Hey i wanted to reach out because i just read ur post about checkmate and realized that i could in fact reach out. You were joking, i know, but ur defo notable to me. Checkmate was genuinely a significant influence to me wrt vibe and in terms of audio aesthetic when i decided to make a short film in my spare time for a film contest during my senior year of college when i was 21-22. That project was a particularly big deal to me and to my development because i had not, up to that point, ever drummed up the courage or self assurance to meaningfully pursue animation, filmmaking, or art in general (i was not at an art college and my degree is in english). Im 26 now and on the precipice of a year long comics project that involves a lot of travel, all funded by a grant i managed to get in part due to that film contest/animation stuff being on my resume. In a roundabout way u and phemiec are ppl worth thanking for that. So thank you and good luck cus youre brilliant and i rlly wanna see what u make.
Sorry it took me a minute to respond to this, I wrote and rewrote my response like 5 times trying to figure out how to properly express myself. Sorry this is so long I'm genuinely so bad at being brief in my writing haha
First of all I wanna say genuinely thank you for sending this, it means so so so much to me to hear, especially now when the animation job market sucks, my freelance is drying up and I've had a lot of ummmm let's say artistic self-doubt lol..
I've been thinking a lot lately about what I make art for, and as more time goes on, I think I just wanna make things that make me excited to work, and hopefully catalyze others to make art as well. Huge congrats on your upcoming project and even bigger kudos for getting there on your own through inspiration and sheer love of the game. Excited to see what you make as well :)) also the fact that it was grant funded and you got to travel for it is absolutely the coolest shit i've ever heard of!
Checkmate as a film is kind of a funny story to me; I'd spent the majority of that first school year working on a student film I kind of hated lol... it was basic but achievable & my story prof at the time seemed to like the simple structure of it (for lack of a better term, it was very "student film"). Unfortunately I love overly complicated and kind of confusing and anime-ish bullshit so this was very boring to me.
About 3 months out from deadline we had a guest lecture from Eosong Lee about his short My Moon and even though his lecture was mostly about like, After Effects tricks, I was possessed with this like intense need to make something more dramatic and symbolic and serious, with all the things I loved like... idk sad action magical girls killing kings. or something. I thumbnailed Checkmate in a weekend and reached out to PhemieC about music not long after.
It's a rough project, I have a lot of thoughts/notes about the animation & clarity but I have a lot of love for it being something made purely on passion and sleep deprivation.
Um anyway tldr: thanks, it really really means a lot to me! all i ever hope to do is making something good enough it inspires someone else to make their own cool art. Congrats again, good luck and I wish you a fulfilling & successful comic!!
