Okay, I'll still make it without your help, but it'll just end up taking 5 years instead of 1.

Yeah, I know it's been a while since my last news post (almost long enough for me to have made a movie apparently!!!)

And there are reasons for that, but I've been meaning to make a news post entirely dedicated to it, and I probably should have before this one, but I'm an idiot, and that's the big reason, but the other big reason is life, but that's a story for another day.

This news post is about Steamboat Willing.

What's Steamboat Willing? The name sure sounds awfully similar to that one 1928 animated short starring that one mouse.... Yes, Steamboat Willing is a "sequel" to Steamboat Willie, about Mickey getting shipwrecked on a mysterious island and winding up at the center of an ancient prophecy. How that makes sense, that's up to you to find out by watching it... but first it's gotta be funded!

I've thought about making a movie starring "the mouse" for a long time, hoping that one day Disney would actually let him slip into the public domain after trying so hard to keep it from happening, though I never really had an idea. And when things started falling into the public domain again on January 1st, 2019 after a 20 year freeze, it definitely seemed more likely that the mouse would fall too. And it just kept seeming more and more likely as time went on.

Then in 2021 while working in a factory, an idea finally came to me: Mickey gets caught in a storm and ends up shipwrecked on a mysterious island.

There was a little more to it than that, but that's a spoiler. The idea was simple, but there was definitely a lot of potential. How did it get to that point? What happens after? Ideas kept coming to me, and as long as Disney didn't pull some last minute strings, Steamboat Willie and all the characters and story elements introduced into it should become public domain in 2024, and it was only a few years away at that point.

Over the next year, more ideas came to me and in 2022 I finally decided to take all my loose ideas and try to structure them into a plot and eventually got a script wrote, and then kept refining it. I finally recorded scratch audio and started storyboarding the film last year. I currently have 12 minutes storyboarded, the entire first act, and with the rest of the audio roughly timed out, it's about 45 minutes long.

In fact, I've had 12 minutes storyboarded since December, I haven't actually been able to focus on storyboarding it anymore this year, I wanted to release the teaser February 1st, one month after Steamboat Willie fell into the public domain, but it took a bit longer than expected, and I was just busy working freelance among other things. I finally finished and released the teaser over a week ago though, and you can watch it on newgrounds here!

Didn't really seem to get much attention here, but hey, that's what this news post is for!

Alongside the teaser, I launched the kickstarter. Originally I wanted to put the teaser out on the 10th this month, and then launch the kickstarter in june or july alongside a different clip, because that's when I was under the impression my freelance gig would be wrapping up, but then I found out at the beginning of the month that it was in fact ending right now, as we were unknowingly cleaning up the last few remaining shots. So for a bit there I was scrambling to find a job, applying to everything I could, because my freelance gig was only paying just enough to afford my living expenses, and after getting fucked over by taxes, I have no savings from the last year of work.

I realized I couldn't do much about that right now anyways, I'd already applied to every job available I could physically get to, so I just had to wait. In the meantime I could still work on the teaser and try to get it out as soon as possible and just launch the kickstarter now, in hopes it's a success and earns enough for me to work on the film full time for a year. So I kept working on the teaser and finished it, a little later than expected, I think it was the 13th, and then I finished putting together the kickstarter, not realizing before that it would then take a couple days for it to get approved and be ready to actually launch. Indie Animation Day was also coming up on the 16th, so I know I needed to have it up no later than that, and ultimately I launched the kickstarter on the 15th, just in time to try to promote it some on the 16th.

Since launching the kickstarter, I've also released a few animatic clips, and will post the whole first act at some point before the campaign is over. The other clips are all on youtube if you're interested, doesn't feel right to upload animatics here.

I'm trying to raise $10,000 because my living expenses for a year are only ~$8,400, which after kickstarter fees and taxes comes out to needing about $10,000, and yeah, trying to animate 45 minutes in a year sounds crazy, but I managed to animate the last 4 minutes of FrogMan and Pico in 2 weeks while suffering from hives, so theoretically I could animate 8 minutes in a month, or 96 minutes in a year, so trying to do 45 minutes in the same amount of time should be more than doable. It's gonna be a hell workload, but I'm confident I can do it if I don't have to worry about anything other than making it.

So please, if you've been following me for a long time, or just started following recently, if you like my work or just like "the mouse" and wanna see a cool 2D animated movie starring him, please consider supporting Steamboat Willing on kickstarter! There's only 20 days left, and it's not looking great so far, but still better than I expected. I know it can reach the goal if I get the right eyes on it, I've seen several kickstarters make more than what I'm asking in a single day.

Thank you for reading, and I swear I'll make a news post about my absence two weeks from now!