I recently came to a decision about something that I’ve been mulling over for quite some time. Since you’re all my friends, I thought I’d share it with you.

For a long time now, I have entertained the notion of working at some special effects company such as Digital Domain or even Industrial Light and Magic. It would be pretty cool to be one of the people making creatures and spaceships for a movie.

But would it?

I started to dwell on the hard facts about the movie industry. A computer animator at one of the big name companies sits in front of a workstation and works on a few seconds of film each week. They usually just model something, animate something or texture something, but not all three. Surrounding this animator are twenty to fifty other animators working on different bits of film. It’s a digital factory. In the completed film, their work is indistinguishable by everyone except their peers. It is only the gestalt of all of the animator’s work that is truly amazing.

My nightmare scenario works this way: After spending years perfecting my craft, I land a job in California and make my way up the ladder to a big-time effects house. I’m sitting there in front of an SGI, working 60-80 hours a week to meet the deadline on the new creature effects. And I hate the creature. I hate the movie it’s in because the premise is tired and the writing is weak. I realize that even though I’m helping create this blockbuster film, I hate my job.

What if this happened at ILM? Once you’re at ILM, there really isn’t anywhere else to go. In my mind, this scenario is very real: Wasted years pursuing the idea that working as a special effects artist would be cool, but finding that, in reality, it is soul-crushing drone labor.

Now don’t get me wrong: I admire and respect animators and do not want to disparage the ambitions of someone like Komorowski who wants to do this very thing and who is already a great animator. I am saying that I do not belong to the personality type which can deal with an environment where animators are cogs in a machine. The world of special effects does have its superstars, though. Doug Chiang and Chris Landreth (gods among men) come to mind. But I will never be one of them. It just isn’t in the cards.

But the larger issue is this: I don’t want to make movies for ILM. I want ILM to make MY movies.

Let’s face it: I have never been completely happy working on a project where I had something less than total creative control. Ryan and Dave can attest to this: While making “K”, we barely escaped alive. I like acting, but I love to write and direct much better. When I do perform, it is material created by me for a one-man show. In all of the collaborative projects I’ve worked on, I’ve tried to gain as much control as possible. I’m not saying its impossible for me to work well with others, it’s just that there are roles I am more comfortable with.

I am a creator of my own worlds, a writer of my own stories. Not someone else’s. I believe I have it in me to bring my creations to the public in a big way. I may not ever be a Lucas, but I want to play in the same league as Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane, Kevin Smith, and Chris Carter. I know it seems a bit like megalomania, but I want to saturate a sub-culture market with a franchise based on fiction I have created.

I’m thinking that by the time I landed a job in a real effects house, the Star Wars prequels and Lord of the Rings will have come and gone. What project could actually hold my attention once those giants had passed by? What franchises or stories exist that might be made into movies? Neuromancer? If it hasn’t happened by now, it isn’t going to happen. Dragonlance? Robotech? Stephen King’s The Dark Tower? Sure, those would be great, but I don’t see them happening.

Now, this may all seem like Drey’s quest for fame and fortune, but it’s not. It stems from a desire to communicate and share ideas with others. As an author or primary creator of a project, I am sure that people understand who they are communicating with because I’m right there handing it to them. For instance, in the Dreamworm role-playing game I am currently running to generate raw material for one or more novels, I enjoy some great interaction with the participants. We exchange ideas about the world, refining concepts I am working on, and so forth. The fictional planet Skwar and its inhabitants are mine and the participants of the game/story will always know that.

These could all be delusions of grandeur and my stories may only ever be acknowledged by you guys, but at least I know this: It makes me happy. I am happy to write and create these pieces of art, even if you are the only people that see them, even if only I see them. THIS is what I’m good at. THIS is what I want. I can only imagine a heart full of regret and bitterness towards myself if I put these things aside so that I may devote countless hours to move myself down a path leading to a cubicle in California in order to make someone else’s dreams come true.

I will always love 3D animation and will continue to work with it, but only to further my own ends and illustrate my own projects. I’d even take a local job as an animator, but reorganizing my life and my wife’s life to move out to California is a door I close now.

Thanks for reading this. A lot of you guys have been very encouraging to me and my pursuits. Some of you may be disappointed, but at least Komorowski will be relieved to learn there’s one less person out there trying to snatch his dream job away!