Sunday, May 2, 2021

'Spoony: The Motion Picture?': A Retrospective

 





It's interesting going back and watching this video years later.  I was excited when this first got posted.  Being a fan of the site, I was hyped to see what was going to come next.  As a creator, I also got a nice dose of motivation, which made for a nice bonus.

Alas, a good chunk of what he talks about doing did not come to pass.  An interesting side-effect is that the video is a lot funnier in hindsight.  His talk of leaving Twitter and not being lazy are especially notable moments.  Oddly enough, actually dropping off from social media the way he talked about probably would have worked out better for him, but that's neither here nor there.

To be fair, though, when his patreon dropped below the $5,000/month mark; he was no longer obligated to make the movie.   People didn't seem to get that about the site's setup.  It isn't like a stretch goal on a one-off crowd-funding endeavor like Indiegogo or Kickstarter.  It's a moot point now, but it still seems like it was worth pointing out.

While there are indeed lols to be had, the video still resonates with me.  As a creator who piles too much on himself, succumbs to schedule slip (different factors are involved, but schedule slip is still schedule slip regardless,) and is perpetually behind schedule as a result; a lot of what he talks about still rings true to me.  Even though he didn't actually make the progress he talks about here, hearing him talk about it still gets me into a more motivated mindset.

Would the video have the same effect for someone who didn't have the nostalgic connection that I do? Hmmm, hard to say.  The aforementioned lols wouldn't be there, even knowing the story isn't quite the same as having been through it more directly; but I think the portion where he talks about coming up with a formalized schedule and pulling away from those distraction time-sinks would still apply to a lot of creators, aspiring or otherwise.

Considering the fact that a lot of the Channel Awesome productions didn't really withstand the test of time (I never actually got around to watching the AVGN movie so I can't comment on that one way or the other,) one could argue that not getting the movie made ended up working in his favor. Or maybe he could have bucked the trend, we'll never know.  It was a lofty aspiration though, ties back into the motivation factor I talked about earlier.  

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