Episode 105 features Will White, an animator, artist, writer, and video creator who not only has experience in the studio system for animation but also has had his hand in YouTube as well with his channel WillBits.
We discuss how Will became an animator, creating videos and animations on YouTube, appeasing the algorithm, supporting independent creations, throwing away good stuff, and does everyone really has a story in them, and much much more…
Throughout the conversation, we discuss:
- Will’s Animation Story
- Cartoons
- A VHS trick to watch movies frame by frame
- Pre-Flash and Flash
- Do you have to draw?
- Webtoons
- Vtubers
- Fixing, Editing, and Retakes
- Webcomics
- Growing from bad writing
- Supporting the Independents
- YouTube
- VidCon
- Algorithm
- The tedium of animation
- Everyone has a story
- Execution matters
- An exploitative system
- Fans not fanatics
- And much more
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
–End Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:07 – 00:00:25:42
Agent Palmer
Previously on agent Palmer dot com almost a decade later. David Mitchell’s thinking about It Only Makes It Worse remains relevant. The fourth major Star Trek movie really does feel like a voyage home. And have I brought long form conversation back? Well, we’re well on our way. This is The Palmer Files episode 105 featuring Will white, whom you may know as Wilbert, an animator both in large studio houses and for his own creations on YouTube.
00:00:25:55 – 00:01:12:25
Agent Palmer
We discuss how Wil became an animator, creating videos and animations on YouTube, appeasing the algorithm, supporting independent creations, throwing away good stuff. And does everybody really have a story in them? And much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:12:29 – 00:01:39:00
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic. Also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 105th episode is Will white. An animator, artist, writer, video creator who not only has experience in the studio system for animation, but also has had his hand in YouTube as well with his channel will bits. I first discovered Will on that channel YouTube.com slash Wilbert and I’ve followed him so much as he’s been willing to share on his socials.
00:01:39:04 – 00:02:04:30
Agent Palmer
But finally we met, and this conversation about animation and creation and YouTube was thoroughly fun and well, as I’m sure there’s more coming from Will in the future, you’ll now be able to say you knew him when his YouTube channel will. Bits. That’s Wild Bits is full of his original animations as well as some gameplay tutorials, and I’m sure more original content will end up there soon.
00:02:04:35 – 00:02:29:32
Agent Palmer
During the conversation you are about to hear, we cover his animation Passion origins, discuss a pre flash program and some old web tunes which dates both Will and AI to a certain age, and talk about Will’s YouTube journey and an adventure at VidCon. Plus, throwing away a perfectly great drawing and exploitative entertainment system, being fans, not fanatics. And perhaps we will discover that everyone has a story inside them.
00:02:29:33 – 00:02:49:24
Agent Palmer
All of that, plus a whole lot more, is coming your way shortly. But first, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all contact information for myself and Will in the show notes. There you can find more information about Will’s work and his YouTube channel, youtube.com. Slash Will bits that will bits.
00:02:49:28 – 00:03:05:00
Agent Palmer
Don’t forget you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course, email can be sent to the Palmer Files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:03:05:05 – 00:03:25:23
Agent Palmer
Will, you are an animator and I have on this show. I’ve talked to authors who like read a book and went, I want to know how this happens. And I’ve talked to musicians who listen to music and we’re like, I want to know how to make this. But I’ve never talked to an animator who is actually a fan of the medium.
00:03:25:23 – 00:03:41:09
Agent Palmer
I’ve actually never talked to an animator, so I’m curious. Like, what was this? This is a very like long form question, but like, what’s the journey? And like, where does it start? Did you watch a cartoon once and go, I want to do that.
00:03:41:14 – 00:04:13:39
Will White
The journey to become an animator, I’m sure is different for everybody. And it almost always every animator always has you. There’s a certain love of the medium that everybody has, and I’m sure everybody has their own story of like where they start. And I think it starts out from from childhood. Everybody watches a lot of cartoons. Yeah. You, you, you consume media and it’s seeing so seeing it today I have a seven year old son who is now in that media consumption age.
00:04:13:39 – 00:04:33:16
Will White
He is the kind of guy who is watching YouTube, watching TikTok, watching the consumed by more media than ever. Yeah, when I was a kid, there wasn’t as much there was a lot less of it. And there was a lot of if I wanted to be entertained, there was a lot of time being spent watching a VHS, and a lot of what you have as a kid is Disney tapes.
00:04:33:21 – 00:05:02:51
Will White
And one of the first one of my, like, first formative memories as a kid was watching Aladdin back in the 90s on the VHS and having seen it. And a lot of people as kids will watch and they’ll rewatch VHS and that sort of stuff. But one of the first things that I found out you could do on an old VHS was that if you press the pause button and then you hit fast forward, it would take you through the VHS frame by frame.
00:05:02:56 – 00:05:23:26
Will White
That was a rare treat in the 90s, because there was not a lot of technology available to you as a kid. Now on a computer is no big deal. You just click through and you can press all kinds of button to go frame by frame and watch that kind of stuff. But I broke a tape of Aladdin watching the whole thing, one drawing at a time, just going through.
00:05:23:26 – 00:05:47:48
Will White
And I mean, in particular, I would stop any time I like a cool transformation or something like that was happening, or a really particularly violent, funny slapstick moment and kind of seeing how things go and that sort of breakdown as a kid, when you start going into it’s like learning how to do a magic trick. When you watch a show and somebody shows you a really cool illusion, and deep down, even as a kid, you know, this isn’t real.
00:05:47:48 – 00:06:06:11
Will White
This is a trick, but you don’t know how it’s a trick, you don’t know how they do it. And the first time you notice the wire, you see the smoke. You can tell where the mirror is. You start to think, I could do this. I could draw these. I could make this kind of stuff, and you kind of start messing with that sort of stuff.
00:06:06:15 – 00:06:24:54
Will White
The technology wasn’t really available at the time, but I spent a lot of time watching cartoons to the point where, my dad thought I was wasting my time, and he actually eventually blocked. We we were living in a rural area, and we were watching on satellite TV. We didn’t have like a big thing and you could actually block channels.
00:06:24:54 – 00:06:47:10
Will White
And he blocked the Disney Channel. He blocked Nickelodeon, and was like, you’re spending too much. You’re wasting too much time on all of these kinds of things. And who’s laughing now, dad? Yeah. Because, because it’s ended up being a career for that as the, as a thing that we do for that sort of thing. So, but yeah, I started dabbling in programs from very early age.
00:06:47:10 – 00:07:15:55
Will White
I think my, the first proper animation I made, I was probably in the sixth grade, and I had put together a, a digital animation for a local science fair where they had a multimedia, category. And I made a just like a three minute cartoon using a program called action 2.5, which does not exist anymore, but it was made by a little company called Macromedia.
00:07:16:00 – 00:07:18:02
Agent Palmer
Yes. The precursor to flash.
00:07:18:04 – 00:07:32:44
Will White
It was action 2.5 became flash three while I was using flash before there was flash. So just, just just to use the credentials for that is a thing I’ve been I’ve been in it for a while.
00:07:32:49 – 00:07:34:00
Agent Palmer
Wow. I from.
00:07:34:00 – 00:07:34:54
Will White
From the ground floor.
00:07:35:09 – 00:08:00:37
Agent Palmer
I, I, I’ve, I’m, I’m, I’m a fan of the medium I, I don’t know that I ever went frame by frame until a friend of mine got a Laserdisc. Just that, like I didn’t have. I didn’t discover the ability to go frame by frame on a VCR. But when Laserdisc happened and I remember specifically the if it was an anime, it wasn’t even a cartoon.
00:08:00:37 – 00:08:35:11
Agent Palmer
It it was it was Akira. And we went frame by frame on that and transition just kind of like there’s so many moving, Pete now before that. Right. I’m aware of, animation cels because. Sure. My parents and my uncle and, and now me, collect them. I have a couple of, Ralph Bakshi cells from Wizards over my shoulder right now.
