crew Why is it so difficult to find collaborators for a project?

[Nate North]

I have to assume that I'm not the only one on an independent film form that wants to make an independent film. If you've ever tried making one, you know that it's nearly impossible to have any type of success without a larger group involved. My question is, why are people uninterested in joining teams or groups? As a lone individual, your fate is sealed, if 1000 of us worked together, there is no question we'd get something published. I bought a product yesterday. 12 people got together and worked full time on it for 3 years. It was great, I paid full price for it. They now have funding for the next product, and everyone is happy and headed for a profitable carreer in the industry.

Here's the clip I watched about their team and project. It's just a simple top down shooter, innovation level 0. It was great, no issues, everyone is happy.

I live in a small town, and neighborhood garage bands are common. People get together and practice for years, travelling 50 miles to a practice spot, to split up 200 dollars a gig, once they are good enough. They spend thousands each on equipment, and hundreds of hours just getting to that point, and everyone shows up for that.

If people are as passionate about making film as they say they are, why is the willingness to team up and commit so fractional in filmmaking, compared to music, which is arguably hundreds of times easier to succeed at (at least in terms of getting a set written and playing it for an audience)? Do you think it would be strange to watch 6 people collaborate and spend for years to build a lemonade stand, and then go over to a skyscraper construction forum and find everyone trying to do it solo with no money?

 

[indietalk]

Probably time to start avoiding this thread Sweetie.

 

[Nate North]

Just for anyone interested, here's a development screenshot from 4 months ago, and one from today

 

[GOLDENMORAL CINEMAS]

Just for anyone interested, here's a development screenshot from 4 months ago, and one from today

That looks pretty great man well done. I also seen some other vids you posted and wow I really appreciate the dedication your putting into this project of yours. I always love seeing this incredible level of passion and this absolutely astonishing level of dedication in action. It’s beautiful what your doing my friend keep at it, don’t give up I believe in u. I probably don’t need to tell you that you can succeed at this cause you I sense is a person who has that kind of drive already.

I only just read through this thread and most of the posts, what I can say is this guy (Nate) firstly is not a scammer. Like scammers don’t try to mislead their target audience for one lmao, a scammer actually is more direct at first. (In the way that their lies are direct at least). And also this guy is clearly intelligent as **** u know what I’m saying. Just look at the way he writes you can tell a lot about someone especially if their vocabulary is wide, but more than that u can tell if a guy is intelligent if their vocab is wide and yet the words of English can’t seem diverse enough to explain their thoughts. He formulates huge ass paragraphs and essays lol, some people call that ranting and in fairness it is, but it’s also clear evidence for a mind that is just exploding with endless thoughts and in this case creativity. That he often needs to expel somehow in this case in lots of writing and in his ambitious projects especially.

Theres an amazing line from Jurassic Park 3.
”I have a theory that there are two kinds of boys, those who wanna be astronomers and those who wanna be astronaughts. The astronomer gets to study these amazing things from a place of complete safety. But then you never get to go into space, it’s the difference between imagining and seeing.”
This is the case with all those who are ambitious and I’m talking really really ambitious. I reckon this guy is very brave especially after huge, unfortunate, tragic past failures. Yet he has gotten back up with passion, seemingly even more than he had before.
So well done mate, well done. Your nearly there, halfway out of the dark.

 

[Nate North]

Just wanted to post this WIP video here, as an update for the several thousand people that were reading this thread, just in case any of them are interested in following our progress a bit. We've been iterating on the visual design for the next ad for a few weeks now, and this is what it looks like at present. I know this is a rerun for some of my more avid followers, but I thought that since a lot of people got involved with this thread, I should post it here. And yes, I know I need to cut back on the lens flares, lol.

 

[indietalk]

I noticed the flares before you mentioned it.
It's looking good. I don't really have any critique except to say it looks a bit "layered" instead of cohesive, as, it should all be existing in the same environment. Also a bit stiff.

