2021 Debrief

Hello there

Well, here we are, about to scratch off another year.  We know I love a debrief, and this is about as apt as a debrief gets. If only it was actually brief too…sorry about that…

Last year, I spread my yearly look back over several days, but I felt this year I just wanted to fill the festive period with entertaining (?) content rather than navel-gazing.  I properly felt that I wanted to make up for lost time, after the poorly episodes enforced a few absences, so pulled out the stops a bit. Today is for the navel-gazing though.

Actually, before we begin, speaking of the poorly-absence, I would have put money that I was absent more than I actually was.  In my head/memory, I missed weeks and weeks, but I’ve just checked and I actually missed 8 non-consecutive days.  Out of 365 days.  So that doesn’t feel quite so bad.  In fact, this is the 383rd post of 2021, as I did double posts earlier in the year when people weren’t allowed out.  Don’t know what I was worried about.  In fact, I wish I’d checked earlier.

Onto the year itself, and I don’t really know what I think about that year.  I’m wondering if that is a common feeling at the moment, but also if my judgement has been influenced by the miserable few months at the end of it. I don’t think I’d be able to argue that it was rubbish, but I also don’t feel like I ever got into the groove of it.  A very changeable and unsettled one.  I will be mentioning the positives too, don’t worry.

The first quarter of the year ended up being a weird water-treading thing.  That, I am sure, was universal, as everything got pulled from pillar to post. Over here, the scheduled live show for February was pushed back again, as were the already-rescheduled screening dates.  As it turned out, the dates we announced in March and April did end up being the final dates and all went ahead, but back then it was getting to the point where it was looking like the tour simply wasn’t going to happen.  That was a pretty horrible thing to go through, but it was getting very difficult to fight the resignation. All told, you really couldn’t have planned a worse release itinerary for a film.  Behind the scenes the film was very nearly dropped by distribution because of the ongoing fuss, and it was only a crisis meeting between myself, Bil and the distribution company that sorted it out.  We decided to chuck a bit more money at it to sort a new trailer, poster and employ a PR company for the month of UK release.

I know I told you about it on here, but I think I may still have pulled my punches on how dramatic it all was. Pretty depressing in truth, but it got ironed out and we shall come to the release later.

To counter the frustration of not being able to do that much pro-active stuff in getting the movie out there, I put my efforts into getting the first episode of The Rocky Robot Show done.  That came out (on here) on April 1st, and the emotional rejuvenation it provided me was perhaps a personal highlight of the year.  It’s a tremendously convoluted mountain of work to get an episode of the animation done, which leaves huge pride when it is finished.  I really wish it wasn’t quite so much though.  I’m not averse to graft, but it can get a bit tedious and time-consuming. That said, it’s also tremendously fun to knock about in that world. I appear to be have been getting more and more attracted to stupidly time-consuming work this year to be honest. Either way, regardless of the movie furore, the emergence of the Rocky Robot stuff, coupled with the Dodds Incarcerated morphing into Ideas Man, made March/April a bit fresher. A change is as good as a rest and all that.

Meanwhile, by May, the mini-movie-explosion did produce a fresh start there too.  The new poster was revealed, and it turned out that they were right to reject the original.  Luckily Bil and I had very much wanted to change the shop window anyway, so didn’t take any convincing to bin off all the media from the first release.  The final poster is far more representative of the movie, and all subsequent promo has benefitted from the new image. It’s far easier to get into different formats and rejiggle for any eventuality.

The live show finally went ahead, and it was lovely to spend a couple of hours with people in a non-pressured way.  Can’t claim it was the best live show we ever did, but I can claim that it would have been impossible to do the best one.  It was an evening of readjustment I think, with a spectre of risk hanging over it (not a real spectre before he gets excited), but we all got through.  The weirdest thing of all was not meeting people after the show.  That’s never going to be an ideal thing as it’s always been a big part of the live shows, but we did at least get to wave at some people from the car, and it was a pleasure to be reunited with the audience for an evening.

I also started the prep work for Rocky Robot episode 2 in May, as I was utterly enthused for world-building on it.  I haven’t lost that enthusiasm at all, despite the episode conspicuously not completed, but my time was taken away from me.  The reshuffle on the movie actually meant I was overseeing more stuff rather than less.