00:08:35:11 – 00:09:04:31
Agent Palmer
And I have a, I have a, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, cell and, sketch behind me as well. And so I knew kind of how it’s all put together, but I could never draw. So. So there was this, barrier for me that it was like. And I think at that formative age, because I couldn’t draw, the drive was like, I guess I’m not going to be an animator.
00:09:04:31 – 00:09:08:11
Will White
It it’s amazing how many animators don’t.
00:09:08:16 – 00:09:09:28
Agent Palmer
Oh, okay.
00:09:09:33 – 00:09:23:47
Will White
And especially with CGI, 3D, more like computer drawn. I went to art school with a lot of people who were majoring in doing things, and Maya couldn’t draw to save their lives as a thing. I mean.
00:09:23:47 – 00:09:52:08
Agent Palmer
Like, I guess that’s true because I don’t we’re we’re about to find out how different our college experiences were on the internet, because my college experience was two very specific animated things. It was the Adult Swim that featured Aqua Teen and Black and Space Ghost, and it was the internet featuring Homestar Runner. These are the two, yeah, like college things.
00:09:52:08 – 00:09:53:45
Agent Palmer
And when you say when you.
00:09:53:45 – 00:09:55:21
Will White
Talk about that’s the same era, okay?
00:09:55:21 – 00:10:06:27
Agent Palmer
And when you talk about not being able to draw, I look at Homestar Runner as the forerunner to, say, South Park, where it’s simple shapes animated to do things.
00:10:06:32 – 00:10:29:48
Will White
The the Homestar Runner characters are deceptive. They’re simple, but they’re they got a they got a style to them, but I get what you mean. And then it’s also it’s a very rigged show that’s happening more and more where you’re seeing lots of shows that are what is today kind of a VTuber, where you see someone who you don’t like, the person running a Twitch channel who has a VTuber or something like that.
00:10:29:52 – 00:10:46:23
Will White
They’re not they can’t draw. They hire somebody else to do that. They get someone to rig a, they have an illustrator, and then somebody else rigs that illustration, and then they’re just turning the camera on some. I mean, sometimes some of them are artists and some of them like to make their own things, but a lot of them are just regular folks who just commission that stuff out for somebody else.
00:10:46:23 – 00:11:14:51
Will White
And the actual animation, the stuff that I do in my job from a on a regular basis, I’d say 80, 90% of it not drawing. I’m fixing stuff, I’m editing stuff. I’m articulating things. The other 10% I have to draw a lot. But the in, in this particular field for that kind of thing, if you, I would run into problems really quick if I couldn’t draw anything because, I specifically do a lot of retakes, which is fixing things.
00:11:14:51 – 00:11:19:41
Will White
And sometimes that fixing things involves a lot of pencil mileage, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s just technical.
00:11:19:54 – 00:11:48:34
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I think I this very well could be my age talking, but like, I still I know this is not the case. I, I know this is not the case. I still think of like the hand-drawn behind the scenes guys on slanted desks. Moving the paper to make sure that they’re getting the emotion right as they’re drawing like 4 or 5 frames at a time.
00:11:48:45 – 00:12:12:57
Will White
And then that before it’s, it’s really time consuming. And, you know, if you’re doing things at a level that you want it to look like Disney theatrical stuff. Yeah, it’s there’s really something to that. And being able to fully draw a character. So they’re moving all the time. It’s expensive. It’s really time consuming. I’ve, I’ve talked to some because I’ve done some commercial work before.
00:12:13:02 – 00:12:38:58
Will White
And it was funny talking in the, in the commercial industry how there was a while where working for like a TV campaign, they would sometimes try to hire people on from Disney specifically who had been trained to do that as a thing. And they hate them because they’re slow. It would take them forever. It would take them like three days to do a shot, and they don’t have time for that, even though that’s how you get the really, really high quality stuff.
00:12:39:03 – 00:13:00:59
Will White
Sometimes they want the really, really fast turnaround where they want to be able to see something immediately. And when you’re used to working digital, you kind of figure out how to take a bunch of shortcuts that oftentimes don’t look as nice in the long form. Yeah, but I can produce them in a fraction of the time, so they always have time to refine it later.
00:13:01:04 – 00:13:05:52
Will White
But it’s funny how the industry has accelerated over time.
00:13:05:57 – 00:13:15:50
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I, I, I still get comforted seeing the like. I don’t know, there’s something about the imperfect nature of that early Disney stuff.
00:13:15:54 – 00:13:16:54
Will White
Yeah.
00:13:16:59 – 00:13:39:23
Agent Palmer
And just the early, the early stuff. The Jetsons, the the Hanna-Barbera, the Looney Tunes stuff, like all of it, because it’s what I grew up with and there were no truly crisp lines, like, everything is so fluid, but I also know it’s because it took years, months, weeks to do that one little thing.
00:13:39:28 – 00:14:05:20
Will White
Yeah, there’s it’s retakes as a thing are fairly though in their modern incarnation are really, really recent as a thing that started happening. And for better or for worse, depending on who you ask. But back in the day, if you were watching back the tape and you realized, it’s Scooby Doo, and for this one sequence, Shaggy’s pants changed color.
00:14:05:23 – 00:14:27:32
Will White
They’re the wrong color pants. You can’t just be like, hey, can we swap the color on those pants? You would have to. There are painted on cells. It’s paint. You knew they had to scrape it off and, like, repaint the whole thing. Or barring that, more likely you would have to actually completely redraw the entire sequence from scratch in order to get shaggy with the correct color pants.
00:14:27:41 – 00:14:51:36
Will White
So what happens is going on TV with the wrong pants? It’s not that they don’t know they noticed, but it’s like, how much does it cost to fix the pants? Versus how much is anybody going to care? Leave it. And so you get a lot more of that. That still happens. People still miss stuff. But nowadays it’s a lot easier to catch and fake a fix, a mistake, especially something like, hey, Shaggy’s got the wrong color pants.
00:14:51:36 – 00:14:54:38
Will White
Now it’s digital. We go in with the paint bucket tool and just.
00:14:54:43 – 00:15:06:33
Agent Palmer
Plop, plop and and this is your eye because this is always the, like the collector in me. And look, I don’t have a ton of cells, but like, the collector in me always hears about like, oh, we used to wash the cells.
00:15:06:46 – 00:15:07:18
Will White
Because scrubbers.
00:15:07:22 – 00:15:16:29
Agent Palmer
Acetate acetates, expensive. So we’re just going to reuse it. And and I just keep thinking like, oh, like that’s because that’s still art.
00:15:16:36 – 00:15:34:44
Will White
Like, know the whole era that’s gone. And sometimes you find things that are fake, that are from an era where they were scrubbed, but because they’re sort of collector’s items, you’ll get somebody who will do. They’ll have counterfeit cells that pretend to be from Disney’s really bad about that. They’ll sell, they’ll do a limited run of like, oh, it’s 500 cells from your favorite show.
00:15:34:44 – 00:15:39:04
Will White
But they’re new. They made them. They may be limited, but they’re not from the film.
00:15:39:04 – 00:16:01:38
Agent Palmer
But I also think that you today not not you, but like the industry as a whole, has the benefit of editing whenever they choose a new platform. Right. Like you have the ability to put out, a motion picture, an animated feature into the theaters and then edit any mistakes before it goes to streaming.
00:16:01:43 – 00:16:19:09
Will White
You can well, you can, you can push it. It’s there’s a process. So it’s not instantaneous. It has to go through a bunch of checks and a bunch of other stuff. But theoretically you could just overwrite it any time you want. And I mean, infamously, Spider-Verse came out not that long ago, and that was more of an audio problem.
00:16:19:09 – 00:16:31:10
Will White
A lot of people complained about how the audio out wasn’t mixed. Well. Yeah, and they put out a new version that was mixed better as a thing back in the day. Tough luck. So she got.
00:16:31:15 – 00:16:55:35
Agent Palmer
Did you was this always the the plan? I mean, we skipped over quite a bit. But like from the, the sixth grade, animation that you do in preflight, I want to call it pre flash because it sounds cooler but like in pre flash like two now was it always like okay one track mind I’m on the train tracks to be an animator.
