Okay, with a little bit more time to think about this, a longer, more ramble-y, more, you know, crossie-y comment appears.
It's not about competing with Zootopia, and that's not even budgetary (though, Jesus Christ, duh, that ain't happening for a while), it's just, you know, Disney has a brand, and that brand is not furry's "brand" (not that furry has or even arguably needs a "brand", hence the square quotes). Of course the whole "mainstream" versus "us" thing is just fraught with peril, but it's less a case of furry needing the mainstream than the mainstream needing furry. And I think, if need might be selling it a bit strong, I'm starting to see a desire; the success (keeping it to just movies; we could find non-movie examples) of everything from Rocket Raccoon being an above the title name in the biggest movie franchise ever to The Shape of Water winning Best Picture tells me something is different.
Because there are things that, even with their giant budgets, Disney can't do that we could. Disney can't do gay characters, outside of glorified Easter eggs; China would freak, and there goes that market. Even Laika, relatively far down the food chain, when it did it's gay character, didn't reveal his sexuality until the movie was basically over. And you don't think there's a fucking market for gay characters? And gay characters, is like, our thing, man. Oh, no, are unsavory types on the Internet going to protest us and be mean to us on the Internet? We're furries! We invented getting mean reactions from unvsavory types on the Internet!
Disney can't do R! We can! Disney can't show any kind of nudity! We can! Disney can't even meaningfully acknowledge the existence of sex! We can't stop! Disney can't do real violence! We can! And we can do it cheaper! And that's the important thing; furries need to stop worrying about what they aren't (i.e. Disney, or for that matter any other animation company out there) and start worrying about what we are.
Cheap, quick, dirty, and very good at making people nervous.
Which are very good words to describe any sort of pop culture movement that has actually managed to fucking matter in the history of, well, pop culture.
And, okay, if I have to get kind of personal with one thing about your proposition, Cairyn, I'd say ditch the CGI and go traditional; CGI is family entertainment (and needs a large budget to look good, therefore necessitating it appeal to everyone), and stop-motion is kind of the, uh, arty-er end of indy animation. Since Disney and most big budget (family oriented studios) have basically abandoned traditional animation (at least in the West, though Asian animation brings it's own, eh, let's say "baggage" with it), traditional animation doesn't really have a niche, right now. It can finally be that thing animation fans have been talking about since the dawn of the medium; adult entertainment.
And the great thing about it is it can be done cheaper than CGI and still look fucking great because stylization is not just allowed, but encouraged!
And furry is right fucking there. There are problems with "mainstreaming" furry, but that's not really what I'm talking about. I mean, it's already mainstream (not to beat a dead horse, but we live in a world where gun-wielding raccoon equals "$$$" while fish fucking equals "Oscars"). We're already being exploited. Maybe get some recognition with this exploitation.
And I think that's my other piece of advice; why are you selling yourself to furries and only furries when you can probably sell it to other people too? We live in a world where, if you look hard enough, artistic freedom and a mainstream audience are not incompatible.
Okay, with a little bit more time to think about this, a longer, more ramble-y, more, you know, crossie-y comment appears.
It's not about competing with Zootopia, and that's not even budgetary (though, Jesus Christ, duh, that ain't happening for a while), it's just, you know, Disney has a brand, and that brand is not furry's "brand" (not that furry has or even arguably needs a "brand", hence the square quotes). Of course the whole "mainstream" versus "us" thing is just fraught with peril, but it's less a case of furry needing the mainstream than the mainstream needing furry. And I think, if need might be selling it a bit strong, I'm starting to see a desire; the success (keeping it to just movies; we could find non-movie examples) of everything from Rocket Raccoon being an above the title name in the biggest movie franchise ever to The Shape of Water winning Best Picture tells me something is different.
Because there are things that, even with their giant budgets, Disney can't do that we could. Disney can't do gay characters, outside of glorified Easter eggs; China would freak, and there goes that market. Even Laika, relatively far down the food chain, when it did it's gay character, didn't reveal his sexuality until the movie was basically over. And you don't think there's a fucking market for gay characters? And gay characters, is like, our thing, man. Oh, no, are unsavory types on the Internet going to protest us and be mean to us on the Internet? We're furries! We invented getting mean reactions from unvsavory types on the Internet!
Disney can't do R! We can! Disney can't show any kind of nudity! We can! Disney can't even meaningfully acknowledge the existence of sex! We can't stop! Disney can't do real violence! We can! And we can do it cheaper! And that's the important thing; furries need to stop worrying about what they aren't (i.e. Disney, or for that matter any other animation company out there) and start worrying about what we are.
Cheap, quick, dirty, and very good at making people nervous.
Which are very good words to describe any sort of pop culture movement that has actually managed to fucking matter in the history of, well, pop culture.
And, okay, if I have to get kind of personal with one thing about your proposition, Cairyn, I'd say ditch the CGI and go traditional; CGI is family entertainment (and needs a large budget to look good, therefore necessitating it appeal to everyone), and stop-motion is kind of the, uh, arty-er end of indy animation. Since Disney and most big budget (family oriented studios) have basically abandoned traditional animation (at least in the West, though Asian animation brings it's own, eh, let's say "baggage" with it), traditional animation doesn't really have a niche, right now. It can finally be that thing animation fans have been talking about since the dawn of the medium; adult entertainment.
And the great thing about it is it can be done cheaper than CGI and still look fucking great because stylization is not just allowed, but encouraged!
And furry is right fucking there. There are problems with "mainstreaming" furry, but that's not really what I'm talking about. I mean, it's already mainstream (not to beat a dead horse, but we live in a world where gun-wielding raccoon equals "$$$" while fish fucking equals "Oscars"). We're already being exploited. Maybe get some recognition with this exploitation.
And I think that's my other piece of advice; why are you selling yourself to furries and only furries when you can probably sell it to other people too? We live in a world where, if you look hard enough, artistic freedom and a mainstream audience are not incompatible.