinus -the way to truth is the journey of a lonley person to that wich is eternally alone. The aloneness was the power of the grail each individual had to call on his own resourses.must be an individual effort. A Knight errant like SAamhaine Suke and you M Dot Strange

    ReplyDelete
  6. a feature or a series? i want both, i really do. at any rate whatever you choose to do i'd be happy to to help with things like 3d modelling and stuff if u want it

    ReplyDelete
  7. "you are soooooooo gud!" It's hard to not be yerself =)

    ReplyDelete
  8. The movie broken down into segments, serialized and when season or series is over, compile it and release on DVD with specials.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I want to see a b flick by you one day. I bet we could make an insane horror flick for nothing, and over the span of a few months. Is God Lives Underwater going to have some HP Lovecraft shiiiit going down?

    ReplyDelete
  10. You don't need to keep making them on your own.
    Minions = faster, and you can get out more ideas
    don't limit yourself. You've already proved you can do it on your own twice.
    Time to take the next step.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What format should I render out of Cinema 4d with?

UPDATED 2_27_13!  RENDER USING EXR Lossy Zip16! Since I'm working on a new feature film that will generate over 1500 shots made up of image sequences I need to make sure I choose the right file format to render to lest my hard drives explode. What I need from my format is  at least 16bit, an alpha included and preferably small size. I rendered out a frame from my film tallied up all the file sizes here- their all different types of codecs listed from smallest file size to largest. The render includes an RGBA pass, Depth pass, and Material Luminance pass because thats what I always render out. 1.00mb 8bit-Photo Jpeg %100 1.27mb 8bit-PNG 4.65mb 16bit- EXR lossy ZIP16 5.75mb 8bit-PSD 6.23mb 16bit-EXR lossy PLZ 6.44mb 16bit-PNG 7.94mb 8bit-TIFF 8.50mb 16bit-EXR Lossy 24 9.05mb 16bit-EXR Lossy Run Length 14.6mb 8bit-TARGA 22.4mb 32bit-EXR ZIP16 24.6mb 32bit-EXR Zip1 25.6mb 32bit-EXR PLZ 29.3mb 16bit-TIFF 29.3mb 16bit-PSD 40.0mb 32bit-EXR Run Length 58.7mb 16

Aggregated feedZ

So I totally aggregated all meh rss feedZ...So in this one handy like feed thing you can get... -Meh blog posts -Meh EXCITING Facebook status updates (ex. "I'm so FACE") -Meh youtube videos -Meh Vimeo videos -Meh Blogtalk radio episodes - and much more (actually just like some other xml code that i don't understand) Just subscribe via this link and you can get all that for a low low price of...oh wait it's totally FREE ^ ^

So a guy is trying to take credit for my film...

TLDR- Scroll down to THE THIEVERY My name is Mike- I make films under the name "M dot Strange" and I have done so for the past 10+ years- this is my story as a filmmaker culminating in a recent event wherein a "filmmaker" tried to take credit for my life's work Here's my imdb page with my film credits  My web site Here's a reel with stuff from my original films in which I wrote/created/designed/animated etc everything that you see- I can and have performed all aspects of animated film production on my films- thats sort of how I made a name for myself- by being a one man animated film studio Here's a presentation from 2014 with me discussing the production of my last film My first animated feature film "We Are The Strange" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007 Sundance archives link Article about the film Link to the film Film's site Because of the buzz that film generated I was given offers to sell the