00:16:55:35 – 00:16:57:09
Agent Palmer
Let’s do this.
00:16:57:14 – 00:17:17:51
Will White
I got discouraged really heavily. Really really heavily. Because if you, if you talk to me in middle school, 100%, this is what we’re doing. This is the game. That’s what we’re doing for. That is a thing. And I wish I could talk to that little boy, but I. I grew up in a small town where there weren’t exactly animation studios around every corner.
00:17:17:51 – 00:17:37:47
Will White
There was a lot of like, okay, but how do you make money doing that? And there wasn’t like it was basically pretty quickly, no, that’s not a viable career path. You need to go into something else. Okay. And I spent probably my entirety of high school and a little bit of beginning of college just trying to find other things.
00:17:37:47 – 00:18:02:52
Will White
And I, I spent a lot of time doing, music. I spent a lot of time doing math and language arts, and I went into computer science and just wearing a lot of different hats in a lot of different ways. And, it wasn’t until college that I first started discovering, both some of the web tunes, some of the specific ones that you mentioned, and also webcomics as a, as a thing.
00:18:02:52 – 00:18:16:25
Will White
And I started getting into those and I tried to dabble and I just kind of rediscovered the drawing, and I wasn’t even that good at it because I was definitely like, I wasn’t used to the digital way of doing. I could draw okay, but I didn’t know how to scan a comic. I didn’t know how to use Photoshop.
00:18:16:25 – 00:18:36:02
Will White
I kind of started making it up as I went, and I just started immediately posting webcomics up online and trying to talk to people and interacting with people there and getting into those communities. And ultimately, I didn’t have a ton of success there, and a lot of it was because my art was bad. It wasn’t very good, which was a big hindrance in trying to publish those sorts of things.
00:18:36:06 – 00:19:00:35
Will White
And one day I dabbled in I rediscovered flash, having been away from it for a while, and I dabbled in making a motion comic as a thing, and I basically stayed up all night doing just a regular comic, except that when you touched it, it would like, move and do a basic thing. And it that was also it was at about the same drawing level as all the other stuff.
00:19:00:35 – 00:19:23:02
Will White
But the fact that I had like a button you click on and then it would do a thing and then it would move. It got like ten, 20 times the engagement of any comic that I’ve ever done. And people were just like, wow, it moves. And at the time this was like early 2000. It was, if you were on Newgrounds in like 2003, it was it was a lot of low hanging fruit, a lot of it.
00:19:23:02 – 00:19:44:38
Will White
Like every now and then something really incredible comes out. But most of the time there’d be a lot of really just awful things on there. So you didn’t have to be very good to kind of stand out from the crowd in that field. And that was kind of the first taste of like, oh, I’m doing a thing and putting it out on the internet, and people are responding to that as a thing.
00:19:44:42 – 00:19:51:14
Will White
That was when it was over. That was the point that it was like, okay, this is the path, this is where those things are going.
00:19:51:14 – 00:19:55:07
Agent Palmer
I have to ask the original static webcomic.
00:19:55:12 – 00:19:55:48
Will White
00:19:55:53 – 00:19:59:15
Agent Palmer
How was the writing like, how would you judge bad?
00:19:59:18 – 00:20:19:27
Will White
Okay is real bad. It’s one of those it’s it still exists if you know where to find it. But I’ve kind of intentionally squirreled it away because I’m not proud of it. It’s not. It’s not bad. It’s not offensive. It offends me artistically in mind as integrity. It’s just. And it’s it’s a bunch of corny jokes and the characters are fine, but it’s not.
00:20:19:27 – 00:20:23:20
Will White
It’s not like it’s not a it’s not the great American novel.
00:20:23:22 – 00:20:45:45
Agent Palmer
Well, I mean, I ask it because I know that your animation style, not just because you’ve been a professional, but that’s evolved. And so your writing has evolved. And look, I look, I’ve got journals that I’m in, I why do I keep them. No idea. But I there’s a they’re a part of me. And so the bad writing is just as much a part of me as the good writing is.
00:20:46:00 – 00:21:02:42
Agent Palmer
And so, like we grow from that. But I was curious because I know, you know, at a certain point and I think maybe we’re here in your journey, but at a certain point you go, well, if nobody’s going to pay me to do this, I should do it for myself.
00:21:02:47 – 00:21:24:20
Will White
Yeah. Well, that’s that’s at the, at time of recording, we are in the middle of a, quite a big strike where, but perhaps more relevant, even if the strike ends the day after we record this, which, hey, hope, we hope it does, but it may still be ongoing by the time this, this, this goes out as a thing.
00:21:24:25 – 00:21:45:00
Will White
There has been a grander trend going into indie animation for that is a thing where I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a groundswell of people wanting to go to there, and it’s it’s a really hard path. So it’s not just because it’s really expensive to make animation either. In time spent or paying other people to spend that time.
00:21:45:00 – 00:21:50:17
Will White
It takes a lot to get anything off the ground of any amount of substance.
00:21:50:22 – 00:22:18:31
Agent Palmer
I this is a this is a conversation podcast. Yeah. And I, I spend money on a host and then I spend my time in the recording and the editing and all the other stuff. Right? So we’re not even talking about me doing video and editing video or shooting or reshoots, and we’re not talking about animation where you have to write out a script and all that stuff, which would be the same for a video.
00:22:18:36 – 00:22:51:18
Agent Palmer
But this isn’t a the entry is low, but to do it well is not easy. And I think that yeah, that’s that’s across the board. And I I only have so much time as a consumer. Right. I think everybody is in that kind of boat. But if I see while I’m scrolling through Twitch, someone who’s literally animating in any capacity, I will give them a follow just to boost their numbers.
00:22:51:18 – 00:23:13:50
Agent Palmer
I may never have the time to watch that person, but anybody who’s still doing it like, my heart goes out to them. Just like independent authors who spend the time to write and put their own book out. Like my heart goes out to you like I maybe one day I will be you. But for now, I’m happy with my blog and my podcast and that’s fine.
00:23:13:59 – 00:23:38:25
Agent Palmer
But when I see you like I like, I feel you. I’m not you, but I feel you and I understand. Like this isn’t easy either. So what you’re doing, which seems immensely harder. I want to support you even in that little way. If just like now, you have an extra follower like. But you’re right. Like this I. I also wonder too.
00:23:38:25 – 00:23:44:16
Agent Palmer
Like, how do you get eyeballs when you’re compared to everybody else on YouTube?
00:23:44:21 – 00:23:45:55
Will White
That’s a good question.
00:23:46:00 – 00:23:47:49
Agent Palmer
No, but nobody has the answer. But I don’t.
00:23:47:49 – 00:24:04:35
Will White
Have the answer to it. So is this one of the biggest questions for that is the thing. And the problem is, is that even if I had a really good answer right now, they’re saying change specific. It’s one of those I went, yeah, it’s I went to, before the pandemic, I went to VidCon one year, the YouTube convention.
00:24:04:40 – 00:24:20:40
Will White
And, it was a really interesting experience for me that I don’t think I would repeat currently. I not that I would never go back. I was just I’m not the right person for it. And it’s one of those where it’s if you’re a really huge creator, it seems like a really great convention. And if you’re a fan, that seems like a really good convention.
00:24:20:53 – 00:24:44:11
Will White
But if you’re in the middle, there was a ton of the mid-tier YouTubers where if you have like 1000 to 10,000 subscribers, that kind of range where you’re doing okay, but you’re not like you’re blowing the doors off yet. And there was a ton of those people there. And I don’t think it’s a really awkward kind of sophomore slump that hits a lot of people.
00:24:44:15 – 00:25:04:09
Will White
And every single panel that I sat in on, people would ask a YouTuber, hey, what was your journey? Hey, how did you get here? Hey, how did you do this thing? And half the time they didn’t know they got lucky. Something hit the right thing, hit at the right time. And they were just like, well, I just make content that I’m passionate about.
