Shadowing Practice: The Indie Animation Conundrum - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Indy.

The history of pictographic storytelling can be dated back to the dawn of man itself,

when Homo Neanderthalus first began smearing fecal matter on cavern wall - Got you, fucko.

I might be white, but this isn't that kind of video essay.

Animation is an expensive process, and animators are artists, which is a fancy way of saying poor.

Seven bucks?

Are you fucking serious?

Traditional animation cannot be made without funding from larger studios, who typically give the artists a ton of money, but in exchange, they claim their soul.

And the general public suffers as a result, because they are getting a watered -down, retold version of the artist's creative vision.

They aren't seeing what the artist was trying to convey, even if it may challenge their beliefs or offend their sensibilities.

They are watching what a boardroom thinks they want, and that never works because the general public is stupid and never knows what it wants.

Indie animation, on the other hand, typically involves a very small self -funded team who makes money by e -banking on Twitter,

selling merchandise, or accepting money from a corporation, with the creators behind the projects getting full creative control

because there are no evil businessmen smoking cigars in a boardroom meddling with the artist's creative vision.

We, the audience, receive these moving pixels and MP3 files in its pure, unfiltered, intended way directly from the creator.

And a lot of the time, that leads to it being not very good, or at least is not as good as it can be.

Because sometimes when an artist has no one to tell them no, they develop what some refer to as an ego,

but I rather refer to as artist infallibility dumb syndrome, or AIDS for short.

Indie animation is extremely important.

It allows for more people to tell more stories in more creative ways, and allows the general public to glimpse into worlds that don't exist,

and become lost in the magic of storytelling, in ways that could never be done in the corporate animation scene,

because the focus test groups they use are turbo normies

that can't focus on anything that isn't tung tung tung se social media trends, baby no money music type beats, and moist critical.

And we as the audience should be supporting these indie creators who are taking huge risks to follow their dreams

and offer us a glimpse into not just their own soul, but ours as well.

But just because it's indie doesn't mean it's exempt from criticism.

It simply being someone's passion doesn't make it worth my precious time.

Just because a lot of work went into something doesn't mean it's immediately good.

My wife's boyfriend puts a lot of work into getting my wife pregnant, but that doesn't suddenly make me the father of her 12 children.

I also need to make it clear that although the waters of indie animation are wide, dark, and deep.

My main criticisms lie with those that are attempting to become serialized television.

If you're out here making silly animations because you like it, here's a lollipop.

Go out, fine little guy.

But if you are considering becoming a storyteller and packaging and shipping your product to the masses for consumption,

then get ready, buddy, because I have my fedora ready, and I will whine and complain about it if it's subpar.

Now, I need to disclose my bias.

I don't mind paying to consume art, but just as I click agree to the terms

and conditions on whatever site I'm spending my Flaysbucks on to view the animation, Please, please let me in, please, please!

The artist is signing an invisible contract with me that the money I spend should give me an enjoyable time in return.

So whether it be on a streaming service, a physical piece of media, or even YouTube, I will be watching it with my brain on.

An indie show is speaking, listen, and learn.

It can be a short, a pilot, an entire series, I don't care.

If the project is bad, or even worse, boring, or even worcester, annoying, I will be critical of it.

Because although it is art, it is a product I bought and paid for with my money and my time.

And time is the most valuable currency in existence,

because you can spend it all on merchandise that will end up in the landfill in five years.

Like this VHS for Lehecken Lost Media Indie project I found while dumpster diving behind Hot Topic.

Hopefully it doesn't make me have a hyper -realistic panic attack with hyper -realistic blood.

Oh no!

I am the main character who breaks the fourth wall, haha!

I am stuck inside an indie pilot that is a sponsor for NordVPN!

Oh, the cybercriminals are trying to hack my computer and steal all of my dap NFT!

I feel a hyper -realistic panic attack coming on.

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My name's Nord.

A large issue with indie animation is that although it is a fact that they are all inherently different, they feel incredibly similar.

Oh, God, I'm so pregnant.

I'm pregnant with an idea.

And that is the idea of inspiration.

Taking ideas and elements from things and using them to create something new.

Nothing is original, every thought has been thunk, every brap has been stunk.

It doesn't matter where your inspirations come from, as long as you have something unique and interesting to say.

I take no issue with inspiration, be it light or heavy, but I do take issue with your work pretending to be something that it's not,

and using the name of an inspiration to sell a product.

