A Little Thunderbean Journal Entry

A little Thunderbean Journal entry: The possibilities are bigger than the hurdles in all of this stuff.

As the semester winds to a close here things have been, as usual, busy. The break is really welcomed right now.

The cleanup is nearly done on the Flip the Frog Blu-ray set now; the very last film that will be back in my hands is The Cuckoo Murder Case. Dave Grauman is doing the last work on it, combining elements. I’ve built the second half of the series as a timeline in edit and I’ve starting tweaking things in the build, as usual at this stage. I hope to have the first half of the series built over the weekend too.

When one of the bigger Thunderbean projects gets into the finishing stages I get pretty hyper-focused and try to work on getting the best I can out of each film as a last pass on the final versions. I have a feeling I’ll be working on the title cards more than any one thing at this point, even though they’re looking pretty good.

Reflecting back on this, the second-longest in-progress Thunderbean project, I can honestly say that I’m glad it took as long as it did since so many things showed up in more recent times. Covid slowed down the progress of the project tremendously over this time, but we finally made it. In many ways I had the luxury of taking a good amount of time to get the set actually done, tying the patience of all of you along the way! Commentaries are already starting for the set, and it will be finished at some point this month, although I’m pretty sure it won’t be shipping until January. We’ll get it out to everyone as soon as its wrapped.

Getting nearly to the other side of the project almost always makes me think about other things to tackle, and several other projects are in the works in a bigger way over this past week. Work continues on the Aesop’s Fables and Tom and Jerry set, and two projects I won’t mention right now made some good strides over this week.

I think we’re going to see some really cool things happen over the next few years and hope to continue to be a part of some of them. Technology continues to make things ever more affordable, and streaming continues to expand the possibilities of access to see films, including of course classic animation. Even though the market for physical media has changed pretty drastically, it still exists enough for a niche product like the ones we produce to do well enough to exist.

I see this next period as one that is going to require careful footing and alliances to allow many of the things we’ve all wanted to see get a quality release. I’ve spent a lot of time of the phone in recent weeks with friends, collaborators and colleagues talking about so many situations that exist right now and best ways to move this or that forward. I have much more resolve than frustration in these particular times; I wish that was more true of everyone involved in “Cartoonland” (as I call it). We owe huge thanks to those who help make any of the projects possible that release classic animation and related materials. I’ll continue the crusade myself over these coming years and will be properly dressed enough to make sure I make it though each front door, regardless of any storms, nitrate deterioration, fights or other encumbrances.

Have a good week all.