Last September we brought you the story of local animator Jarrod Prince who has worked on some of the biggest animation projects in the world.
From Rick and Morty to the video game behemoth Fallout, Broken Hill’s Mr Prince has been making a name for himself in a very competitive global industry.
When we last spoke to Jarrod back then, he was completing his part of the animated short The Wizard’s Hat.
The fantasy short film is about Harriett, a young wizard’s hat, and her mentor.
Harriett accidentally unleashes a chaotic spell and must prove herself a worthy apprentice.
Postproduction has been a bit of a process but now the hard work is done, and The Wizard’s Hat is set to be released to the world.
“We had just been catching up a lot and trying to figure out the best strategy to release the film, so there was a bit of downtime, which was good because it meant I had time to go on and work on other things, but now with the release just days away I am looking forward to a bit of closure with the film,” Mr Prince told us.
The animated short is being released via Nouns Stories.
Nouns is an open-source brand that raises funds by selling one NFT (Non Fungible Tokens) per day at auction, and 100% of the proceeds are used to support a wide range of projects.
The power of the established Nouns platform made partnering with them a no brainer and their community work only sweetened the deal, said Mr Prince.
“They [Nouns] will take a 50% cut of any NFT sales we make, but we figured that if we’d tried to do it on our own, it’d be double the work and we wouldn’t sell as many NFTs,” Mr Prince said.
NFTs are pieces of one-off digital artwork, in this case taken from The Wizard’s Hat.
“A lot of cool stuff has happened out of Nouns where they have funded seeing eyeglasses for kids and skate parks, and a lot of good community driven stuff whereas a lot of NFT groups, they can be quite scammy and I think after working with these guys that they have the right approach.”
The community-driven approach was a big deciding factor for Mr Prince when deciding on whether to partner up with the group, particularly after a lot of his peers in the artist community had told him to avoid NFT groups like the plague.
“I took a bit of a reputational gamble, but I think it has paid off. I got a short film out of it, the people I have worked with have been really cool and it has been a fun experience doing my own thing for the past 12 months.”
Mr Prince also feels that this is a decisive moment for the quality of NFTs.
“It feels like the sentiment around NFT art is changing for the better. We put the effort in there to make it look decent. The community have been supportive and seem to like the film.”
The unique short film/NFT release happens this coming Tuesday, February 21. Check it out on release day by visiting https://www.youtube.com/@nounsstories