To explain, most of this – like the new trailer etc – was being done by others.  Simon, Danny and I had worked so hard on the original trailer, but we were too close to it.  If that was being rejected, then we didn’t have it in our armoury at that point to create what they required.  I still think it was a huge positive that we didn’t dig our heals in on that, and instead were able to digest what somebody else created and learn from it. So, I was freed up from having to be constantly sending footage back and forth with notes, but it meant I was slotted into doing all the rest of the admin.  I was director of the movie, director of post-production and administrator of release. Whilst the new trailer was getting its release at the beginning of July, behind the scenes I was organising the US distribution, and that was some culture shock.

The UK release requirements were pretty straightforward.  It was the artwork, trailer, and film pretty much. Some other little bits but nothing backbreaking. The US release was an avalanche of requirements.  Tons of legal stuff, attorneys consulted and put on retainers, copyright requests, a myriad of blurbs and sell-sheets, several dialogue lists, metadata, press collation, just a stupid amount of red tape. With retrospect, as I now know how the year panned out for me personally, I would pinpoint the two weeks in July, that I took all that on, as the ones that physically broke me. At one point, I did nearly three days without sleep to hit a deadline, and frankly never recovered.

Come August though, and Cactus Man arrived out of nowhere.  It was another nice distraction, and I am going to continue with it (sorry, but I am) when things are organised and settled more. One of the things I have pinpointed over the last few weeks, is how drawn I currently am to fantasy worlds. Based in reality, but with impossible scenarios occurring in them.

I think it makes perfect sense that I would react to the merciless graft of a documentary with a taste for make-believe.  So, Cactus Man and my relatively recent penchant for bringing Rocky into the real world would fall in line with that. There’s probably some deep and worrying psychological reason for it, but we won’t scratch the surface on that today.

Which brings us to September, when the movie relaunch began properly.  I know I say that it is a retrospective thing to realise the US distribution thing saw me off, but I was definitely aware of it by the time we did the Richard Herring interview. Before, during, and after the interview I knew I wasn’t right, and was working double time just to try and enjoy it.  The London screening was the next day, which felt a bit off considering it was the relaunch (not helped by the theft of either money or merch), and I had a few days after it to get my head straight.

I went to the Red Dwarf Dimension Jump convention on the Saturday/Sunday before the tour began properly the Tuesday after.  Again, I wasn’t a hundred percent at the convention either, and had started to get numbness in my face which I’ve since been assured is anxiety.  Never had it before though, so I was hardly at my most relaxed. I was physically in poor shape, and really rather worried.  As well as, of course, the general concern with being out and about amongst so many people.  I was slightly obsessed with needing to stay well for the whole tour, and ultra-vigilant.  As we know, I made it to the 24th September (the end of the first week of the tour).

So, on the positive side, those screenings were fabulous.  We had been huffing with Sale as it was the only venue who wanted to take a percentage of merch sales, but when we arrived there, it was quickly reversed.  They properly looked after us, and – with no disrespect to any other audiences – it was my favourite of all the screenings on the tour.  I probably shouldn’t even single it out, should I?  All the audiences that week were brilliant, but I think Sale was the one where I actually ended up feeling ok during it.  Barry and I had a pizza sat outside the restaurant next door, and it’s the only hour of the year that I remember feeling properly relaxed and like I could have a breather.  Which is crazy, but I’m very grateful for it.  It’s an odd thing to remember, but the film was set up, we had nothing to do, and the audience hadn’t arrived yet.  It was ace.

Chorley was the next night and was where I got flu.  Undoubtedly.  It was all down to the carelessness of others, and when I see the pics of myself and Barry uncomfortably trying to get some space as the staff are draped over us for selfies it still annoys me.  Nottingham was a great audience in a venue that was run like an episode of Mr Bean, and it was during the screening at Stockton, as Barry and I recorded a podcast in the dressing room, that I dipped dramatically.

I had two days to get right for Leeds on the Sunday, and managed to do that.  Or so I thought.  Once again, a daft/appallingly run venue meant a kick of annoyed adrenaline was getting us through, and the audience were amazing which helped enormously too.  Then, during the merch after the show, I had another plummet.

It’s very conflicted, because the experience of seeing so many people support, watch and enjoy the film is a huge high, but being ill at them is sort of like having a stone in your shoe on a nice walk.  It’s just so irritating. In case you are wondering, I returned a negative test before the Leeds screening, followed by a positive test the day after the Leeds screening, followed by a negative test the day after that.  It was ultimately decided by the doctors that it was flu, and it wrote me off the remaining screenings, as well as the US PR which was going on at the same time. I wasn’t properly well again until about two weeks ago. Stone circle innit?

