Short film musings.

So here it is.  I'm mulling over the short film process, and I had a few thoughts that I would like to lay out here in hopes of finding a solution.  I guess it's not just the process, but what the film is or should be ultimately about.  

My original idea was one that is centered on Blender and would be (in my mind) a pretty cool little short that everyone in the Blender community would get.  But that's just it.  I'm pretty sure 99% of the people interested in short films, outside of Blender, might have a difficult time understanding what it's about.  And the more I think about taking the time to make a short, the more I wonder about what kind of audience I would like to reach.  If I lived in a perfect world, I'd make my little movie and captivate the Blender world and maybe even enter it into a Film Festival.

So, what do you think?  Keep it small and in the Blender community for the first run... or go guns blazing for a larger audience?

XRay, my thought is to make the movie you want to make and the right audience will find it with proper placement and advertising.

I know that sounds like a cop-out answer, but here's my thought process behind this advice:
1. Blender artists are fickle folks who tend to go with the current trends. You'll also have folks who will say 'cool' to a box tipping over and you'll have folks who say you should commit suicide for anything less than Oscar-caliber work, and most folks in-between. You'll only "touch" a small percentage of folks out of the total viewing audience.
2. CG artists in general are much like Blender artists, but more forgiving for cheating by using live-action, photographed textures, Photoshop instead of GIMP. These's also a larger percentage of the user base who's versed in art and theory who can appreciate some story telling tactics and not get caught up in whether you used volumetric clouds from 2.62 or node-based voxel data for 2.71.
3. Folks watching YouTube just want to be entertained for a few minutes--they don't care how it's made. If the story is good and in stick figures it'll be better received than an awesomely rendered movie with no meaning. Take Martulen's video "Generations". It was simply made, no real eye catching effects or textures, but it told a story and that's what's important.

I know the feeling of wanting to knock the socks off the Blender community with some awesome Blender-powered animation--and they'll embrace you now, but when they find something new they'll toss you out. If the movie you want to make is 100% Blender, sweet--and if the movie you want to make is 10% Blender, that's cool too. I don't recommend making a movie you kinda want to make but are constrained because you want to appeal to the Blender crowd.

If that doesn't help--read the comments on BA for folks posting their work. Then read the comments on CGTalk. You'll see that the haters are gonna hate either way. Do it for yourself--not them.

[/end "slightly motivational but came out less motivational than I intended and even kinda pushy" mentorship session.]

BnBGobo99 wrote:XRay, my thought is to make the movie you want to make and the right audience will find it with proper placement and advertising.

I just want to echo that. If your passionate about your idea, you're going to see it through to the end and most likely keep it up to the standards you believe it should be held to. But if it's not something you're fully on board for, you'll start off pumped for it, but shortly you may find yourself with less motivation and potentially cutting corners just to see it finished and out of your hair. In the end, yeah people will view it and have comments and criticism, but you're ultimately making it for yourself to see a vision realized.

Lol! Na, it's good to have those thoughts reinforced. I was thinking along those lines... it's just that there was a pretty good (my opinion) Blender related story that I'd love to get in and do, but then you have to wrestle with weather or not to make it 100% Blender and all that.

There's plenty of other ideas floating around in this ol' noggin (by the looks of all these unfinished projects laying around) so there's no shortage of those.

Just digging for opinions.