Hello! Welcome to the home of Spooked production documentation. Spooked is my first hand-drawn animation– and I’m figuring it all out as I go. I’ll be collecting my progress as I navigate these dark woods as well as any tidbits of wisdom I pick up along the way. Please join me on this adventure!

5 years ago

Ben Zackheim (author of the Shirley Link mysteries for kids and The Camelot Kids series for everyone) asked me a few questions about my experience working on Spooked and my plans for the future. Check it out here!

Here’s an excerpt:

You’ve been sharing your process as you create the story. What made you decide to do that?

I started this project more or less blind — I spent hours and hours doing research on workflow, the best programs to use, technical specs, and personal experience and tips. I wanted to know what actual people doing very low-budget projects with little to no crew were actually using and what they did to cut corners, make things manageable, and still look good. There are surprisingly few resources for that kind of thing online, so I figured if I chronicled my experience, I could perhaps provide that for someone else who might be looking for the same thing. It also doesn’t hurt to try to get some interest in your project before you release it so people will (hopefully) actually watch it once it’s done.

Now that you’ve done several animated projects, what’s more challenging than you thought it would be about animation?

I knew it was going to be a time-consuming process, but I didn’t quite realize how time consuming. I’ve got a full-time job, and I’ve been working on this animation after work and on the weekends — averaging about 20+ hours a week. Sometimes it can feel like I’m making no progress at all — spending 10+ hours on one single 5 second shot. I’m finally in the home stretch now and seeing it all come together is making it feel worth it, but I think next time I try to take on an animation like this, I’m going to hire someone to help me do some in-betweens or something!