SALUTE
I have barely watched Breaking Bad
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Let's have another good week everyone 
Yeah I'm definitely thinking of the most indiest of productions on both ends. I guess animation comes to mind as something that can be done "on your own" on the film end, even if it's an extremely laborious process (source filmmaker kinda stuff notwithstanding). I forget the name sadly, but I've also seen this lovely nature doc with no narration, just pure montage of nature shots, it was kind of cool. "Out of time" is how I would describe it.
Anyway, this kind of stuff is possible and very interesting for me, but of course it's true that a film crew grows quite big quite quickly, as soon as you want to increase complexity even a little.
I guess I found it surprising, since on paper it seems like video games contain all the elements that a film does + interactivity. I don't know as much about the game dev side (at least not as personally) but from what you've described, it seems like lots of people have done lots of work to build systems that allow for the game dev process to be high level enough to be done by just "one person". Not that I've not encountered one person project games before, but thinking about it from the bottom up like this gives me more courage to give it a go myself, since I've been thinking about it for years at this point
tangent
I put "on your own" in quotation marks, because I always cringe when I see filmmakers or game developers credit themselves for the making of projects that clearly involve so many people. Kojima is an extreme example, but even something like Steven Universe, which I have a lot of love for, has a small "by Rebecca Sugar" just under the logo at the start of every episode. It always just strikes me as one person getting in front of others and taking credit for what's ultimately a big, often years long, group effort. And even if that one person did put much more work than everyone else on a project for example, they're still in turn sustained by the community from which they spring (or the labour of the working class, depending on their class background) weather that's friends, queer family, extended polycule, nuclear or extended family.
If you want to make something "on your own", let me see you get in a cobalt mine and then 9 other mines for all the minerals you need just for your computer/dev station/editing bay. At the end of the day it just comes off as extremely individualistic "I'm a free agent in the market of commodities and anything I obtain with my money is 100% earned and deserved" type of main character thinking that is prevent among the ruling classes of imperial core societies. And of course even the lower classes are prone to adopt these patterns due to intense propaganda and state violence that shapes their reality into a place where that somewhat makes sense.
Even something like "written by" or "series outline by" is so much better as a credit imo (not that those are perfect in any way), because it inspires interest in the process of filmmaking, even on a micro-level. A person will see that and if they don't know what a series outline is, or what a writer has to do with an animated show, then it leaves a question mark in their head, even if they don't go out of their way to find out what that is right away. "A game by" or "made by" is just so all-encompassing and authoritative, it just bothers me.
Anyway I know this is super autistic, over small semantics and I'm just fully on my soap box by now so ima shut it :x
That nature doc sounds rad. But yeah, with digital production and cheap drawing tablets you would think there'd be more narrative animation knocking around? Alas the internet seems not to have helped.
Yeah it's like, a game does oft comprise all the elements of film and more, but the programming is eased by the software frontends I mention, and you can do pixel art, have text box cutscenes, a game can be as simplistic or complex as you make it. Plus you can program music in trackers or midi or chiptune stuff, one-person game projects are not unheard of because so much technical knowledge abounds.
That kind auteur myth is pretty cringe honestly, in film and television it definitely does not exist. Most games are team projects too, like Celeste does not claim a sole creator, it is teamwork. That shit is bad. The "written by" or "directed by" should be better, but a lot of people just attribute sole authorship to a writer or director anyway, lol. David Lynch is a hack =)
I love super autistic, same and it's rad, thank you for the soapbox ramble tbh.
Yeah the Youtube algorithm demands regular videos of the same type of content, so it basically crushes anything creative unless it's already funded somehow. Pretty depressing.
Yeah definitely. In the spirit of the craft of filmmaking, I ask "Who is the guy in charge?" /j
Thanks for being affirming, I really appreciate it. I'm often met with blank stares after I come back to reality from a ramble like that irl lol
Lol, always struck me as really silly. Double bonus points if the director secretly had a critical partnership with like, the cinematographer or someone, and as soon as that person was removed the director was revealed to be a clown. Teamwork!!!
No prob, aside from the fact I base-level really appreciate infodumps, this subject is neat and interesting, great thread. I only don't respond when my brain is melted, I love big paragraphs tho.
I had no idea, thanks for sharing!
Triple bonus if it was a cis white man skating by on the work of a marginalised person
Np, one of the only animators I've seen still going, very Gender kinda animations.