Mark of Inspiration: Creative Process

Everything I know, I learned from Jello. That's not even hyperbole. Like every other creative on earth, I grew up with ideas in my head and no clue how to actually make them into a reality. The most I'd done was write a lot of fanfic and do extensive research on the screenwriting industry, but actually making something on my own? No clue. Nothing. Nada.

The best advice on Jello's channel I ever heard was "how do I get people to read my writing?" to which the answer was, "make it something else." Because people don't typically like to read. So make your writing into a comic, an animation, a radioplay—anything other than just words on the page. Add a visual or audio component to it.

Which is why I decided to make Mark of Inspiration into a radioplay! (I toyed with the idea of commissioning a rough animatic for it as well, but due to financial constraints, I scrapped it.)

I crafted a series of audition slides with visuals kindly supplied by Almond, who also ended up landing the part of Scootaloo, and posted them to CastingCallClub with a deadline of 2 weeks. I realized I actually LOVED the process of setting up, receiving, and going through auditions—if it was a skill I had more practice with, I'd love to be a casting director someday. I loved listening to auditions over and over, and having friends and family listen to them, as well. I loved scouring other MLP fan-projects, listening to those auditions, and sending personal audition requests to the best ones in a process that I called "sniping."

After that, I picked the best options available to me, which thankfully ended up being fantastic. The actors for the CMC especially nailed it. I invited everyone to a discord and started scheduling, which was at the time, the Least Fun part of the process. If I had infinite money, I'd hire someone else to schedule everything I do forever and just tell me when to do it.

However, after scheduling, I got to the next fun part: directing! I had minor roles just send in three takes of each line to my email in a .wav file, but for all major roles, we set up times to live-direct, which is something I'm still working on but really, really enjoy. I love reading actors into lines and getting to direct them into doing exactly what I want—it's a similar rush to commissioning an artist to bring a vision to life.

I then sent all the lines to an audio editor, Jose Machado, who owed me a favor for voicing in his editing demo for him. He cleaned them up for me and balanced the volume, something I am chronically TERRIBLE at. Thank you, Jose!

...Then came the worst part of all.

Stringing everything together.

As of writing this post, I'm still not done with this part! To be honest, I kept putting it off and telling myself I'd start it tomorrow. The next day. The next day. The next day. I'd open up Audacity, the anxiety would immediately make my chest tighten up, and I'd close it.

I still don't know why this part of the process makes me so nervous. Maybe it's just that it's so close to the ending, I fear it won't be perfect. Maybe I'm worried that I'll discover something is missing, and have to go do a ton of extra work to get it. I don't know. But I'm pushing through it.

My actors did an amazing job, and they deserve to have their performances seen. I think I did an amazing job with the script, and I want to believe that people will like the story I've written.

I hope people enjoy it!