A lot of indie creators talk at great lengths about what inspired their stories, the themes, the characters, the setting,

the vibes, and it sounds good if you're uncritical, But if you pay attention,

it seems they were viewing their inspirations with Instagram reels in one hand and YouTube shorts in the other.

Has Been Hotel and Hell of a Boss are both shows created

and written by Vivzipop that is very strongly inspired by Christian religious mythology.

Specifically, Dante's Inferno written by Dante Alighieri and the Bible written by God.

And this is an example of a subtle integration of inspiration.

Subtle in the idea that Vivzy does many interviews and explains exactly what shapes her stories and characters, but doesn't always talk about the biblical inspirations.

It's very apparent in the work itself, though.

It takes place in heaven and hell.

There are demons and angels.

There are different rings of hell for different sins.

Apart from that, it's all fanfic OC content.

That's it.

Fuck this.

Hello, husband hotel crew.

I am homosexual.

Let's have le kissy kissy smooch smooch time.

But these inspirations are very strongly felt through the entirety of both series.

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It's just clear that Vivzy put no thought into how these inspirations would result in her world working,

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and just copy -pasted them into her story because.. it's heaven and hell, gotta have some of the Bible lore in there somewhere.

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And as a result, the inspiration, though prominent, seems shallow and says nothing about the source material, other than a light amount of Reddit atheism analysis.

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Gooseworks, the creator of the amazing

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Digital Circus and connoisseur of handheld carpentry equipment, has stated, Digital Circus is very inspired by I have no mouth and I must scream,

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but instead of Am being a living embodiment of hate, he's a fun -loving, wacky little guy.

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I see the superficial elements, the humans being tortured by an AI, an AI entity being upset it doesn't know its purpose,

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being trapped forever in a computer, isolation and its effects on the human mind, what it means to exist.

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But I would say this is a very surface level of inspiration, not an interpretation nor retelling of the story, and Goose never claimed as such,

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but because those load -bearing words were uttered,

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very inspired by, it gives the audience certain expectations in regards to what extent those inspirations shape the narrative.

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And I would say the most egregious example of inspiration invocation

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from an indie creator comes from the YouTube shorts farmer Dano Cal Draws.

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True Turf is an indie pilot that follows his blue self -insert Riggie the Runkey.

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Whatcha gonna do now, monkey tail?

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Mommy, is that a monkey with a rabbit's tail?

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You're a very hoppy -looking rabbit and - Whoa!

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Sir, is that a monkey tail?

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Riggie.

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Riggie Runkey.

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Runkey?

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Well, I've never heard of a - What?!

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Are you some sort of a - a Rabkey?

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No. A - a money.

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A Mabbit!

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Not Runkey!

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My sister's a Mabbit.

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Runkey?

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Hold on, Runkey?

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Where does the - REELEASE MEEEEEEEEEEE! that is apparently inspired by...

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Ahem.

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Gravity Falls, Toonturf Online, Undertale, in terms of feeling things when characters die, Paper Mario for the style, Breaking Bad, and Dexter.

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That is simply buzzword soup with a side of bullshit sauce.

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I'm totally forgetting a bunch of inspirations,

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but basically Toonturf is actually just gonna be a massive Frankensteined monster of my favorite things that makes no sense,

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but then again, that's pretty much every creative endeavor, right?

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Yeah, it looks like

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Paper Mario, But the comparisons to Breaking Bad end at the fact that the cute cartoon characters sell the drugs?

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Want some cane?

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Huh?

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The cane, you know?

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You know, the green pipe, the funny puff?

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What are you talking about?

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This.

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What?

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What?

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This.

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This and the Dexter inspiration is because Riggie's eyes start bleeding a hyper realistic blood and he legheph kills people awesome style

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On the surface you may think Toon Turf is just a dumb kid show and let me tell you

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No, it gets dark

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Although me saying that leaves people to the other assumption that it could also just be another cheap cash grab at Oh,

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look at this thing that looks cute, but it's actually scary

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None of these elements are used in the actual project

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they are simply surface -level observations of much deeper LeMulti fandom media that Dana watched on YouTube shorts.

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Jesse will eventually show up to defend his private domicile.

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But again, it comes back to the way the creators use these inspirations as a form of marketing for their project.

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Because by saying the name of things people like, that means they will like my thing as well.

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And my thing is good because those things are good.

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But it's another thing entirely to make claims that those aforementioned inspirations play a large role in your creation.

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Because no matter your intention, when making those statements, you are marketing your creation based on the merits of another.

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And that is going to influence the experience when viewing your work, be it positively or negatively, depending on how it's executed.

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But those are all broader inspirations, the big in -your -face ones.

