I knew a while ago, mid-pandemic, that what I was doing on youTube wasn't working any more and I needed to change my creative strategy. I reconnected with why I even started doing any of this in the first place - not just doing YouTube, but why I wanted to be an artist at all. Why I stopped showing up to my telemarketing job back in the day so that I could start selling comic books to strangers on the street. The whole reason I did any of this was because I wanted to write and direct feature films. And with no money, equipment, education, or connections, creating comic books and photocopying them at Staples was just what I could do with what I had. I was starting from the gutter to build a brand and a body of work.
I've been on many adventures and side quests in the time since then, including an incredible success on YouTube. In 2018 I finally felt like I was ready to make my move. I invested a bunch of cash into a horror short film that would be my film school as a producer. I hired industry people to work on the thing so that I could learn from watching them how to run a professional set (as opposed to the home movie style of my YouTube productions). The mistake I made was letting the creator of the IP the film was based on, write and direct the piece. He was one of the core members of my YouTube team, and I thought we were close enough that our trust was supreme. We had nothing in writing - I wanted to do this short film as an experiment, then make a formal agreement based on what we'd learned doing the short, when we do the feature. But when the film was done he put up roadblocks that delayed the release. Then, just before the pandemic hit and while I was out of commission tending to a health crisis involving my newborn daughter, the film still unreleased, he insisted that because he created the IP, the film belonged to him and he intended to carry on with the business of the film without me, even though it was my idea to do it in the first place and I had paid for everything.
All of my plans for making movies were wrapped around my YouTube crew. We were going to make the horror feature. Then we were going to play ourselves in a movie that takes place during one epic day at a comic con. Then would come what I really wanted to make, which was a stylized crime thriller that takes place in the world of publishing during the silver age of comics (1960s & 70s).
The breakdown of trust between me and my collaborators caused by the horror short's failure to launch, destroyed the team dynamic at my studio. The team quit together and made a coordinated social media post about how they're no longer associated with me or my show. I think I created a monster in that, because the other guy now had a 'professional' film as writer & director under his belt, he was now a bigger deal than me in their eyes and they went with him in the divorce, thinking they would all go make the horror movie without me. To my knowledge, a feature film based on my former friend's IP is not in active development.
It was all I could do to try to maintain my YouTube schedule during pandemic lockdowns with a new cast, while managing my daughter's health situation. By the time I realized that a new YouTube strategy was needed, I thought long and hard about my goals and refocused on making a feature film. I created a new Youtube strategy that involved releasing music, and creating music videos that would show off my skills as a director. But very recently I had the thought that even if the new strategy was successful, I was still just a guy with an idea until I've got a script complete and a pitch package in hand. Something came over me and I put other plans on hold to set about writing the first draft of my 'silver age of comics' crime thriller. I went from zero to a 112 page first draft it in a marathon 5 days. I reached out with it to the industry connections who were going to help me create a movie when the idea was to have a feature length Youtube video on my channel as a rental, alongside my weekly uploads. Their feedback was all the encouragement I needed to give myself the summer to commit full time to writing this script, and now nothing matters to me - not weekly videos or social media reach or any other creative endeavors - as much as making this movie. Whether it's an independent project made on a micro budget or a $2 million project with stars appearing in it, this movie is my new obsession the same as with my self-published comics back in the day, or my daily videos in the early days of my Youtube career.
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I remember a long time ago I was riding the subway, feeling down about my situation, when a comforting thought occured to me. I realized that anything that I had really wanted badly enough in my life, I always got it. It's just it up till then, my focus has been on movies I wanted to own, albums I wanted to buy, and that kind of shit. I realized that I was using my super powers of manifestation all that time, and that I could simply apply that focus and determination to my artistic milestones. And I’m so blessed that whatever I want, I get it in exponential amounts. My dream for my YouTube channel was 100,000 subscribers, and It just kept going up to 4 million. So if I apply that same magical mathematics to my Movie project now, it’s as if the universe won’t stand for it to just be a feature length YouTube video. God wants to watch a major Motion Picture in 8k on a 1000-foot screen.