 

[indietalk]

I assume since it's WIP you are looking for feedback but maybe not. I can try to elaborate if you want.

 

[Nate North]

I assume since it's WIP you are looking for feedback but maybe not. I can try to elaborate if you want.

I actually want to get it to 1.0 before I start doing focus groups, the messaging will likely be the most important part, and that's not in there yet. But I do appreciate feedback, so I'll be sure to post that once complete, and I can absorb that feedback and try to improve the final version accordingly. This time I'm using real human voice actors, and here's where it gets random, the VO artist for this ad is...... Robin Williams cousin.

 

[indietalk]

Alright well I'll throw in my 2¢. It feels like 2D scrolling in a 3D world. All of the movement is too exact. One composite over another with no organic movement. So it has the feel of old school 2D scrolling where the foreground moved faster than the background. So it floats. If it was more cohesive, organic, and imperfect it would have a better feel.

 

[sfoster]

I hate the color palette, it looks more like the inside of a computer than a city.

 

[Nate North]

Well, one of the good things about Save Point is that we do have more than one or two color pallets, lol. Perhaps this ad won't be for everyone, but there are a veritable ocean of pallets across the product. This particular scene is intended to be a monochromatic dystopian city. I might brighten up the red a bit, but that's it. If you look at our NFT store page, you can see literally dozens of different color pallets that we use in the project, ranging from Monet to Dali to Geiger. Even some new ones that you may not have seen before. I'm kind of partial to iridescence for example.

https://opensea.io/collection/save-point

 

[indietalk]

I don't think this explains Save Point as to what you explained it as either. Or, what your team explained it as.

 

[indietalk]

Hey, but looking forward to it. I know it will get better and this was an early stage thing.

 

[Nate North]

I don't think this explains Save Point as to what you explained it as either. Or, what your team explained it as.

Well, like I was saying, the messaging/VO isn't even in there yet. As far as the visuals, they aren't intended to explain anything, they just give people some concept of the graphical level the project aspires to. Of course with funding starting to come into focus, perhaps I won't be limited to 11gb scene memory for long, at which point I could do a great deal more. In example, I tried to put a blue lake in that city, and a mothership hanging overhead, and some more animated signs lining the walls of the main trench, but then my computer almost caught fire, and the 3d program crashed, and then windows crashed. So, you know, there's limitations of how much I can push in one scene right now. Maybe not for so long. NFT sales have kicked off with unexpected speed.

 

[indietalk]

Ah yes that's a good point I missed. Narration. I'm sorry I missed that was missing.

 

[Z-Art-Tone]

I'm a musician jumping into this discussion a bit late. I scanned most of the other comments first. Nate, I have been perusing the Raindance website and found an article about going solo. FYI, I am currently working on my fifth self-written, self-recorded, self-produced full-length album. Not because I don't like to work with others. Only that among the many musicians I have worked with over the years, all of them are musicians only. None of them had home studios, and I could never afford that much studio time. I just kept buying more recording equipment and teaching myself the process from start to finish. Each album took roughly a year to write and another year to record, not counting certain types of life and technical difficulties/interruptions which lengthen that basic time frame. Going solo is possible. It just takes time if you have it. Anyway, since you are a film person, you might be inspired by this article. I was. You may have to create an account on Raindance to view it. I noticed that Michael Brand is also listed on IMDb. I hope this helps.

How To Make A Feature When You Are The Only Person Involved​

• Posted on July 24, 2021
• By Michael Brand

 

[Z-Art-Tone]

Never mind. I guess I didn't read most of the posts before I responded. Some of the posts may not have been available to me. Looks like you have most of the visual and technical knowledge you need and shouldn't have any trouble finding collaborators and whatever type of success you are looking for--fame, fortune, friends, etc. We are all different. Some of us just plain enjoy the creative process. If we can find one person to work with on one task, we are content. If we can't find that one person to help with that one task, we forge ahead anyway. Maybe my post will be helpful to others.

