Animusic 2 Director's Commentary
Starship Groove
[Starship Groove intro]
Hi, this is Wayne Lytle. Welcome to the director’s commentary of Animusic 2! We’ve got lots of uh, feedback from our first DVD. Uh, which we really appreciate, and uh, we got some comments about the commentary! And uh, they ranged uh- all the way from “It was very informative” to “It was amusing” to “It sounded like Wayne was just a friend of mine sitting in my living room explaining Animusic to me.” Uhh. And then there was a I read uh- I think it was in a review. That said the commentary was “informative, but it sounded like he was reading.” I went back and listened to it, and ya know it does sound like I’m reading. Probably because I was concentrating and focusing and trying to be precise and articulate at the beginning and describing what Animusic was. Uh, I was probably in the same mode that I’m in when I’m giving a talk at a conference or something, and um, so it really did sound like I was reading to admit, but anyway I just wanted to get that cleared up uh, upfront before I even really get going on the director’s commentary that- [Wayne talks to an unknown person in the room]
Uh do you have page 2? [Paper crinkles]
Ah yes ok.
[Wayne turns back to the microphone]
Um d- I am not reading this di-rec-tor’s commentary. Well uh, good thing we, got that all cleared up. Um. I just remembered another uh… a comment on the commentary uh, from a kid! Actually uh, this comment came in directly -nuh- from his mom, and the comment was “Mommy please make the man stop talking!” (concerned child voice impression). That again there is this other kid that only watches Animusic with the Director’s Commentary. Never the music tracks. So I guess there’s something here for everyone- well at least- at least we hope- we try.
Anyway, what is Animusic? Animusic is music driven computer animation. The vidual are all done with computer 3D graphics using uh, a similar production process to that used uh of the large uh, production studios like Pixar. Uh, anthough on a much smaller scale here at Animusic. And uh, Animusic is all digitally created using synthesizers uh, in this case uhh, mostly even software synthesizers running right on uh, a music workstation. And uh, combined together and synchronized automatically using uh- proprietary software that we have been developing for uh, well over a decade uh, called Animusic|STUDIO and at- at its core it has um, a an- an engine called Midi-Motion which is what uh, takes the music in the form of midi data and analyses it using uh, a collection of algorithms, combines those results all together, and routes the results to the instruments and or the players playing the instruments. Uhh, to automatically animate them. So this very, very little, traditional hand animation uh, even traditional computer hand animation done on the keyframing uh, in Animusic it’s mainly uh, automatically calculated by the- by the computer using our software. Uh- we do some uh, manual animation where we drive uhh, certain parameters, for example, the position of these guys as they sort of scoot around on the stage. Uhh, or uh- that they’re elevators as they go up and down and other sorts of secondary animation.
[Starship Groove finishes]
The lighting is often uh, done manually although sometimes as in the case of the sort of light speakers here, that was driven by midi. Uh, also Gyro Drums, the lighting there is driven by midi too. Pogo Sticks
[Pogo Sticks begins]
Well here we are in Pogo Sicks. And this uh, the return of one of our instruments from Animusic 1. Uhh, it was actually I think also the second animation. Uhh, Stick Figures. And uh, it was- a matter of fact the stick was on the cover of uh, the first one. And a lot of people really loved that instrument, and uh, -eeh- ye- it’s- it’s probably one of the simplest of all the instruments, but I think the fact that it has arms and uh, plays with some enthusiasm uhh, really uhh, somehow people related to it a little bit more so to- a little bit more character oriented which is- which is not uhh, by any means our specialty- I mean we are not character animators and uh, you know uhh, e- as much as we’re huge fans uh- Pixar and the incredible work they do. Uhh, we see the work they do as being very different and we sort of steer way from the uh, characters with- you know- years and eyes and uh, everything. Although uhh, as you can see from the first 2 animations on Animusic 2 um, we’re moving a little bit in the direction of uh, being somewhat character like in quality. Uh, e- they still don’t, of course, have uh, mouths and- and talk and and sing and stuff like that and I don’t expect they ever will, but um. But there is some amount of human like qualities to them, but I think people can relate to and it makes it a little more fun. A little personalities and attitudes and uh, so yeah that- that and that is definitely a lot of fun.
