By March of æ96, about half of \bThe Item\b was completed. This left two months before the A-Kon deadline. Jerry, who had been feeling more and more anxiety over the slow pace (I was the only key animator at this point), decided help out with the animation; and while I was glad to have another competent animator, he proved to have little capacity for taking direction from others.
Finally, Rus was given a couple of shots to key, and the ones that were suited to his style came out well (QÆthulhuÆs explosion, for example). The tweens on QÆthulhu reaching, however, left much to be desired.
\b\c04Jerry seethes, then snaps\b\c00
Jerry began to apply great pressure on me to cut scenes in order to have it finished by convention time, as he had done with \bAX95 Annie May.\b I could see the necessity, and cut as many scenes as I could without compromising the story, but it wasnÆt enough for Jerry.
Rather than follow my lead, which was to animate the most important parts, and fill in the lesser shots as time allowed, he drafted a revised set of storyboards for my approval (using up time better spent animating). His proposed cuts hacked the story into unrecognisable, unfollowable mush, and my rejection of them even in the face of the looming deadline was what I believe to be one of the major elements in his steadily growing resentment.
Soon afterward, after pointing out a major discrepancy in the youma design on the scene he was working on, he stopped animating, and sat fuming for perhaps hours.
\b\c04The deadline arrives\b\c00
It eventually became clear that regardless of cuts, we would not have it finished by A-Kon, so I decided to take what was available and make a trailer for it, which could show before the revamped \bAnnie May,\b which Jerry had yet to render to tape. I selected the proper shots, while Jerry rendered the changes to \bAX95 Annie May\b (also retitling it \bProject Annie May).\b
Finally, about a week before deadline, we started recording the sound. The voices had been recorded several months prior, but there still remained all the other sounds. Everything was sampled into LouieÆs synthesizer (a long, difficult process) at the beginning of the week.
Louie chose one of the pieces of music he had recorded for the trailer, and Jerry began rendering the remaining shots to the 3/4" video master. The last couple of days were a nightmare of lost sleep and waiting. Things were going wrong all over the place. Necessary pieces of equipment were forgotten, cables couldnÆt be found, the reverb box created a strange effect on the trailer still audible on the original tape, etc. (The latter problem will be taken care of in the remaster.) Some sound effects were lost and had to be improvised. Worst of all ûû and this was not discovered until I separated the audio tracks for remastering ûû the air conditioner created a loud background noise on the music track. We had to use the music track to record the voice-over, since we needed the other one for voices and foley. We had no control over the A/C at AR Design, and had to hope that the microphone wouldnÆt pick it up. As it was, it made it difficult to hear either the voices \bor\b the music.
\b\c04I miss my flight\b\c00
The rendering process took longer than anyone expected, and many of us grabbed what little sleep we could there at AR Design. We had to leave by 10AM the next morning to make it to San Francisco Airport on time, and as the hours passed, we knew it would be impossible to make it. Jerry kept giving up, and I had to keep urging him on. It was infuriating to watch him sit and do nothing as I made phone calls all over the place to make alternate arrangements. I finally secured a flight for that afternoon at an additional cost of $80 or so. Jerry didnÆt want to pay the extra money, so I would be running the show alone. It seemed, too, that Jerry resented me somewhat for going to Texas anyway.
He finished the necessary editing, and made a VHS master containing the \bItem\b trailer, the \bParanatural Protogenesis\b trailer, and the newly titled \bProject Annie May.\b
\bPAM\b had some problems of its own. The new ending shot somehow got rendered to tape at the wrong frame rate, causing it to fly by at twice the speed (I later referred to it as the \bAnnie May Special Turbo Edition).\b There was no time to re-record it, and it would not sync up with the music this way, so Jerry clipped in the new footage in the middle of the big explosion. Thus, most of the improvements were lost, but the new ending splash screen for Project A-Kon remained, with the Grey Leader in the Phantom Zone flying by at turbo speed.
I made it to Texas, where I had to present Meri with half of what I thought we had promised. Fortunately for all, most people there hadnÆt seen \bAnnie May\b yet, so the novelty was still there. I missed two more flights on the way back, ending up spending more time in the air than I ever wanted to in my life.