Alongside this, we have the actual digital release of the film, which surpassed all expectations.  That really was a high point week.  I’d been very pleased to see it top the pre-order charts, but to then top other charts on release was something else. The reviews were coming in and glowing, but it was those chart positions that were the real boost.  They showed that lots of people were watching it, rather than just the validation of one person reviewing it. Again, the poorliness admittedly took a bit of shine away, but there was a relief inherent that it didn’t just get released without any evidence of it existing.

The US release, I’ve no idea on.  It’s been an oddly detached experience.  I know it happened, and I know people have seen it, but it was just a long way away and I wasn’t party to it.  Also, I was busy having the triple blow of a mini-stroke, kidney stones and diverticula attacks.  That’s the very last time I will mention illness in this, but it did play a horribly dominant role in the back end of the year. It tipped up my patreon momentum, which is something that I guard at all costs, and it’s taken me a while to re-find my feet.  You lot were unbelievably kind to me in that period and I again felt valued and supported by you, so let’s shove another thank you here for that. The ones that weren’t won’t be reading this now, but…well, you’d be amazed at some of the leaving messages.  As always, I don’t ever want to feel entitled to support, but it’s a bit much to get kicked when you’re already down.  I mean, I hesitate to mention it, but I think I’m trying to illustrate why I really panic when I get distracted from momentum.  It’s not just paranoia.

Really though, for all my semi-crumbling, the important things have come through this year.  It’s just felt disjointed and like everything came with a price.  I’m so glad that so many of you have finally seen the film, and so glad we can now talk about it openly.  I’m also really happy that Rocky Robot has been slowly finding his feet (he has no feet), and him covering my posts was another highlight for me.  It’s finally getting the care and time it deserves to be up and running proper (he can’t run because he has no feet), and I’ll be slamming into it as I did with the first episode.

I’ve also been collating the information for the hard copy release of the film over Christmas, and your suggestions for the disc extras have been really helpful.  I want them all filmed and ready in the first quarter of 2022, so we can get some sort of ultimate edition sorted.

I’ve also (again), over the “holidays” been getting some other ideas straight that I really want to work on.  One of the worst casualties of the upheaval was The Scarecrow Club, which I just stopped dead on.  It’s very unread on here, but it helps me enormously to have a commitment to an ongoing writing thing.  Just to get it written.  I did all I could to not stop, but it became impossible. It’s a really complicated and gradual plot, and I can’t really do anything more on it till I’ve done a complete refresher on it.  I do have two other ideas that I want to progress with though, one of which is a portmanteau book of stories that is already half-written, and the other is a hybrid of the ghost book and the making of the movie.  I am tentatively entertaining the idea of trying to get a literary agent this year.  That might be the most realistic way of publication for this stuff.  Jury’s out for the moment, but it’s on my mind.  I mean, I don’t actually know how you do that, but how hard can it be?

I think I’ve learnt some important lessons this year, starting with the need to sort down time as a regular thing.  I’m probably on my final warning for that and have really had a go over the last few weeks.  I’ve even sort of enjoyed it in a way (I’ll explain the details in the next Cabin Fever). It’s not just the life/work balance though, it’s working out the balance between obligation and desire on the creative front.  I’ve spent a lot of time unable to do certain projects because other projects have dominated my time, and it’s feeling ultra-important for me to give equal priority to the stuff I’m enthused about.  My art stuff comes under that heading too.  I love doing art stuff, and so many times it’s been crammed into one day just so I have an art post on the Sunday for here.  I’d like to be able to go back to those times where I would create bigger art things over several spread-out posts again, rather than a rushed all-nighter on a Saturday. The Ghostbusters portraits and the Willy Wonka portrait are the direction I want to go in on the drawing front.  Full pagers with a bit more to them (Young Frankenstein is on the way), as well as more constructed pieces (like when I would cut wood and make bigger things), are what I would like to spend a bit of time on.

But anyway, I’m gonna go 5/10 for 2021.  A bizarrely disappointing year of relatively high achievement.  Oh, and I learnt autoharp on my sick bed as well. Right, go on then, 6/10.

Shall we all look forward now?  Might as well have a go, eh?

Please have a lovely day and evening, regardless of how you spend it (bed by ten for me I reckon).

Thank you sincerely, so much, for your support and kindness this year

All the love

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