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instrument of artistic determination. The greatest, most humbling experience of my profes-
sional life has been to witness a crew of friends and colleagues devote themselves fully
to seeing an idea of mine through to completion. For helping to bear the burden of that
process, and for their trust and tireless efforts, I'll always be indebted to my team on
Gopher Broke
.
Outside of the shorts programs backed by animation studios, I think short fi lms themselves
offer a wonderful opportunity for creative expression to those brave enough to take them
on. I've known many artists who've began short fi lm projects in their personal time as
a form of creative release. That being said, I don't know many artists who've actually
fi nished
their projects, but they seemed to have enjoyed the experience nevertheless!
And why not? Personal short fi lms offer an amazing opportunity to drive your own ship
and enjoy complete creative control over a project, notions rarely available in the indus-
try nowadays. It's hard to go off-schedule or over-budget when there are no schedules
or budgets! (Although I'd recommend even personal short fi lmmakers make some attempt
at producing their own efforts!)
Q: What were your goals when creating
Gopher Broke
?
My goals were to create something simple, something funny, and something I could
show to my mother. The simpler the idea was, the more likely I'd be able to keep it
under control as a fi rst-time director. In the economic/budgeting sense of the word,
simple means as few characters with as few locations/environments necessary to tell the
story. In order for the project to be feasible for the number of artists available, its running
time needed to be kept in the neighborhood of 5 minutes or less. As much as we'd all
like to live in a world devoid of creative restrictions, it can be good real-world experi-
ence to endure external constraints from time to time. In retrospect, I don't think “Gopher
Broke” would have
needed
to be longer than 5 minutes, but left to my own devices,
who knows what overly extravagant choices I'd have made? (Rodent chariot races?
Three-way gopher/farmer/alien climatic battle?) Some day I'll release a
Gopher Broke:
Redux
edition which will include the scene featuring a gopher arriving in a fantastic
time portal from the future in an effort to warn the present-day gopher about his impend-
ing failures. Look for it in 2010!!
Of course, as simple as a story like
Gopher Broke
seemed on the surface, there is
always
more complexity to a project than you originally think. (A gopher needs fur, a chicken
needs feathers, and a horde of crows needs a LOT of feathers.) Beyond the technical,
the process of story wrangling often continues through pre-production and sometimes
rears its ugly head in the early phases of production as well. The moral being, your
idea will almost always
grow
beyond its original scope, both technically and creatively.
(For better or worse!) By starting simple, you allow yourself and your idea room to
expand naturally, which is a MUCH more enviable place than committing to a large