Screenwriting journal: Writing the Galactic Riff screenplay was a bitch. It was really difficult. That one felt like I had a whole bunch of pieces that I was trying to attach, but the joiners didn't match perfectly so I had to really mash them together in a lot of places. The one I'm working on now is totally different. I did the three act, 40 scene, 'Save the Cat' story breakdown for it back when I first had the idea. Now writing it feels like I'm watching the movie in my head. I can make it go forwards and backwards and I just transcribe what I'm watching. And when I can't get it to go any further forward, that's how I know I don't have the beat yet. So I get on Loomo and go riding around, talking out the 'why' of the situation into Google docs until it starts turning into a description of action and dialog. Then I talk out the scene until I can't get it to go any further. Back to the computer to transcribe the note on my phone into the screenplay in Final Draft. I originally came up with this idea 5 years ago as a project for my YouTube regulars. As a period piece with a fairly large cast of characters, I put the idea on backburner when lockdowns came into place, and tried to come up with other things to work on. The idea only occurred to me last weekend that if I return to my original idea, and fictionalize it instead of directly basing it on true events, then it doesn't need to be a period piece. It mostly takes place in offices and on street corners so at that point there's no technical hurdles in the way of making it immediately. I've written 50 pages of a first draft since Monday morning, and hoping that after the movie is made I'll have a great story about how I wrote the screenplay in a week. I'm writing this as I'm taking a break to update social media, now I'm going to make a reel announcing that the Pick Up Rhymes official video is out. I'm already thinking ahead to when Z. Thrillington does the end credits song for the movie, and how dope that music video will be. And that's the update from the side of the mountain.
There will be a period when it's rough. We will be losing subscribers. It might even get demoralizing. But something will happen where people who haven't checked in it in a while will come check it out. Then the YouTube algorithm will start to serve it to other people who are subscribed but haven't checked in on the Sean Ward Show in a long time, and they'll click over. I'll start to see supportive comments, then the views will start going up again. Then the videos will start doing millions of views and away we go.
I'll tell you, I've got like an album and a half worth of music in the can that I've been sitting on... Partly because YouTube has been so all-consuming but also because of feeling like I need to wait until I can invest the time to make an album release a big deal.
But I realized there are a couple of things wrong with that way of thinking.
First, that's never how I've done well at anything. Any success I've had has not been a result of perfect planning. It's been a result of jumping in with no plan and no idea what I'm doing, and then drip, drip, drip until it's turned into something.
Second, that's not how life works. There's never a brilliant, shining moment when everything is perfect, and waiting for it just leads to regret. I already have tons of regret now about not getting these songs out sooner and I realized I'd regret it more in a few years if I still didn't get them out VS how is feel if I put them out when the moment wasn't perfect.
Then the final piece of the puzzle is feeling like I'm one of the world's greatest artists, but the work I've been producing, while wildly successful, hasn't been the most true reflection of my personality and creative vision for a long time now. I have enjoyed playing in the Marvel & DC sandbox and that will always be a driving passion, but I have so much more I want to say and so many more opportunities I want to explore.
Something happened while I was recording Sweet Child o' Mine that made the whole music thing click. I suddenly felt like I had a plan for how to release a series of singles, most of which are already recorded, to take me into next year. I don't know what will happen by the fifth release but it won't be nothing. And I'll definitely feel much better about getting the stuff out there than if I sit on it for another five years, lamenting that the perfect moment never came along.
Like i said in one of my old songs: "I've got a brand new style that you just can't top." I'm confident that I've got something unique that no one else is doing. All of my nerves and apprehension about putting stuff out there have everything to do with how people might perceive what I'm doing before I get to where I'm going, and nothing to do with whether or not I think I've got the goods. What it boils down to is that when I'm in my car and I want to listen to the music I've made, I'd rather pull it up on Spotify or YouTube Music than out of a Google Drive folder that no one else has access to. I'd rather be thinking about the videos I released with the song than the videos I want to one day release with it.
For those who are new here or ain’t been in a while, here’s what I’m working on right now:
Here are some Media projects that Have inspired my animated take on the story of Zack Snyder and the making of Justice League:
Way of the Househusband
The original idea was to do the story of Zack Snyder and The Making of Justice League as an animated explainer video on The Sean Ward Show YouTube channel. At the same time, I was mulling over the fact that I wanted to be in production on a FEature Film by now, But those plans had been de-railed by the events I described in a Previous post, and then again by Pandemic Lockdowns. I saw the trailer for the Netflix original anime series “Way of the Househusband” and immediately recognized that we could accomlish that style of animation with what we were already doing, and my mind flooded with images and whole scenes, movements and transitions. I was on my way to bed and Instead of turning right to go up the stairs, I turned left into the living room to jot down a note. As I turned, the realization came over me that The Muse was visiting, and she & I were gonna go at it all night. I was up until about 3 in the morning writing out my version of the entire story, from Zack Snyder taking the job of directing man of Steel to the release of Zack Snyder’s justice League on HBO Max.