00:25:04:09 – 00:25:30:15
Will White
And the world made a path to my door, which is probably true, but there’s always a lot of unseen factors that we can’t account for, because just making something you love, just making something good, is obviously, yeah, you want to do that, of course. Of course you want to make the best thing you possibly can, but there are a ton of just immensely talented people making the best things that they can, just languishing in the corners of the internet because they didn’t hit or they didn’t.
00:25:30:16 – 00:25:44:53
Will White
The right person didn’t see it. The search engine optimization just didn’t hit it or it there’s all kinds of factors that you can’t control that don’t hit that sort of thing. That’s really easy to discount for. Like it’s easy to be like, well, I’m just good and I made it. But it’s never it’s never that simple.
00:25:44:53 – 00:26:18:49
Agent Palmer
It’s and and it’s, it’s one of the reasons that when I find a new to me, new to me channel, regardless of how old it is, how many millions or tens of subscribers they have. Yeah, I won’t shut up about it to all of my friends because I’m like, this is amazing. And it it it it maybe it gets annoying because I have a little bit more time on my hands than a few of the people around me, but at the same time, I just discovered this, and I’m I’m going to help you discover this.
00:26:18:49 – 00:26:47:44
Agent Palmer
And it it literally the least I can do. Like because I want, like. Everybody’s a fan of somebody or something. And you want to do something to support them. And yes, the line that you get when you watch these people, whether it’s on YouTube or Twitch, is you don’t have to subscribe and you don’t have to like or share all you have to do is watch.
00:26:47:53 – 00:27:01:37
Agent Palmer
And that’s fine for a certain populace of people, but everybody else wants you to share, like and subscribe and comment and do all of the things because they’re still waiting for their break.
00:27:01:42 – 00:27:25:12
Will White
They call it the call to action, and it’s a meme at this point where every morsel of content that you watch on the internet insanely repeats like comment, subscribe, make sure to interact. Please, please engage. Hit the bell. The algorithm to yo. Yeah, to the bell. Now it’s it’s been the bell for a while I haven’t even that’s how long I’ve kind of been out of that particular scene for things.
00:27:25:26 – 00:27:47:40
Will White
But the, it’s unfortunately really true that everyone’s just dying to try and appease this unfeeling algorithm that has been made and tweaked and changed. And then even sometimes you think you’ve got it. Sometimes a channel is like, I have appeased the algorithm and now I am on my now I have made it, I am on my way.
00:27:47:53 – 00:28:04:33
Will White
And then a month later, some line of code gets tweaked somewhere and everything just vanishes. Suddenly you don’t have the algorithm and they don’t tell you what it was. There’s no patch notes. That’s sort of like, hey, we’re favoring short content now. What are you doing? Making ten minute videos, you dummy, that they don’t tell you that you do.
00:28:04:35 – 00:28:15:08
Will White
You find out later, like after your empire has crumbled and you have nothing but but ash in your mouth that. Oh, it’s like, oh, I was making ten minute video and you wanted 30s. That would have been good to know.
00:28:15:08 – 00:28:33:14
Agent Palmer
Thanks, everybody. Yeah, well, I, I do have a specific question though, because you, you have a YouTube channel, and, you know, you you did have a, a day job in animation and, did they overlap?
00:28:33:19 – 00:28:35:49
Will White
Yes, a lot. And there was.
00:28:35:54 – 00:29:00:07
Agent Palmer
Did did you need the personal outlet? Because obviously when you’re working for a company, you’re not you might be personally invested. Like if you, if you’re lucky enough to get to like, love Looney Tunes and work on Looney Tunes or something like that. But if not, it’s a day job and you’re an animator, so you’ll animate. But like, did you need the YouTube outlet for like, here’s my will stuff?
00:29:00:12 – 00:29:16:11
Will White
I, I think that there’s I think to a certain, well, I can’t speak for everybody because some people do just love the thing that they’re on. Some people just really want to get on a program and they just are like, no, this is it. I’m on it. Yeah, I did that to die. And this is my favorite thing ever, and that’s what I want.
00:29:16:16 – 00:29:38:18
Will White
But I think that even people who say that are not being 100% with it, because deep down, everybody, I think especially if you’re an artist, I think a lot of people who aren’t even artists, everybody’s got a story inside them. Everybody’s got something they want to tell. They’ve got some little project, they’ve got some little thing that they think they could bring to the world.
00:29:38:18 – 00:29:53:33
Will White
And people, even if you know everybody who watches a movie, they go, I do it like this. Nah, what if they did it this way? It’d be better for that as a thing. Whether you’re right or whether you’re wrong, it doesn’t matter. But everybody has those opinions where they’re like, oh, they should have done it. This way. They should’ve done it that way.
00:29:53:33 – 00:30:11:16
Will White
And when you get used to doing that kind of stuff, everybody starts coming up with their ideas for their concepts, for the like, oh, forget, oh, how would I make Spider-Man be different? It’s more no, no, forget Spider-Man, forget every forget Scooby-Doo, forget every other show. I want to make my show. I want to be my thing. I want to do my story.
00:30:11:16 – 00:30:33:21
Will White
I want to be my my project. And that’s always the game that I feel like every animator specifically, deep down, is like they’re everybody’s working for the weekend and just going, yeah, yeah, but I want to make the real thing, the real thing for that. And I think that every single animator has something in their pocket ready to go if you ever gave them to the chance.
00:30:33:21 – 00:30:54:31
Will White
I joke that if you walk into any studio and if I blindfolded myself and wadded up a hunk of paper and just spun around and threw it at somebody and said, you, you got to show now whoever that paper hit you, you got to show, they’d be like, oh, well, here’s my here’s my pitch. They like they’re like the joke about like the waiter in LA that has a screenplay.
00:30:54:36 – 00:31:17:35
Will White
Every animators got like a pitch Bible. They’re like, no. And maybe a and maybe, like an animated test of their thing for ready to go. And what’s more, I think you got a 50% ratio of it’d be pretty good. It might be really good by the time I got through the process of like, other people helping them design and have like a writers table and because because, you know, lots of things are rough on the concept stage.
00:31:17:35 – 00:31:40:15
Will White
But like a lot of them would get surprisingly good with just a little bit of refinement. I think that just as a peer group, there’s a lot of really, really talented people who are just never going to get the chance because there’s only so much time, there’s only so much money, there’s a finite resource. So at some point you kind of have to pick a lane and go, well, this is close enough.
00:31:40:20 – 00:31:59:27
Will White
It’s a living. I will at least get to do this and have my dream and get to build out that stuff, get to animate those things. But deep down, you want to give it a shot and be like, I would like to make a show and be a showrunner and get a do. What’s the what’s the animation version of the American Dream?
00:31:59:27 – 00:32:21:00
Will White
I will pull myself up by my bootstraps. I will individually create a feature film or a pilot or whatever it is and make it happen. And for me, I think a lot of the like, oh well, I have a day job. There was a lot of, especially when you hit the reality of not everything in the animation industry is, sunshine and roses.
00:32:21:00 – 00:32:53:45
Will White
A lot of it is, it was a animation professor who would joke that would say, hey, animation. It may be difficult, but at least it’s tedious where it’s it’s not easy. It’s just it’s it. And and even when it is easy, it’s boring and rigorous. And if you’re drawing the same character, 100 times and they’re slightly different and they have to be slightly different in really specific ways where an individual drawing can be really good.
00:32:53:45 – 00:33:14:57
Will White
And then if it doesn’t match the other drawings, it’s crap. You have to throw it away. You have to start all over. So it’s it’s there’s a lot going on and that’s just the process. Never mind the bureaucracy and the payment struggles and the politics and the normal things that creep into any office collaborative environment, even in a best case scenario.
00:33:15:02 – 00:33:45:46
Will White
And you start going, how do I go outside the system? You start thinking, how do I develop something else? And in our modern era, unfortunately, a lot of the pitches that go into things and here’s the really frustrating thing is because I’ve been working on I have worked with a manager, I have my own pitch Bibles, I’ve done my own pitching and stuff on the side that are sights unseen and the pitch almost doesn’t matter.
