If I were to point out one matter which saved this whole project, that would be sticky notes. Notes that were placed all over the front of my wardrobe for months. Crossing those out, filled me with an unspoken feeling that there’s an end of this work somewhere. At the beginning I haven’t used any system of tracking progress. That period was chaotic and felt like Sisyphean work.
When stickers kicked in, it all changed immediately. I wrote notes with specific tasks, and proposed deadlines, and all remaining work suddenly started to shape into something feasible. It restored my long gone motivation. Back then, I wasn’t familiar with Trello, Jira, nor any task managing software, but even if I was, I would still use sticky notes. Feeling of crossing out finished milestones was purifying.
When I noticed that some tasks may take too long, I just cut out certain scenes, or simplified it. This is difficult, but also crucial to long term projects. It’s better to finish your imperfect venture, rather than drag it out indefinitely hoping for reaching perfection.During animation phase, I locked myself in a room and worked for dozen hours per day. This experience was extremely demanding. Since Dream Catcher, I never again managed to do a project on such a large scale even though my skillset at every aspect is much higher than back then. Maybe because that includes self-awarness.