So anyway on of the uh, really cool aspects of the production process- this go around for Animusic 2 was that we were able to integrate in a few other people uh, into parts of the process and for example here. Um. We had Eric Chauvin uh, do the sky for us- Eric is a very, very accomplished uh, background artist uh- he does matte paintings for all kinds of movie and TV stuff. And he just contacted us one day and said “Hey, you need any help doing some backgrounds?” and in fact we did need uh, a couple backgrounds done and so this was uh, perfect timing and he actually uh, went out and shot uh, pictures of the real sky uh, out where he lives and uh, using some special camera rigging, and then took something like eight different images of the sky and sewed them all together in Photoshop to make uh, a panorama uh, of the uh, of the sky you see here. And then he colourized it uhh, and uh, applied various techniques to make it seem a little less real and a little bit more integrated into sort of computer graphics and where these guys live. And uh, matched the colours to our environment to make it seem like it was all being lit in the same way. Uhh, and I really liked the feel of it, how it- how it came out, um. I think it’s really cool. [Pogo Sticks fades away]
Resonant Chamber
[Resonant Chamber begins]
Well here we are in the acoustic number of the DVD. We try to make sure we have at least one that’s fairly mellow. At least mellow most of the time. And uh, acoustic no electronic parts, no lasers and flashing lights and all that stuff that I tend to gravitate towards a little bit and uh, this is more serene and peaceful and less science fiction. Um. But still a little bit out there. And this was an interesting one in- in many ways um. Often our pieces start, and I have a very clear idea of the instrumentation. I have a sense of the music. Umm, and other times less so- this is one of those cases where I actually didn’t know musically where it was going, and ,you know, Dave was asking me “Ok, well what- you know- what are these different instruments going to do? Or different components of the instrument. Uhhh, you know, what- what are their ranges and- and uh, how will they play?” and I just basically kept saying “Uh I’m not really sure yet. Uh, Just make it weird, make it uh, interesting and different. All kinds of strange angles and-” you know I directed this one from a much more abstract and less specific way and um, he put a lot of his own design into it and, and, actually what we did is- is ended up letting that be a sort of constraint or uhh, for the music, uh, you know, rather than designing the instrument to play a certain uhh, piece of music, it was more, it ended up being at the end- well here’s this instrument. Now I gotta figure out uh, how to write some music for it, and literally it was pretty much completed, totally done before I even began to write music, and um, I had no idea what to do with this thing. Uhh, it was the last uh, piece of music that I wrote. It was the last animation that we produced for Animusic 2, and uh, I was a little concerned that I wasn’t going to be able to come up with anything at all. Uh, but well here it is. I actually spent a lot of time going back and forth trying to figure out, you know, what kind of music this thing would play. Uhh, ‘cuz on one hand I wanted it to be sort of the mellow piece, and on the other hand It’s.. so unusual and- and strange that it, you know, it wouldn’t make sense to have it play something that’s very um, just very normal sounding uhh, sort of like the Aqua Harp piece in Animusic 1. Just very straight forward, very basic sort of chord progression and arpeggios. This thing is kinda a little bit wacky. So, you know, I decided it had to have to parts for example this part-
[Resonant Chamber’s funky mid section begins]
-is just a little bit out there. Uh, a little bit strange and- and also have some parts that were uh, very kinda straight forward/ mellow, arpeggios, melodies and stuff like that. Uh, so I tried to sorta blend both together, and then I was worried about, you know, do these different styles of music even go together? And is music what this instrument should really be playing? And uh, I can just get myself to a point where I overanalyze and- and uh, worry about it so much that I get myself all bound up and I can’t- can’t go anywhere, so eventually I sorta had just relax and go “Ok this seems to be uh, working itself out, and. So anyway, that- that’s the story behind that one.
Uh. The skies outside um, are actually four different skies, four different moons, uh, and our original thought was to have a different sky out each window even being a different time of day to make it really surreal, but in the end we ended it having be basically evening out all four windows. [Resonant Chamber ends]
Cathedral Pictures
[Cathedral Pictures begins]
Well here we are in Cathedra Pictures, and uh, this is the first animation that we’ve done to a pre-existing piece of music. Uh, many people have asked, you know,”could you animate classical Music?” and uh, actually it- it turned out that uh, HP uh, approached us to do an animation uh, to roll out um, a new line of digital projectors, so it needed to be high definition animation, and uh- they wanted it to be to a known piece of classical music. Uhh, and I worked with a- a wonderful person there uh, named David A Williams and we went back and forth uhh, on various ideas and ended up uh, with uh, excerpts from uh, Picture of an Exhibition uh, by Mussorgsky, and it’s uh, very recognisable. A lot of people are familiar with the music uh, not everyone knows uh, where it came from or what the history behind it was, but um, you know, HP wanted something that was recognisable, and uh, I loved the music and so that worked out nicely. Um. What not everybody realizes is this- this music was originally written by Mussorgsky uh, for uh, solo piano, and it’s been since arranged also uh, for orchestra and uh, of course there’s a well-known version done by Emerson Lincoln Palmer uh, one of my favourite bands of all time and uh, it was with a lot little bit of fear and trepidation that I uh- doing out version of it because s- so many people uhh, know and love this music. And I didn’t want to mess it up too much realizing that uh, that was a distinct possibility. Um, and also being as familiar as I was uh, from years ago with uh, ELP’s version I- I was hoping that that wouldn’t sort of be creeping in in the back of my head and influence uhh, too much the approach that I took to the music here. And uh, so I actually didn’t listen to that version at all during the whole production. I hadn't heard it in years, and I still was a little worried that it was going to be too similar in- in some respects and when I was done I went back and I listened to the ELP version and uh, I was relieved that I didn’t end up uh, lifting stuff directly out of there. Uh, isn’t any of the drum rifts or anything like that, but I’m sure it has some similarities, just the fact that it is integrating in uh, some rock instruments with uh, known classical stuff.