00:33:45:51 – 00:34:09:12
Will White
Almost. It does matter. It does. The idea does matter, but it doesn’t matter as much as it should. Because at the end of the day, who you are and who knows you is way more important than if your story is any good. Because at the end of the day, everybody’s kind of slaves to that algorithm and they’ll go, oh, how many followers do you have?
00:34:09:12 – 00:34:31:10
Will White
How many people on Twitter? How many people on YouTube? How many Instagram people? How many? Oh, are you on tick tock. What’s going on for? That is the thing. And the people with money who are making decisions are everything’s subjective. Art’s especially subjective. And if I look at even if I look at a pitch and I go, wow, I love that story, that’s the best animation I’ve ever seen.
00:34:31:10 – 00:34:37:46
Will White
And then you look at their social media and they’re like, oh, tens, they have tens of followers. Well, it must not be very good.
00:34:37:51 – 00:34:38:55
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s not true.
00:34:38:55 – 00:34:40:00
Will White
Of course that’s not true.
00:34:40:13 – 00:35:11:14
Agent Palmer
Well, yeah. And so I have a friend who is probably going to end up self-publishing a book and I, I, I’m going to be editing that book. And I love him to death, but he has no social presence at all. And I was like, you, you he has a website because I built it for him. But like I keep telling him, dude, I know your stuff’s good, but even an independent publisher is going to be like, what are you going to do to sell this book?
00:35:11:19 – 00:35:36:16
Agent Palmer
And you, aren’t you? Even if you went door to door to 100 million people, that would take too long. You don’t have the digital following for somebody to pick that up. And, you know, maybe he happens to know somebody and it’ll I’ll be wrong and I’ll be happy to be wrong. But sadly, you’re, you’re right across every industry, right?
00:35:36:17 – 00:36:14:55
Will White
It’s it’s amazing how much it holds true across everything. So for that and speaking to, self-publishing books, that’s what my wife does. She is a novelist who does, who has been in indie pub and that that landscape has changed immensely because a back five, six, eight years ago, you could a lot more easily put a book out onto the Amazon storefront, put it in Kindle Unlimited, put it in some of those other places, and if you gamed it right, if you followed the trends and you did the search engine optimization, you did the algorithms, you could actually make a lot of money without a following because they would find you within the store.
00:36:14:55 – 00:36:28:12
Will White
And once you pushed up the rank, the once you were up there, it would be like being on the front page of YouTube where suddenly you’re getting thousands of views, millions of views, because you could kind of game the internal Amazon algorithm. I watch it, but they change it.
00:36:28:22 – 00:36:51:36
Agent Palmer
I watched a documentary about this, that phenomenon, specifically about independent publishing, about romance novels. And, and I think ding ding ding ding ding the that it was fascinating because they talked to women who were in various stages of that algorithm, people who were moving up the charts, people who were moving down the charts, people who were on the charts that are trying to get back.
00:36:51:50 – 00:37:18:46
Agent Palmer
And it was just I look I looked at it because I’m not I’m not a romance reader, but, I looked at it as just a straight metaphor for, like, everything else there are like, look at the YouTube landscape. People are going up, people are coming down, people are trying to get back to where they were. It’s it’s it’s it’s frustrating to be a creator because we finally have the tools and the platforms to share everything.
00:37:18:51 – 00:37:22:52
Agent Palmer
And now it’s more crowded than we ever thought humanly possible.
00:37:22:57 – 00:37:48:24
Will White
I think romance was romance, specifically. Romance novels are just the canary in the coal mine, because they just happen to be the most voracious, consumer base. Yeah, that’s out there. There. Nobody reads books like romance. Nobody, nobody. They will read book after book after book after book after book, and they will pick them up and they will just go through and they will churn through it really, really fast.
00:37:48:29 – 00:38:24:41
Will White
And as a result, sometimes they hit those trends faster than other communities. So it’s always a what is the future of of a media of media going to be look at romance and see what they’re doing. They were one of the first to go on to, TikTok and start switching their advertising there, where it is a joke of booktok how many people would go and promote their stuff there really early on in the process, and it’s interesting to like, even if you don’t care about reading that sort of stuff, it’s always interesting to check in and see what the community is doing, because the ones that are succeeding are going to be the pioneers
00:38:24:41 – 00:38:29:15
Will White
who hit that on the cusp. And I think they do it a little faster than anybody else.
00:38:29:20 – 00:38:49:42
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I, I did want to go back, though, because I have to ask this question. You talked about having to throw away a perfect piece because it didn’t work with what was before or after it. Is it like as an animator, do you have to have that quarterback pitcher mentality of like, I threw an interception, I threw a home run pitch.
00:38:49:46 – 00:39:12:12
Agent Palmer
Now I have to just completely ignore it and move on. Like, is that is it that kind of I mean, I know it’s not like do or die. Like maybe athletics. We tend to make athletics, but like all of them have to have that short memory. It’s like, well, that didn’t happen. Or that didn’t affect me or like, what is it like when you have to throw that away, even if you liked it?
00:39:12:17 – 00:39:41:56
Will White
It’s always a little emotional, and it’s one of those things where, I, I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of, and it’s specifically being in retakes. A lot of what you’re doing is throwing away art, and then redoing it. And then sometimes those retakes get retakes and they get retook and there’s nothing more. There’s nothing more devastating than being done with something and going, do it again.
00:39:42:01 – 00:40:09:05
Will White
Even if it’s the same amount of work, moving on to something new and finishing. Like if I did three shots that are completely different and turn those in versus doing one shot three times is just exponentially emotionally more difficult to go back and do it again, because there’s just something about the you you start to feel the drudgery of like, oh no, what if this one good doesn’t get taken again?
00:40:09:10 – 00:40:33:42
Will White
You’re Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill where it is, just like, I’m not accomplishing anything. I’m doing it again, and I might do it again. And what’s worse, what’s worse is that there are some productions who will do what they call paying you by the foot, where instead of paying you by the hour, it’s referring to a film reel where like a foot of film reel is like 12 frames or whatever.
00:40:33:57 – 00:40:46:14
Will White
And then so if you finish, if you get 12ft in the can, you get paid. But if you turn in that foot and it needs notes, you have to go back and do that again.
00:40:46:14 – 00:40:50:30
Agent Palmer
So you still won’t get paid. Even if you had to do 16, because you had to do four of them over again.
00:40:50:35 – 00:41:14:05
Will White
In a particularly exploitive genre. And I won’t name any particular studios, but there are some that would wildly abuse that system where they would basically build those retakes into the animator doing the first run, and they would keep sending them back over and over and over again until they get a shot that they like, which it’s a system where if you have a bunch of easy shots, would not a lot is going on.
00:41:14:14 – 00:41:29:39
Will White
It can seem kind of nice because you get a really big payday, but if you’ve got like a huge crowd shot or there’s a lot of action or there’s a lot of effects or there’s something going on that is just for whatever reason, they don’t like it. And you have to do it all over again. That that gets beyond the emotional impact of like, well, it feels bad.
00:41:29:40 – 00:41:46:35
Will White
Do it again. But that’s more of a have. My family is starving because I didn’t get paid because I had to do the same day of work all over again. Hahaha. And that’s that’s real bad. There’s been a lot of pushback to like, and I know that on their end, they’re trying to save money on the production because they don’t want to pay for.
00:41:46:39 – 00:42:06:40
Will White
In theory, if an animator is just not turning in good quality work, then they feel bad about not wanting to pay for work. They can’t use. And I get that. But that’s where you have to hire people you trust and like build a relationship where you are trusting them to do the work, and you’re trusting that you will get paid fairly for the work that you’re doing.
00:42:06:40 – 00:42:18:07
Will White
And that’s that’s always kind of a conversation in the animation industry as you both sides kind of try not to get taken advantage of, but I think it’s a little off balance in that scenario.
00:42:18:11 – 00:42:54:17
Agent Palmer
I mean, I the entire entertainment industry seems to be a bit off balance. And that’s, you know, it’s, this strike is happening as we record and it’s hard to reconcile any piece of media because while we see the actors on screen, I am in my heart a writer like and in my heart like I could. I’ve produced things and I’ve edited things, but I always want to be the writer.
