Hi everyone. There's a lot we need to discuss.
The short version is, I had to step away from working on this for a long time because of mental and emotional factors including anxiety and depression. I own it, it's my fault, and I'm sorry.
Here's the long version of events. TL;DR begins here
I lost a very valuable job opportunity when COVID took the world by storm. As a result of losing that job opportunity, I felt stuck in a work environment I had been desperately trying to get out of for many years before and a few years since. By losing that opportunity, I knew it would likely take me years to find another mostly because of the area I live in, and packing up and moving is not an option for me at this time. When I lost the job opportunity, I also lost the financial ability to stop working on Earth-Link Origins, and it completely shattered my ability to think straight. I felt like I had failed through circumstances far beyond my ability to control.
So I had to step away for a time while trying to navigate the harsh, cruel realities of daily life. I could barely even look at this website simply because I had felt it was just a monument to my failures -- as a leader, a filmmaker, and a person.
I've worked on a couple of indie film projects in between then and now. But Earth-Link Origins has never once left my mind. I simply didn't know what to do with it moving forward, or how I was going to recover enough to work on it again. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure how to communicate that to our audience.
As of this past February, I finally left the job that I despised. And ever since leaving, my mind has been a lot less dark of a place. I've begun looking at options to continue and finish what we started all those years ago. I've been touching up the character models in anticipation of working on it again. I've been reaching out to folks who might be able to help us finish. The bottom line is, we still have a lot of work to do -- it truly takes a village to make a movie, even one as small as 15-20 minutes in length.
But I never stopped being proud of what we built and how far we got. I never stopped being thankful for what our team accomplished. I never stopped wishing I could've done better, for myself and for them.
end TL;DR
So here's where we are. We currently don't have much in terms of funding. There is a bit of work I can do VFX and animation-wise on my end, but that can only go so far -- I need others, with skills I don't have or feel confident in, to fill in the gaps, and frankly, I don't want to just ask for volunteers -- I want to make sure the people we ask to help us are compensated the best we can. So we are currently building a pitch video to show potential investors -- for grants, loans, and basically anyone who will hear us out.
In this pitch video, we will show people what we have accomplished so far, and we will give them an idea of the story we want to tell, and what we need to finish it. Filming for this pitch video begins in April, and we will go forward from there. I'm going to be updating the website in the meantime with fresh new renders of our characters, additional information for the in-universe database, and more features to come that even I probably haven't thought of yet.
If you want to support Earth-Link Origins financially, we have left our Ko-Fi page open to anyone who wants to help. We have shut down our Patreon page because, despite Patreon being an excellent platform with many great features, it is simply not viable for us to use at this time. With us switching from monthly updates to periodic updates, I simply don't feel right using it; additionally, Patreon is a challenging platform to maintain, and we also want to avoid the potential awkwardness of exit surveys in case one is no longer able/willing to donate. Everyone who has donated to our Patreon has been duly noted by those of us on the production team, and once the Prologue is finished, they will be credited accordingly.
I want to end this post by saying this: if you feel like you are stuck in a job or career path you absolutely despise to the point where it's affecting your mental health, there are a lot more options out there than you think. Take action. Learn from me. Learn from my mistakes. What I had was a steady job that paid well, but better pay doesn't always equal an easier life. If you feel like you are suffering or struggling, update your resume and start hunting, because once you find something new, odds are, it can do a lot of wonders for your state of mind. You have more control over your own destiny than you realize. You have the power to set the world ablaze. You have the power to make a difference. And if I can help even one person with this advice, then I'm okay with that.
We hope to update all of you soon, with real, tangible news.
All my best,
-Chris K