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And those don't make

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or break a project as far as I'm concerned a far

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more pressing issue facing the indie animation sphere both plagues and forms its core.

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The writing.

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The thing that nobody cares about, but is the most integral element when it comes to storytelling.

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The prerequisite and biggest barrier of creating an animated series is being able to draw.

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And that is an amazing feat on its own, but it's not the only thing that goes into a show.

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You still need to be able to write character arcs, dialogue, and a story.

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You've put your heart and soul into learning to give life to images on a screen through countless hours of practice.

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You can do the same in regards to the text that makes those images come to life.

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And if you don't know how to write or you don't want to learn, you need to be able to delegate that to someone who does.

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Because although a script isn't able to be turned into a Goonable plushie, What?

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It's just as important for making your story function.

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All it takes is one popular indie creator to write in a certain way, and then another creator sees that creation,

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they create their own, and another, and another, and another, until although a vast amount of different projects are created,

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at their core, they feel the same.

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I think where the similarities between all of these projects are most prominent are in two very specific but integral areas.

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The dialogue and the pacing.

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Both of which can make the most beautiful animated moving images

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Time to take a piss!

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Completely unwatchable.

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It's only a pilot so far, but they have enough merchandise to fund a small nation,

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so I think it's fair to say this will be the first episode.

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And it's just not very good.

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And the issues with Game of Versus writing, pacing, and dialogue are all exemplified in I'm a Learnasaurus, kid.

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That's what I do.

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I learn.

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Kit, a character we don't know, has a realistic depiction of a panic attack

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because of something in her past that we don't know anything about involving characters we have no connection to.

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And then Gobbles, the Lernosaurus, a character we also don't know, tells her directly that everything is alright and she's done nothing wrong ever.

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None of this is your fault.

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None of anything you ever did is your fault.

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All you ever wanted to do was save people.

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And Kit explains to Gobbles the Lernosaurus and the audience that he is now courageous and uplifting, despite being nervous before.

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And without any on -screen development, Gobbles says directly to Kit, and therefore the audience, I'm a Lernosaurus, Kit.

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That's what I do.

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I learn.

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And the problem is fixed.

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Welcome to the pool.

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There is no emotional weight, because we don't know these characters.

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Gameiverse.

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In collaboration with Glitch Productions, YouTuber Rubber Ross wrote his name in the pages of speedrunning

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history by having the fastest resolution to a character arc ever depicted on screen.

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The audience has known the characters for 30 minutes, the characters have known each other for 5 microseconds,

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and the emotional scene is resolved in under a minute.

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But how did they do it?

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An unpatched glitch known as the Lernosaurus technique.

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The Lernosaurus technique allows any and all development to be done off screen.

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Because the Lernosaurus is a Lernosaurus.

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They learn.

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It's what they do.

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If you as a writer don't want to delve into Le Sad Backstory as a plot point, that is fine.

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But you can't then just throw it in half -heartedly and expect it to carry - any emotional weight.

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It is eating into the precious little runtime available and amounts to the emotional value of a piggy bank.

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Okay.

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Ooh, that's a prize.

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Literally four pennies.

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One writing trope in particular

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that seems to exemplify this feeling of similarity between these different shows is the realistic depiction of a panic attack.

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As much as I find the trope played out at this point,

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it still can be well done and enhance the character's depth and or the audience's attachment to them.

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However, it is interesting to see its prevalence within indie animation.

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And I understand why it's done.

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The writers write what they know.

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But it's clear there is something influencing the simulacrum situation around different indie projects, with both the dialogue and the pacing.

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There has to be a link that connects them all.

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And if writers write what they know, what do they know?

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The realistic depiction of a panic attack is the key to the mystery.

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Children's media.

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Cartoons and kids' movies.

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There are some amazing films and television aimed at children that are very well written, but they are still made for children.

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Their dialogue is less complex, and the way it's conveyed is simpler and therefore unnatural,

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because the audience is younger and therefore less experienced understanding what they consume.

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The stories are more constrained, because they are targeted to an audience that is still developing critical thinking,

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And they are paced extremely fast because children have shorter attention spans.

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Within recent years, there has been many a children's media that depicts an on -screen panic and or anxiety attack.

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But it also happens in other forms of media.

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So how could I possibly know it comes from kiddie stuff?

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Because they all happen in similar ways.

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Character begins to hyperventilate.

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Another character lays their hands upon them.

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Panic attack over.