00:42:54:21 – 00:43:20:44
Agent Palmer
And so my heart goes out to them more than the actors or the producer like. And I know producers and editors that are going to be affected by this. But again, I, I if I was going to be anything like it would be a writer. I just get to make, you know, I, I my, one of my dream jobs because I’m, I think I need variety.
00:43:20:56 – 00:43:38:34
Agent Palmer
But one of my dream jobs is a line from Armageddon when Bruce Willis is characters like your NASA. You have guys just sitting around thinking, shit up, I want to be that guy. I want to just sit around thinking, shit up. That sounds amazing.
00:43:38:39 – 00:44:16:57
Will White
Everybody wants to be the idea guy. Yeah, everybody wants to be the idea guy of that kind of a thing. And it is one of those where, on one hand, there can be good idea people. That is, a lot of CEOs are like, yeah, I’m the idea guy and I implement that kind of stuff. Going back to referring to pitches, having a pitch is being an idea guy, and at the end of the day, a pitch or an idea are a dime a dozen, because going into the someone who is really good at, animating where I’m like, oh, everybody’s got an idea in their pocket, and with the right resources, it could
00:44:16:57 – 00:44:21:32
Will White
make a really, really good show. But the the trick is, I.
00:44:21:32 – 00:44:36:00
Agent Palmer
Think the other part of the trick ends up being that the great idea doesn’t equate to the moneymaking idea. And I think right now we’re in a weird stalemate between the two.
00:44:36:05 – 00:44:45:33
Will White
It is partially that a good idea doesn’t necessarily create money. But also the a good idea is only good when it’s executed well.
00:44:45:45 – 00:44:48:08
Agent Palmer
Okay. Yeah. Execution is.
00:44:48:13 – 00:45:09:22
Will White
Execution matters. Yeah. You can take the best script in the script in the world and hand it to an amateur, and you’re not going to get anything good to it, good out of it. Conversely, I could take the worst script in the world. And if I have a good actor, a good director, good set design, a good cinematographer, you can make it look brilliant.
00:45:09:22 – 00:45:19:57
Will White
Yeah, you can make it look really good. And if the script’s bad enough, that might not matter. But you can fix a bad script. You can’t write your way out of bad execution.
00:45:20:10 – 00:45:23:51
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. No, it I.
00:45:23:56 – 00:45:25:30
Will White
So ideally you want everything. Of course.
00:45:25:30 – 00:45:42:04
Agent Palmer
Well yeah. Ideally you want everything. So I guess are you, you at one point with the day job and the YouTube, you stopped the YouTube. Is there a return to it or do you want to?
00:45:42:04 – 00:45:44:12
Will White
It depends on how long the strike goes on.
00:45:44:17 – 00:46:13:30
Agent Palmer
But because from from the outside. Right. As as just a straight consumer slash reviewer of things, it always appears to me that. And look, I have no problem being wrong when I say this, but it always appears to me that, like you, will would prefer to hold on to your pitch to put it on a studio than to do it yourself, at least like it feels that way, because I always run into creatives that have ideas.
00:46:13:39 – 00:46:26:08
Agent Palmer
Most of them aren’t willing to put them on their YouTube channel because they want to not sell it. But you know what I mean? Like, they want to give it a better shot than a YouTube life. They want it to be on television or cable or, well.
00:46:26:20 – 00:46:48:13
Will White
You know, there’s definitely something to be about legacy media and being like, well, but if it was a feature film, well, but if it was on main TV as a thing, there’s a certain validity that I think it’s hard to completely right off where people always want to feel the like, yes. You know, a billion views on YouTube is nice, but it’s not on.
00:46:48:13 – 00:47:06:23
Will White
It’s not on TV. Yeah. So who cares as a thing? And there’s a certain elitism that I think we absolutely absorb because it goes in that direction. I was lucky enough this year to be in the TV Academy. I actually got to vote on the Emmy nominations this year, which is just novel. I’ve never gotten to do that before.
00:47:06:23 – 00:47:29:36
Will White
This is the first year that I’ve done that as a thing, and, there are all kinds of events and for your considerations and things that they do. But like you, you’re just very aware of the divide between live action and animation where like, they don’t view that as valid no matter how many people are watching it, where you can have a animated film come out and make $1 billion and they’re like, yeah, but it’s Mario.
00:47:29:36 – 00:47:58:55
Will White
Like, they don’t really they don’t really, like, take it seriously no matter what, because it’s for kids, because it’s animation, no matter what you do. So, yes, there is a certain amount of appeal to legacy media, but, it is one of the, one of the reasons that I put a pin in YouTube as much as I did was, I actually I had the the curse of some success in that my channel got really, really big when I was, I had a couple of games.
00:47:58:55 – 00:48:26:13
Will White
I was playing that got really popular. Specifically, I was playing a Harry Potter game, and I developed a I went from probably like 5000 subscribers to maybe like 16,000 over the course of a few months because I tapped into a Harry Potter niche, which is huge. Those guys are voracious. And it was a really, really great time doing all this stuff for I, I, I’m not a Potter head.
00:48:26:13 – 00:48:47:55
Will White
I was never huge on like, Harry Potter specifically, but I liked it. I as much as I enjoy any other fantasy franchise. And I was just like, yeah, sure, I’ll jump into this. And I got more into it whenever I started getting positive reinforcement from people doing that, but it was never really my passion. I was never like, yeah, I’m going to be a Harry Potter channel for the rest of time, which they kind of want you to.
00:48:47:57 – 00:49:05:56
Will White
They were like, you should play this Harry Potter game, and you should talk about the movies in the books and you should do this. And it’s like, that’s not any fandom is not really my scene. And I’m not even singling Harry Potter out there. Sure, I could, for reasons it’s irrelevant if it was Star Wars or Lord of the rings or whatever.
00:49:05:56 – 00:49:20:19
Will White
It doesn’t matter. I’m fandom is just. I enjoy those things. I like being a fan of things, but I’m never going to be the kind of fan that is like, yeah, I want to be in the 501st and just like a stormtrooper. And that’s my weekend because I live it and breathe it.
00:49:20:33 – 00:49:26:52
Agent Palmer
Yeah, there’s, there’s a there’s a line and and I think I’m with you. We are fans, not fanatics.
00:49:26:52 – 00:49:45:15
Will White
There’s a, there’s a distinct line that at some point you cross and you go, no, this is my life. Yeah, I’m into alternate reality, Undertale. And that’s the only thing that I’m into, this particular one where the bad guys are good guys and also they swap genders and that’s it. That’s the only thing that I’m into. No, no, of course you want to be into a wide.
00:49:45:27 – 00:50:06:14
Will White
I like having a balanced diet and a wide variety for things. And so I, was reached out to by a pretty large corporation. At the time, it was a pop base. They were building an app and doing this kind of thing, and they reached out to a bunch of different YouTube channels of varying sizes, and I was the smallest one that they reached out to.
00:50:06:28 – 00:50:28:04
Will White
I was like, just barely in their threshold of, okay, we’ll talk to you as a thing. And they invited me onto their program. And, I got to network with a bunch of much bigger YouTube channels in that process. And I got really ambitious really fast where I was like, okay, this is it. This is kind of what I’ve been waiting for, because part of my whole thought process behind YouTube was, of course, it’s a hobby that I enjoy.
00:50:28:12 – 00:50:55:35
Will White
It’s just fun to do. But in the back of my mind, there’s always the like, well, if I build a big audience that gives me the power to then branch out as an artist and go, let me show bigger, cooler things, let me make some cooler content. And now I have an audience to show it to, that the algorithm will be nicer to me, that I can get it before those eyeballs and see those things, because at the end of the day, I think everybody’s got that story in their pocket.
00:50:55:35 – 00:51:11:12
Will White
And I was like, well, let’s try it. So I spent for a while I was running. I always had a day job, I was running my actual YouTube content, and I was trying to make animated shorts as it goes. And the most recent content, I think, is still several of those shorts.
