I have not blogged in far to long. We are going to change that.
This summer I have had a very bad habit of not staying put. I went home for a few weeks, then disappeared to Seattle and LA, then returned for a bit before taking off for Colorado to go camping. Then I came home for another few weeks, filmed a duck tape commercial, dashed off to Vermont, visited grad schools, and came home, to where you’ll find me now, at least for the moment.
It has been a busy summer.
All of these trips have been wonderful and helped me think about important decisions that are coming up. I’ve learned a lot for all kinds of people, and I’m still turning it over in my head and trying to put the advice I’ve been given to use. It’s been very productive, but I haven’t had much time at home.
There is a lot I could talk about. I could run you through loops of my brain disecting video games and the meaning of life and why I can’t decide where I stand, coming to these questions as someone who grew up with video game worlds running through my head as I ran around in the back yard with my wooden sword and three of my best friends by my side, bedecked in capes and crowns, wizard’s robes and plastic armor. But I have much more to digest before I voice that mountain of love and nostagia and half formed worries.
I could also tell you how I’ve fallen in love, maddly deeply in love with a Grad School. I thought the gaming industry got where I was coming from, and it’s true, they’re mostly cool people who don’t give me odd looks when I tell them what I want to do. But this is like magic. This is the universe making a school that I would have had trouble dreaming up. This is where I ought to be. But I’m scared that this will be an unrequited love, and that I won’t be part of the class of 24 students they accept in 2012. So I’m not ready to share.
Instead, right now, I want to talk to you about Duck Tape.
You probably know that it comes in colors now. All kinds of colors. Pink, blue, yellow, orange, green. Zebra print and peace signs and checkers. And Duck Tape wants a new commercial made, so they went to Tongal, which is a company that hosts contests so that amature filmmakers can submit their own films meeting the requirements given by the sponsors and the sponsors can choose the best of them. The deadline for submissions was yesterday. There are fifty total entries, five prizes, and one of these commercials, a pretty good one if you ask me, is ours. Ours, in this instance, means my sister’s, a few for my friends’, a collegue of my mother’s’, and mine.
Having the film with the most views is worth nothing particular on it’s own. But it is a statistic which adds some ammount of note to the submission, and while, having watched all of the other submissions, I would estimate that we place within the top ten without much trouble and this is awesome (though I’ll admit a fair amount of bias on that estimate), it would be really super fantastic to be within the top five. Every bit of good will helps our film flourish. Additionally, I like to share my work and get your comments. Being an artist creating in a void where no one can ever see their work is all well and good, but I like hearing your voices and sharing. I would get very lonely creating in a void. Therefore, this commercial is now posted on the “Films” page of this website for your viewing pleasure. You can watch it there, or go to YouTube, or hop over to Tongal’s site.
Lastly, I wanted to note that Emma and the Fairy Queen will be coming to a close in the next few weeks, and while I’ll have a more formal post bidding it farewell, I wanted to take this chance to thank all of you for hanging around. I haven’t always been the best at updating, and in many ways I’m still growing and this comic has shown both things I’ve learned and things I have yet to figure out. Thank you for being here to watch it grow, and giving me the support you have with your encouragement, often silent, and often expressed simply by adding another unit to a page of statistics counting page views. It means a lot. Thanks.