The Social Network
In an interview with Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher about their movie version of the founding of Facebook, they talked about the challenge of adapting such recent history. This is probably my interpretation more than it's actually what they said, but my sense of it is that they declared at the outset that they are not journalists. Their loyalty is not to the facts, their loyalty is to their story. If they have to rearrange events or combine characters to make the storytelling easier, that's okay as long as the emotional truth of the story is intact. My interest in the story of the Snyder cut is totally on this same level, where I see how it suggests this epic Shakespearean drama about power and loyalty.
Remain in Love
I just finished the Chris Frantz book about his life as a musician, and his experiences as a member of Talking Heads and Tom Tom club. I found his honesty about his relationship with David Byrne to be very refreshing. I could tell there was a lot of love there, but the facts are the facts. One of the things that I'm finding a challenge is how the story requires that I portray certain people in an unflattering light. And because the story is based on things that actually happened, there is a level on which… it's like when someone got too drunk and embarrassed their self at my wedding. I told some friends about it because it was funny. But one of those people later used that against the person the story was about. And I felt like that was a betrayal of me, and my trust. It wasn't his story to tell, let alone to use as a weapon against the person. But on the other Hand...
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
What Tarantino did on Inglorious Basterds was inspired, but the story of Rick dalton and Cliff Booth is revelatory. At the end of the day he’s not telling the story of what happened in Hollywood, 1969. He’s telling the story of what happens in his imaginary alternate universe version of Hollywood 1969. Re-watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the thing that gave me permission, in a sense, to tell my alternate universe version of the story behind Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
Hello! First thing is I need to say thank you, for two things.
1. First is thank you to everyone who sent me birthday messages. And to everyone who jumped on my birthday fundraiser for @sickkidsvs on Facebook, you are awesome. Raised over $1000 almost without trying - all I did was raise the goal amount twice because people were so awesome about contributing to it.
2. A very emotional thank you to the people who commented on my previous post, the one where I'm holding my daughter and kissing my dog. It's been a big help to be reminded that I'm not alone and there are people out there who care.
I know I keep alluding to some big changes happening in my life and business right now, I'll tell you more about that - I'm coming up on the 10th anniversary of my first viral video on YouTube and I'm feeling like a Saturday Night Live performer who knows it's time to move on. I'm putting things in place behind the scenes to keep the channel going while freeing up my time to pursue other things. Specifically, to write a screenplay for a movie I'm going to direct. I already have 3 high level industry collaborators waiting on me to get it done, and the biggest thing that came out of 2020 was the realization that I can't do it part time - this shift I'm trying to make has to be an all-or-nothing commitment. I'll have lots more to say about all of this in a video I'm doing after the holidays with the hyperbolic title "I'm Retiring from YouTube" but for right now I wanted to thank you all for the shot of confidence during this time when the future is a big mystery in a way that it hasn't been for years. In the meantime, what are you hoping Santa brings you for Christmas this year?
I just saw a post about the Blood in the Snow film festival! Oh, the memories! Let me take you back to 2018… the official premiere of a film I produced called Quiet Room Bears. This is when me, Lee, Violet, and Makenzie were still tight. I rented a limo and everything, I wanted it to be a big night.
In fairness she got very drunk before we got to there but Makenzie got ejected from theatre. The part that didn’t make sense was that she had been ejected for making transphobic comments in the restroom. Very confused, I went outside to see what was going on and Makenzie is out on the sidewalk, her face is Niagara Falls she’s crying so hard. Before she can even start to tell me what’s happened, some rep from the festival or the theatre itself comes outside to tell us we have to move. I still don’t know what’s happened so I tell her I’m not the one that was kicked out, and I’m just trying to find out what’s going on. The rep won’t budge, and two more people come to back her up. They’re insisting we have to move, and threatening to call the police. I’m sure it didn’t help the situation that I was laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of the whole thing, and I told them to go ahead and call the cops.
Makenzie got me to instead leave and go to the restaurant where we would be having a combo birthday dinner for me and after party for the film premiere. Apparently that altercation was enough to make Lee decide that he didn’t want to be in business with me any more after I’d already invested over $15,000 in the film and the business at that point. Of course he didn’t just say that - He held up the release of the film and jerked me around for over a year saying he wanted more time to think about it, while continuing to collect a paycheque every week for working on my YouTube show. Only after the awkwardness over the delay in releasing the film had poisoned the whole team dynamic, and he & the rest of the team mutinied (while I was reeling from my daughter having just had a scary liver surgery at six weeks old) did he finally bring up this incident at the Blood in the Snow Film Festival as the reason why he threw up all those blocks a year previous, as if it gave him justification to take the film for free and hip check me out of the business that was my idea in the first place.
And that is the story of my one and only experience attending the Blood in the Snow Film Festival!