00:51:11:12 – 00:51:25:31
Agent Palmer
Yes. Because because that was the I do my I do some homework on this so people may think I just sit and talk to people, but I watched some of those. I think I watched some of them before because I was subscribed to you for well before the Harry Potter stuff.
00:51:25:37 – 00:51:27:29
Will White
In the, in the before four times. Yeah.
00:51:27:34 – 00:51:47:25
Agent Palmer
And, and I liked it like, but it’s also like to me like that takes me back to like, there’s a style choice that you made that reminds me of the animated Clark series. And like that era of animation where I’m like, okay, like I as long as he’s telling jokes that I appreciate, I’m in for this.
00:51:47:30 – 00:52:08:11
Will White
I took a class with Stephen Silver, specifically on some of that stuff. So who was the character designer on clerks, if for anyone not familiar. So it is one of those where like, yeah, I could see. I probably do draw at least some inspiration from that kind of styling, whether I want to or not, just because you draw the things that you like to a certain extent.
00:52:08:16 – 00:52:25:12
Will White
But yeah, that was one of those I that was my at the time, I was like, let me make five minute shorts and let me just make whatever I can. And I plotted out a season. I wrote like 13 of them. I did pre-production on most of them, and I think I put out like six of them.
00:52:25:12 – 00:52:49:43
Will White
I’ve got another half dozen in varying stages of completion. And it took me about a month to make one of those with everything else that was going on as it went. And my plan was to pre buffer a bunch and then finish the rest as I went and try for a weekly release. And ultimately when they came out, the thing that I ran into really quickly was the just that.
00:52:49:43 – 00:53:09:01
Will White
And I’m sure anybody who has done this kind of YouTube thing for a while would be screaming, no, you dummy. This was obviously going to happen is that audiences don’t always transfer well, no matter what it is, even if it’s like a oh, I was a Fortnite streamer and I wanted to switch over to Call of Duty. And those things are really similar.
00:53:09:15 – 00:53:28:48
Will White
They don’t cross over all the time. You’re Fortnite streamers aren’t going to go watch you Call of Duty necessarily, even if they think they like you, even if it’s a really, really similar content, they are never going to make that jump straight away. And that’s understandable. That’s just that’s just the people come for the content even when they think, oh, I love you as a creator.
00:53:28:58 – 00:53:52:52
Will White
They’re never really there for that as much as they think they are. So what I found was there were these shorts that like, they’re rough, like they’re I was doing limited animation. I was taking shortcuts where I could. The characters are really posed to pose talky head, just because I was just trying to blaze and get things out as fast as I could to get things going and like, like it took me a month to make it at the quality that it was.
00:53:52:52 – 00:53:56:20
Will White
I would love to have made it prettier, but, but this.
00:53:56:20 – 00:54:03:17
Agent Palmer
Is also after work. This is not your day job. Like, do you have a family? Like, there’s other things the, the.
00:54:03:18 – 00:54:22:32
Will White
And I was staying up late trying to get things done and, driving my family crazy, trying to get anything set for that as it was. And so I’d spent all of this effort making all of these things, building out all this stuff. And I would put it out and it would get like a couple of thousand views and a bunch of people coming in going like, hey, when’s the next Harry Potter video?
00:54:22:37 – 00:54:38:54
Will White
And it’s like, and you don’t want to be mad at that person because that’s that’s a well-intended person who’s a fan of you, who loves your content, who’s coming in and they want to say really, really nice. Like they’re not coming in maliciously. They, they deeply love a thing that you’ve made and want to see more of it.
00:54:38:59 – 00:55:12:28
Will White
But as a creator, it just kind of guts you to put that much effort into, like, I’m going to make the leap. I’m going to make the big new thing. I’m going to work really hard on it and nobody cares. I it’s rough. It’s a rough time to have that as a thing. And it was definitely one of those things that like, I took a really hard, and I it definitely made me take a step back and kind of like is what I’ve been doing for the last couple years was I just kind of retracted into traditional media.
00:55:12:28 – 00:55:36:12
Will White
I’ve been working at Bento Box and working on The Great North as a thing, which I’ve been very blessed that I was managed to get that gig pretty quickly, but once I got in there, I was kind of like, I’m just going to do this and just kind of get the paycheck for a while as a thing and just, just like, do the union gig as best as I can, which is, now take an interesting turn now that currently struggles are going on.
00:55:36:17 – 00:56:10:36
Will White
But, this is now put that which now pushes me in the other direction, where now I’m like, oh, wait a minute, hold on. Maybe, maybe, maybe there is some merit to the independent things after all as it goes. So the the comfort has been disturbed. But yeah, it’s been an interesting journey kind of going down that particular path of going between, well, how much do I want to work on making this stuff independent versus how much do I want to just kind of be the person who keeps my head down and goes, maybe if I just work on Scooby-Doo, that’s fine.
00:56:10:36 – 00:56:24:56
Will White
Maybe there’s maybe that is my dream job. Maybe I will pretend that that is all I.
00:56:25:01 – 00:56:44:45
Agent Palmer
The strike in Hollywood has continued since we recorded, and unfortunately, there’s really no end in sight, so far as I can tell. But I will say that the movement towards YouTube or other independent platforms is something that a lot of artists, whether it be animators, directors, writers, actors, producers, all of them is something that is gaining a little momentum.
00:56:44:50 – 00:57:12:39
Agent Palmer
Partly it’s because the corporate entertainment system has flaws, but more often it appears that the artists want to control their vision. Do I want Will to keep his day job at a big animation studio so that he can continue to provide for his family? Of course I do, but I also hold the same hope that he can create his story with his vision through to its conclusion, whether it be sold to a distributor or released on his YouTube channel.
00:57:12:44 – 00:57:34:50
Agent Palmer
I can want to hope that both of those things can hold true. And while it may seem like holding two opposing viewpoints, I can assure you that wanting artists to be gainfully employed while at the same time pursuing their own independent visions are not opposites, or at least they shouldn’t be. Often, one can impact the other in curious and unexpected ways.
00:57:34:54 – 00:58:01:55
Agent Palmer
The blog that was First Agent Palmer dot com evolved because I wanted to write better for my day job, and in order to write better, you have to write more. This then spawned the Agent Palmer brand as it is now, which now includes this podcast and will probably encompass video in some way shortly. But whether the day job is the inspiration to do better, or just a way to pay the bills, I’m here for whatever Will and other creators like him create next.
00:58:02:00 – 00:58:26:45
Agent Palmer
I want to support the independent creators, because often that’s where you’ll discover the most original ideas. And as a person who regularly laments the formulas of big Hollywood, I’m all in on originality in every medium. So if there is an independent author, musician, director or animator out there that you like, please share it with me. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 105.
00:58:26:45 – 00:58:49:23
Agent Palmer
And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact myself and my guest, Will white, in the show notes. There you can find links to his YouTube channel Will bits. That’s youtube.com slash be it’s. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur.
00:58:49:37 – 00:59:02:14
Agent Palmer
Email can be sent to this show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com and remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
00:59:02:19 – 00:59:34:15
Unknown
You.
00:59:34:20 – 00:59:39:39
Unknown
See?
00:59:39:44 – 00:59:44:27
Unknown
Me?
00:59:44:32 – 00:59:47:24
Agent Palmer
All right, Will, do you have one final question for me? Of course.
00:59:47:39 – 01:00:07:11
Will White
If I’m. If I’m walking into the room blindfolded with my piece of paper crumple, grumble, grumble, grumble. Throw it up. I hit you in the head. All the the all the resources of a studio are at your disposal. You are now a creator. You have been given the power you, you. Nepotism is here. You got a story in your pocket.
01:00:07:11 – 01:00:14:12
Will White
You’re ready to go. What would you do? What would you make for it? Well, you got you want to make a show right now? Let’s make one. What would you do?
01:00:14:17 – 01:00:17:19
Agent Palmer
Panic, I immediately panic.
01:00:17:21 – 01:00:18:06
Will White
You got nothing?