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And this is not a condemnation of the tropes, inclusion, or existence but it is an indication

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that the writers behind a lot of popular indie animated shows are influenced heavily

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and primarily by entertainment aimed at a younger demographic.

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None of the things I listed as proof are definitive on their own, but when all present at once,

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it paints a pretty clear picture of what the writer was influenced by.

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Pacing and writing, both skills that come from the same place as drawing.

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Practice, and you practice both skills by reading, by watching, by doing.

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And more importantly, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone media -wise.

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The more you as a creator know, the better.

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As much as I love sitting in my cup chair, if all I did was watch my wife get plowed all day,

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that's all I would be able to write about.

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And if you're influenced by only one specific style of thing, then that is going to warp the way you express yourself creatively.

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Boy, you'd think I was in the North Tower with the amount of indie pilots that are flying at me.

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Pilots are not a bad thing.

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It's a great way for a creator to pitch their work to a publisher.

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But they have evolved past the days of starving artists begging on their hands

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and knees with a 10 -minute low -quality rendition of their

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idea to a room filled with bored corporate executives who don't care and just want to do cocaine.

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Dude, I brought in a jerk!

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They are now fully animated, voice acted, and entire merch line ready -to -go episode ones to be promoted and sold to an audience.

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That being said, it's still a totally fine practice to treat a pilot in this way.

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The attention economy is brutal.

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You gotta do what you gotta do.

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But that doesn't mean every time you gotta pee, you gotta poo.

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To quote the Joker, Every poo -poo is pee -pee time.

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But not every pee -pee is poo -poo time.

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And that makes a lot of sense if we look at it in the context of an indie pilot.

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So many pilots get this wrong and end up pooping their pants when they only needed to pee.

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The words, it's only a pilot, are uttered very frequently in the indie space when a new indie production hits the scene,

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and it drives me up the fucking wall.

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Because it's used as a defense of subpar product.

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If you have any criticism or critiques or anything to say negatively in regards to a pilot,

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you will be swarmed by a mass of Reddit scrimblo bimblos who say you lack joy and whimsy.

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And I just need to spell it out.

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A pilot is meant to sell a series.

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Although entertaining, you are watching an advertisement.

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Its mere existence invites critique.

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The pilot episode is critically important in a show's creation because it allows for raw, unfiltered feedback.

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First introductions are everything.

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If I meet someone and my first move is to rip out their spine, they are going to wheelchair away,

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having a negative impression of me in their head.

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It is the same with an indie pilot.

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If it starts off weak, my expectation for the series will be very low.

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That doesn't mean my views can't be changed,

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but a lot more effort is required to prove to me that the full show is worth my attention.

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And when you're selling a product, especially if it's in its prototype phase, feedback is an extremely valuable resource.

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Holy shit, I'm a...

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And it helps no one to pretend that no issues exist within a pilot.. when they clearly do,

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because these issues more than likely stem from inexperience.

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It's not a crime to be inexperienced, because you can learn, like the Lernosaurus.

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That's what I do.

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I learn.

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All of these creations ironically suffer from being indie, that is to say, independent.

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There is no oversight from a governing body, no force deciding what should be done with these projects or how the creator should behave.

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And that, surprisingly, and somewhat paradoxically, leads to too much creative freedom.

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This is where the No Man comes in.

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Did somebody say No Man?

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A No Man is like the evil, fucked version of a Yes Man.

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These indie projects would benefit immensely by having someone either on the team,

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or that the creator trusts implicitly to look at the ideas and say straight to everyone's faces,

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No. The beauty of the no man is that you don't need to listen to him.

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He simply plants the idea that what you are doing creatively might not be the best option.

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When you are an artist, you take pride in your work.

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And sometimes that pride can lead you to believing that you know everything.

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That what you are doing is the best possible decision.

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And with those blinders on, you develop tunnel vision.

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When the no man says no, you need to consider why he is saying no. If after you consider the reasoning behind his decision,

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and you conclude that he was wrong with a better counter -argument, then that is a good idea and should be included in your creation.

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Much like the twist in every

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Polish game ever, the no man exists only in le head.

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He is a skill you manifest through the practice of humility,

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looking at your work with the ability and willingness to change it if it leads to a better overall creation.

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Now with all that being said, I can read your thoughts dear viewer.

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And tucked just behind the desire to goon to WFAPS, and just beside what you want for dinner, I can see you thinking,

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Place Fire, you're only talking about a few of these shows.

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There are so many out there you should have mentioned.

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Why didn't you talk about Glideon, you forgot it, you forgot it, you forgot it, you forgot it, you forgot it, you forgot it,

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