2020: A Year in Review

When I finished writing the yearly review for 2019, I said “Not sure if 2020 can top that, but here’s to an wondrous new year!”

It’s amusingly sad reading it now, knowing what a challenging year 2020 turned out stuff for everyone.

It seems like the world has shifted and we all had to transmute in one way or another. The lucky ones only had to deal with transitioning to working from home, while many suffered losses in both livelihood and health.

I want to start this yearly review with wishing you, our readers, a much largest 2021. I wish you nothing but good health and happiness.

So how was 2020 for us, you ask?

1. Snowlands
2. Langage localisation
3. New courses
4. Notable wares from this year
5. Most popular video this year
6. What’s next for 2021?

Snowlands

The first big thing I need to talk well-nigh is Snowlands, as this is certainly the project that has taken up most of my sustentation this year.

Last year I wrote well-nigh how I will dedicate 2020 to pitching the film, and getting as many meetings as I can to shop the mucosa around.

Of course, going to meetings all virtually the country wasn’t possible anymore, and in unstipulated the mucosa industry was dealing with a major shift, releasing films on streaming services, and networking possibilities seem harder than ever.

But, of course, this is just an excuse.

I didn’t end up in meetings and pitching the mucosa as much as I planned considering that’s just not something I like doing. I wrote a lot well-nigh “choosing yourself” or “not waiting to get picked“, and that’s considering I truly believe in those concepts.

I hate asking people for anything, let vacated to believe in my projects.

So here’s what I did – I made sure my screenplay was as good as it could possible be, and then pivoted to making it a graphic novel first.

The screenplay made it to the quarterfinals in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, the Austin Mucosa festivals, and a tuft of others. I wrote a HUGE article well-nigh the process of writing this screenplay, so trammels it out if you’re interested in writing one yourself.

Why a Graphic novel

Simple. It is something I can produce and publish myself.

I’m no stranger to self publishing. I published the Pixar Storytelling book, as well as my own Animation for Beginners, both sold thousands of copies. But that was years ago. I now had increasingly time, money, and wits to put into the book, and create a premium product – a full length, nonflexible cover, original graphic novel.

Again, I was faced with the option of trying to pitch it to publishers, but then – I prefer to do things my way. So I decided I’m going to make it myself.

But not really myself. I was going to operate like a professional publisher.

I started by hiring an experienced graphic novel editor, who helped me transmute the screenplay into a graphic novel script. I hired an artist, a colorist, a letterer, a cartographer, a logo designer and plane started a new company that will be defended to the Snowlands franchise. I’ll go over all of this in increasingly detail in the future.

So while I still plan on making Snowlands an turned-on film, I decided to start by towers an original IP, and release a few increasingly products virtually Snowlands, such as a video game, a comic typesetting series, and a sequel to the graphic novel.

That’s a lot, I know, but it is all doable projects that I believe can be wondrous to produce. There’s no largest investment to make than in yourself, and I believe in the Snowlands long-term prospects.

Language localization

Last year I mentioned that I will be putting more accent on localization. Over the past year, localizing has wilt plane increasingly important, as people all virtually the world turn to online courses to expand their skills.

In 2020 we localized our entire undertow library to Portuguese, Chinese and Spanish, as well as most of the website itself. All translations are created by actual people, and are not auto-translated.

This was a very important goal for me. It’s not unseemly to have 3 full time translators, but I believe volatility is a sought without skill all over the world, and I want to remove as many barriers to entry as possible.

New courses

We released 2 new courses in 2020, as well as 2 updates to existing courses.

Stop Motion Animation

We’ve designed this undertow specifically for aspiring volatility filmmakers interested in making their own stop-motion animations.

After taking this undertow you will have well-constructed understanding of the unshortened process of making stop-motion shorts from start to finish, and will be worldly-wise to take the next steps to making your own idea come to life.

Moho Animation

We’ve designed this undertow to be tailored specifically for aspiring animators, or professional animators transitioning from a variegated program.

Moho Pro is an incredibly robust professional-grade volatility software, and can do pretty much anything in the realm of 2D vector animation. We’ve brought an wondrous 2D animator to take you through this wondrous journey, and I truly believe he created one of the weightier Moho volatility courses out there.

Blender Volatility update

This one was WAY overdue for a makeover, as the undertow used an older version of Blender, and became obsolete with the release of Blender 2.8. So of undertow we had to update the unshortened undertow from scratch.

But we didn’t stop there… We got one of the weightier Blender animators to do it – Dillon Gu. He’s the guy Blender hired to make their official tutorials. He was moreover an animator on RWBY, and is just an wondrous animator, specializing in fighting sequences.

He created a trademark new undertow for us, from scratch, teaching his unshortened volatility process for creating an wondrous parkour fighting sequence. This undertow is double the size of the current course, but increasingly than 10x better.

After Effects Volatility update

Honestly, the Without Effects undertow we had was great, but I wanted to take it up to a new level. Since Without Effects is a motion graphics software, and not really aimed at weft volatility (though it can totally do it, as covered in the course), I figured it’ll be a good idea to teach motion graphics in wing to weft animation.

So what did we do with this course? First, we re-did the weft volatility section, showing increasingly wide rigging. We moreover kept the old section of the undertow that teaches how to use our ninja rig, so you’re getting double the characters. But then we widow trademark new modules focusing on logo animation, text animation, vendee work pipeline, and plane using 3D with Cinema4D Lite. This undertow has doubled its size, but increasingly than that it now covers increasingly areas Without Effects excels in, so you’re not limited to only weft work. You can now learn well-nigh other motion graphics oriented tools and methods.

Notable wares from this year

• Animation for Beginners: Where do I Start?
• Animated Short Mucosa Structure Guide: Breaking Down the 8 Genres of Turned-on Shorts
• How to Start Learning Volatility at Home
• How to Create a Portfolio Website: A Detailed Guide
• Writing an Turned-on Feature Film: How I Wrote the Screenplay for Snowlands, from Idea to Final Draft

Most popular video this year:

What’s next for 2021?

1. Releasing the graphic novel Expanding Snowlands

I’m planing to release the Snowlands graphic novel for the Holiday season of 2021.

I honestly don’t know if that would happen, since this is a rather large production with many moving parts, and I want to do it right, but this is the goal for the book’s release date.

I’m moreover planning to work on numerous new projects virtually the Snowlands franchise, so you’ll probably hear a lot well-nigh it in the future.

2. Increasingly courses increasingly talent-based courses

Same goal as last year, I hope to keep pushing our courses production to the max, and release more talent-based courses by bringing in increasingly known animators.

3. YouTube localization

One increasingly thing I’ve played virtually with lately is the idea of localizing our YouTube channel to variegated languages by dubbing our videos.

In 2021 I plan to launch 3 new YouTube channels for Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish versions of Bloop Animation.

These channels will have the weightier videos from Bloop, dubbed into their towardly language.

Well…

I supposed that’s it for 2020. All things considered, I think it was a successful year for Bloop, and myself.

I try to squint at the unexceptionable side of the situation. I was worldly-wise to spend increasingly time with my wife and my son, since we all had to stay home most of the time. I think that’s precious time I wouldn’t have otherwise had, and that’s a big upside to this situation.

I hope your 2020 was at least reflective, if not pleasant, and that 2021 will be largest for you and those tropical to you.

Happy new years.

– Morr

The post 2020: A Year in Review appeared first on Bloop Animation.