The Scoop: July 2016 - Time Capsule

Two years have passed since the Age of Banak the Brave.  Not a word has been heard, nor sign of activity seen of Stranger Things Studios since.  It was as though the company had folded, gone under, gave up, disbanded, vanished without a trace.

But now there are whispers, rumors that the lights down at the old abandoned studios have been on in the dead of the  night.  Someone has been stoking the furnace, and the black smoke of production has been seen lifting into the twilight.

Stranger Things Studios is coming back.

TIME CAPSULE

Before you ask: Funny thing.  I was freshening up the blog page in preparation for the big studio comeback later this year when I discovered that I had never published my final post from two years ago.  You know, that end-of-the-production-season recap saying that making “Banak the Brave” had been a blast, but I’m hanging up the filming hat for the foreseeable future?  The one that gives everyone the heads up and explains why?  Yeah, that post.

It was beautifully well written, I must say, and it’s a shame you’ll never get to see it.  The really cool thing about it, though, is it works as a perfect time capsule.  I laid out my goals going forward from that point, and looking back two years later, I did everything I set out to do.

Yet, without that post, it leaves the key question left unanswered: 

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!

If I could have any cover for Temporaltorium,
it would be this one.  Alas, thanks to copyright,
that's never going to happen.

My second child was due right after we put out Banak the Brave.  I figured that was as good of a time as any to slow down and change gears.  Outside of being a dad, I had other projects I wanted to work on, like my unfinished basement.

I also wanted to get back to writing.  As you may or may not know, I have been sitting on a completed science fiction / fantasy manuscript (Temporaltorium) for five years now.  After half a year of attempting to publish it, I became disenchanted and got burnt out.  I always assumed that its fatal flaw was that it was too long, but I didn’t have it in me to undertake the daunting task of editing it down in length.

Well, I finally committed the time to do so.  It took the better part of a year.  As far as I’m concerned, it is “finished”; and much like my resume, it is what it is, take it or leave it.  Of course, I really really hope someone will take it.  They haven’t yet, and I’m finding myself so disenchanted with the publishing process that I’ve started to consider the idea of self-publishing.  I’m not ready to pull the trigger on that idea, but we’ll see.

One of many examples of the
enduring STS fandom.

I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to move on to new material.  It’s been an adjustment. I haven’t truly written – I mean getting back into the writing regiment, the lifestyle, the frame of mind – since before my first daughter was born.  I’ve started several stories this year, but I can’t bring myself to finish any of them; perhaps because I’m so out of practice; perhaps it’s because it’s really hard with little kids to block out several hours of uninterrupted time in order to get into “the zone”; or perhaps it's because I can’t shake the mindset that if my manuscript isn’t finding an audience, what’s the chance that anything else I write will?

BACK TO FILMING

But, guess what DOES find an audience?!  That’s right: movies!

I checked out the statistics on our YouTube channel, and even without putting anything out in two years, people are still subscribing to the channel and people are regularly watching the movies, people are commenting and liking them.  People still come up to me from time to time and ask me if we’re still making films.  Even members of my team drop hints that they’d love to do more.

There’s a lot of love there, and with having closure on the book editing at last, I’d love to get back to it, too.  Filming keeps me in contact with a lot of creative people, keeps me physically active, pumped about what I’m doing with myself, and trying to do things I don’t necessarily think I can actually pull off at the time.  It’s sheer chaos, extreme taxing and stressful, but it’s a lot of fun.

Busy on set during our latest filming

So, let’s see what a full year of filming will bring.

Stranger Things Studios is hoping to put out a movie every other month, starting in August.  I’ve gradually been assembling the team again; I have some new equipment that I’m itching to test out. And we’ve already filmed one movie, with the intent to shoot another in the next two weeks.

Oh yeah, we’re back at it.