01:00:18:06 – 01:00:45:03
Agent Palmer
No. Well, this is the thing, right? So, I talked about wanting to be the idea guy, but really, I, I, I think I go, phone a friend. I have there are I am I am very good at helping to polish, and I am part of that system that can help, foster an idea into something more beautiful.
01:00:45:08 – 01:00:56:29
Agent Palmer
I am not of all the people I know. And maybe if it was, you you you hit me with the paper and sit me in the room for long enough. I could come up with something.
01:00:56:29 – 01:00:57:23
Will White
And workshop a real quick.
01:00:57:32 – 01:01:06:32
Agent Palmer
But without. Without that, I phone a friend and I go all right, we can do whatever we want. Let’s do something. And I’ve turned.
01:01:06:40 – 01:01:07:52
Will White
It’s the blank paper problem.
01:01:08:03 – 01:01:33:07
Agent Palmer
I it’s not. Do you know what it is? It’s just that I have become in my. So I’ve been underemployed for a very long time, and I’ve used that time to help foster my friends ideas and I have found that that is a place I love to be. Yes, I do this show right, but this show is also a way to help foster your stuff.
01:01:33:07 – 01:01:52:08
Agent Palmer
I’m getting you out there in some kind of way that it’s not just for me like I. This is a conversation show, so the guest gets something out of it. You get some press, you get some new people that may whatever. And I, I find myself enjoying the, the, the fostering of other people’s things more than creating my own.
01:01:52:16 – 01:02:06:39
Agent Palmer
Even when I’m writing my blog, like a lot of those ideas are, I’m reviewing something somebody else created, or I’m writing about a situation that happened in my life, but not enough to turn it into Seinfeld, because not that much happens in my life. Right? So I, I.
01:02:06:39 – 01:02:10:10
Will White
Just not much happened to Seinfeld. Well, this is true.
01:02:10:14 – 01:02:27:12
Agent Palmer
But like, I, I think I phoned a friend and I just go, all right, we can make the thing. Let’s do it. And, you know, you know, I know, you know, so you can easily like, if the first person doesn’t pick up, like I. Well, I know will if I, you know, has a billion ideas.
01:02:27:12 – 01:02:53:26
Agent Palmer
So let’s go. Let’s I, I want to be a part of it. But I think somehow over, over the course of helping, friends, I helped a friend with a, an independent feature length documentary. I’ve helped publish books, I’ve helped little mini series here and there, and I think that’s my pocket right now. I think I’m more of that producer in a way.
01:02:53:26 – 01:03:08:02
Agent Palmer
Editor guy. Then just like, oh, no, I’ve got my pitch. Like I’m. I’m the one that if we are waiters in Hollywood, you’ve got the script and I’m like, let me help you.
01:03:08:07 – 01:03:26:50
Will White
There’s something to be said for being the support class, for sure, about being able to where a lot of the times you’re not necessarily spearheading the idea, but you might be the person that punch up. You might be the person there for editorializing. That’s my so often I will write this my wife for me, I will write a script and it’ll be it.
01:03:27:01 – 01:03:43:34
Will White
And she’ll come a long ago, and then pull out her samurai sword and just. And she’ll cut off half of it and be like, you don’t need this to start here. This isn’t funny. Sorry. Jump to the thing that’s actually good. And I have to, like, do the Charlie Brown walk and be like, she’s right. It’s always right.
01:03:43:34 – 01:03:45:24
Will White
It’s better. No, it. But like.
01:03:45:29 – 01:04:18:33
Agent Palmer
It. I can’t tell you how long it took me to get to where your wife is as an editor. Where it for a long time as an editor for various things, because I was willing to read things. I would be like, you need to add this. And then and then you get to that point where, like, wait, if we take out this whole paragraph, it’s better like, and it it takes a while to grow into addition by subtraction because you even if I love you, I still want you to have the best product.
01:04:18:38 – 01:04:46:51
Agent Palmer
And sometimes that’s about taking something away. And that’s like, I’m there now where I can see both sides. So, and the thing that always in that situation, the thing that always stuck with me is from Driver’s Ed, because when I was in driver’s Ed, their one of the, the one teacher we had was like, there are a lot of ways to avoid an accident.
01:04:46:55 – 01:05:20:58
Agent Palmer
You can slam on the brakes and you can turn the wheel, but you know what else you can do? You can also accelerate. It is an option. You you do not always have to slam on the brakes. Sometimes you can accelerate through a thing. And I think about that in terms of like sometimes it’s subtraction and sometimes it’s addition because some people are in that mindset of like it’s break and turn or it’s ad ad ad and it’s like, no, sometimes you can accelerate away from it or subtract something.
01:05:21:07 – 01:05:37:39
Agent Palmer
And I think you you have to like that. That’s like life experience, I guess. I don’t know, it’s something, but I yeah, I’ve, I’ve, I don’t know, at certain point I think I’ve aged into it as well. So don’t get me wrong, ten years ago, 20 years ago, I probably have a lot of pitches.
01:05:37:43 – 01:05:47:53
Will White
Yeah, I and you might if you sat on it for a minute, you might be like, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. This whole thing, maybe we polished this up, but I as I understand the thought process.
01:05:47:53 – 01:06:19:02
Agent Palmer
But but I think for now, I’ve aged into, I don’t want to be Spider-Man, but I’m cool if I’m the man in the chair. Let’s go with that. That guy. It’s it’s fine. I, I really like it. And, you know, I still take responsibility when I do that. It’s not. I’m not like, dodging responsibility. Because I think that if you aren’t responsible for the edits you’re making or the shepherding of the project, then what are you even doing?
01:06:19:07 – 01:06:40:50
Agent Palmer
But, you know, I I’ve been talking on this show for at least a few months about dabbling in video, and I think the reason I’ve not is because it’s mine. And I have to come up with that idea for that video because the idea of, like, just turning on the cameras for this podcast is not what I want to do.
01:06:40:50 – 01:07:02:40
Agent Palmer
I don’t that there’s I write for the blog and I have these conversations on the podcast. If I’m going to jump into another form of media, it needs to be different. I’m not just going to read my blogs, which is why this podcast is not just me reading my blogs. I a it needs to be something new and I think.
01:07:02:45 – 01:07:15:42
Agent Palmer
You know, the idea of jumping into video? Sure, it’s a great idea, but you need content. You can’t spill a turd on the camera and things happen like, that’s not my life.
01:07:15:42 – 01:07:39:32
Will White
Well, it’s a lot of it would be not just reading the blog, but reading the blog. And then if you’re talking about a movie or a TV show or whatever else, that’s where either you or an editor or somebody else is putting up relevant clips from that thing that you’re talking about illustrated, and you have graphics, you have all other stuff, and now you’re doing video essays and like, those can do great, but there are a lot of work.
01:07:39:37 – 01:07:59:15
Agent Palmer
Well, and that’s that’s why I mean, video essays is what I would want to do. But I think that it’s a kind of writing that I’m very I think I can do like, I, I think I’m the that my friend who edits my blog is like, of course you could do video essays. You you can editorialize better than anyone else.
01:07:59:15 – 01:08:32:17
Agent Palmer
And that’s why I edit your stuff, because some of that stream of conscious I know you for 20 years. It’s why I can decipher it. Right? But like, I want it to be different. And I, I, I have video essayists who I love that I watch and I, I wish I could support them more. Like there’s only one of the sad truths about the whole entertainment industry is that there, as an individual consumer, there’s literally only so much you can do.
01:08:32:22 – 01:08:37:56
Will White
Like you’re you’re only awake so many hours a day. And if you’ve got one thing running, that’s how much you can watch.
01:08:37:56 – 01:08:42:48
Agent Palmer
That’s it. And even if you got two, are you really paying attention to.
01:08:42:53 – 01:08:50:26
Will White
Yeah, at that point you’re just running things on just to game the system. Not or you’re not really meaningfully consuming content.
01:08:50:31 – 01:09:00:43
Agent Palmer
Yeah. No, I, I, I will say this, I wish you all the best for when that paper hits you.
01:09:00:48 – 01:09:05:39
Will White
I’m working on it. But that’s. But that’s a different interview.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).