\b\c04\iThe Item\i is butchered\b\c00
When I returned, there were about two more months before the next convention, and that was the new deadline.
From here, things picked up basically where they had left off, with Jerry insisting on more shots being cut. The tension and pressure were extreme, and finally, Jerry refused to do anything more (he had animated two or three shots at this point) unless I cut it down enough so that \bhe\b believed it could be done in time. I considered this blackmail, but I had no choice but to accept his cuts.
Evidently, Jerry expected the same sort of confrontations when \bAnnie May\b would be under way, and stated his intent to dissolve the partnership. I tried to reassure him that I had no intention of stepping on his toes for what would be \bhis\b project, and that it would be bad to split up our resources at this time. We had long planned to divide the company when finances and resources allowed, but not to dissolve the \bpartnership.\b Through long talks, he was temporarily dissuaded, primarily by the pleas of the others involved.
Afterward there was a flurry of activity, wherein we animated all that could be animated, and ended up giving ourselves a week for the sound, just as before. This time, though, the sound was mostly recorded already, and much of \bThe Item\b was rendered to tape in proper sequence.
\b\c04The road to AX96\b\c00
This time, we finished the night before the conventionÆs opening ceremonies, and set off to Anaheim that night. We filled up StacyÆs car with as much as we could, having decided to take one car for the four of us. To make more room, Stacy removed her spare tire and jack, and used the space for the VCRs. (We all recommended against this, but she assured us she would handle it). Thus, we were on the road. Then, in the middle of nowhere, some time around midnight, one of the tires blew out. Miracle of miracles, we managed to get the tape to the right people on time (with people already in line for the opening ceremonies). See the sidebar for a more complete recount of this incident.
The reaction was different for \bThe Item\b than it was for \bAnnie May.\b The style of humour was quite different; it was not a parody, it did not depend on cameos (though much of the humour \bwas\b referential), and in general, wasnÆt intended to be as comical as \bAnnie May.\b
This convention was about as productive as the previous ones as far as funding goes. Despite talks with several people, no one was interested enough to fund any future works.
\b\c04The Split\b\c00
I hoped we could hold the partnership together until we had more finances, but just before Anime America, Jerry did it again. He said that he would only uphold the partnership if he were sure we would never have creative differences, so he proposed that I give up my equal share of White Radish, and work under him. He reasoned that if he had final say on everything, there would be no more confrontations and stalemates as there were before. Further, he believed there would be no real difference, since he always got his way anyway. Well, in my opinion, he had gotten his way \btoo often,\b and by the most underhanded means, and it was ridiculous to me and everyone else that I should give up \beverything\b just to keep him with me and to avoid splitting our resources.
He was surprised when I refused his final proposal, thinking I would want to keep us together at all costs. So he left WR, taking half the equipment and the rights to \bAnnie May\b with him.
\b\c04The reorganization\b\c00
It took some more running around, mostly on the part of Stacy Brown (business manager), to re-establish White Radish as a sole proprietorship. My first order of business was to redefine the company policy, contact lost parties, and beef up the WR line of products, since our inventory had suddenly been cut in half. In this way, I did what IÆd been wanting to do for some time: I wrote the \b4F Companion.\b Such things had been considered a waste of resources by Jerry, but that was no longer a concern. I then wrote the \bWR Companion,\b which serves as both a history of White Radish and a \bMaking of The Item.\b I also reprinted my \bLunaticÆs Gallery,\b and began work on \bThe LunaticÆs Gallery II,\b featuring the girls of \bThe Item.\b
Some of the correspondence was to re-establish contact with a few people who had sent us samples and wanted to be involved, but for whatever reason, Jerry didnÆt want to bother with answering them and discouraged me from doing so.
The White Radish CD-ROM was another project I had wanted to do before the split, since it was the most practical way to release a set of bloopers and production art with commentary.
An important part of the new company policy is to always respond to inquiries and/or submissions. No one will be ignored. We are in need of more people than ever (and a donation or two wouldnÆt hurt, either). I am purchasing out of my own pockets the equipment and materials that I think will improve our animation quality and the quality of our other products. Quality is my vision, not hacked-up rush jobs. Wish me luck.