 

[Nate North]

I appreciate you taking the time to link the article. Your story was interesting, though in the modern era I was a bit surprised to hear that you know so many people that don't have a home studio. These days a home studio is just 2 grand in software and 500 in hardware to start. If you guys need any help on setting up a DAW\vsti solution, I'll be glad to help you out. There's an article here @Martial Petit wrote and I added to that serves as a decent jumping off point for people trying to set up a music recording solution. I haven't heard your music yet, so I'm not sure how applicable it is, or whether any of this could be of use, but maybe you could pass it on to your friends that don't have a studio set up yet. I'm thinking that if you're 5 albums in, you probably have your bases covered. That said, I'm over a decade in, and still trying to find new ways to improve my setup.

music - THE ESSENTIALS OF MUSIC HOME STUDIO

25 years ago, you would have needed a professional recording studio to do what you can do at home today. The technology, since the beginning of multimedia, has reach such a level, you can record music professionally on a small budget. The questions for musicians who would like to produce their...

indietalk.com

 

[Nate North]

And speaking of color palettes, I thought it might be interesting for some if I posted some of our fundraising art here, which is quite diverse in it's color. Sadly, there are pretty severe resolution limits on the forum, so I can't show the full detail shots just yet, which are natively 10k x 5k resolution. We are currently launching into a partnership with a new investor to augment our NFT sales gallery, which is being used to help fund the project.

thought I'd trim this down a bit so it doesn't cause people to have to scroll forever to get to the next post.

 

[Z-Art-Tone]

Hi, Nate. I left performing 25 years ago, because I wanted to hone my songwriting and recording skills. I am witness to that transformation in affordability of recording equipment and software. This is the very reason I was able to afford to do what I do. One of my points was that not all musicians--guitarists, drummers and bass players necessarily become music writers and record producers, etc. so they wouldn't have any reason to purchase recording equipment and software. I guess the analogy here would be that not all actors have reason to purchase video cameras and editing software, because most of them prefer being in front of the camera rather than behind the camera. Most musicians specialize in learning a specific musical instrument or two for the purpose of playing for others in public settings. They have no interest in learning how to use recording equipment. I am finally getting to the point where I may not need to purchase much else, so I completely understand where you are in the process. Music recording technology has finally slowed, but I don't know about film production technology.

 

[Nate North]

While there's still some considerable costs involved with animation, the great thing is that at this point time and intelligence are the most valuable currencies. I guess in a sense that could be said of all art, but especially in film, it wasn't always that way. Lately Save Point is starting to take the form that was originally intended, with people working together every day, exchanging experience, information, source code, assets, etc. We are getting closer to releasing the first cell each day, though the process is long and complicated. I agree that not everyone has the same interests, but I think if you cast a wide enough net for long enough, you can gather up like minded people. Focusing on lowering the bar of entry goes a long way. I think that there are a lot of talented people who get turned back by the gradient of frustration. Getting a system in place where you have some effective teamwork and mentoring helps a lot. We are in the final stages of making the new recruiting ad. This week we are working on the audio for that, and the final shaders for the characters, and the scripts, and the shot by shot breakdowns, and a lot of other things.

Automating the line art has been a major challenge, but we are getting there. I guess this is a nebulous reply, because I'm trying to give an update and respond to your post simultaneously.

I wouldn't say film production technology is slowing right now, quite the opposite. But on the physical filming end, you do still run into a lot of prohibitive expense. I paid a lot of those expenses, but ultimately, things like lighting large areas, and getting groups of quality actors together all at once made it unneccesarily frustrating to tell even a simple story at times. I think we are onto something here, but I can't say for sure until we see some finished product.

Some tough scenes coming up. Within the next few weeks, we will need to build a city, populate it with hundreds of pedestrians and drivers, and then blow the entire thing up in slow motion. Hopefully my video card doesn't melt. lot's of fire and buildings collapsing.