Um, so anyway, it's uh- this was definitely I’d have to say the most complex environment that we had put together. Uh, it was actually the first production that we worked on for Animusic 2. Uh, Dave and I took a uh, and extended break after uh, Animusic 1 out of uh, sheer exhaustion. Uh, but this- this is where we started back in again and doing this thing for uh, for HP and then uh, you know, having arranged this for us to be able to use it on our uh, DVD when that finally came out. And um, so this is- this is where we got started, and it was uh, very complex um, fr- for compared to some of the stuff we- we’ve done before, and it also because it was done for HD, high definition, um, it’s- it’s- it’s very detailed. A lot of l- li- small moving parts and everything, and uh, of course it looks great on their projector equipment, but it was very, very challenging to get it to look half decent on regular, standard resolution uh, TV like you’re seeing it here. Many challenges uh, both with the rendering uh, and also the encoding, and the guy who uh, who did the encoding uh- uh- top production facility in LA does uh, DVD encoding for all kinds of major studios uh, said that uh, you know, you should sell this stuff to uh, as -as example material to- to break encoders because it’s impossible encode this stuff, and this was the most challenging piece uh, in the whole thing. Getting this was- was- was next to impossible, but I guess that’s what we get for taking something that was done for a high definition TV and uh, doing a standard definition version. When I mentioned earlier that uh, this is the first animation that Dave and I launched into uh, for Animusic 2 uh, we don;t produce them in the same order that they appear uh, on the DVD. Uh, we produce them in, in the order based on kinda what we’re inspired to do at the moment uh, sometimes we work on two or even three at the same time in parallel, and then at the end they’re arranged according to uh- the order that seems to flow the best and various different uh, other reasons. We may even make a change in the 11th hour as far as the playlist to get it to, to flow uhh, in a way that makes sense.
Now of course can always uh, go to the index menu on the DVD and from there it’ll take you to- there’s one sub-menu for each of these eight animations, and uh, from there you can, you can either the full screen version or the widescreen version of that particular animation as well as watch uh, slides of uh, some of the early art development, and uh, whatever the particular bonus uh, feature is for that animation. [Cathedral Picture ends]
Pipe Dream 2
[Pipe Dream 2 begins]
Pipe Dream 2! One of the questions that were asked uh, pretty frequently is um, if we could just basically take one of these animations and uhh, throw some new music at it uh, in the form of a new midi file and if a new animation will automatically be created. Iughh- which is a very good question. The answer is yes and no. Mostly yes in the sense that as I mentioned earlier almost all of the animation is calculated automatically in software uh, from the music so that um, if you pass new music in. it’ll animate itself basically. However, there are still some things that need to be done manually. It- and in this case camera moves are probably the main example because the uh, the music’s different, the animation is different, and the instruments are kinda playing different things at different times, the focus point is completely different when you give it uh, a new piece of music, so uh, the cameras are going to be the main thing that needs to be redone. Uh, lighting maybe to some extent. In- in this case Dave reworked the lighting just because we felt like doing it. We wanted to make it more colourful, a little bit different than last time. Uh, so it’s the same exact environment as uh, Pipe Dream, the first one, but wwww- we actually, what we did is we agit it ali- a little. You can see here on the walls there- it looks like uh, you know, eugha- some uh, dirt and grime, a little bit of oils have been dripping out from these, from these pumps from uh, from years of use, and there’s a little bit more wear and tear uh, on the uh- you know, like the marimba uh, note here uh, a few more dents in the wall and the floor. Uhh, so it’s it’s has a little bit more of a worn look as well as uh, a little bit more colourful lighting like they came in a put uh, installed some new lighting rigs with uh, you know, some- some a little bit of more colour gels than the first time, but basically it’s all- it’s all uh, mainly the same model. Swerse- There’s been a little bit of enhancement of uh, c- certain parts that you can see like the uh, the part that just went up there. It’s- it’s a little bit more detailed now because it spends a little bit more time on screen, so Dave kind of uh, enhanced it a little bit. You know, it’s funny I- I sort of had mixed feelings about uh, new versions of uh, of an animation that we’ve done before but just with new music. Uh, the purist in me feels a little bit like it’s cheating or something, you know, every single animation has to have completely brand new instruments designed from the ground up uh, all new music, all new.. Everything, and uh, some people have pointed out that that’s not necessarily the case, and as a matter of fact, people appreciate seeing something that’s familiar and that they enjoyed the first time, and- and getting to see wither re-perform or see it from a new angle and um, so maybe that’s true an- and that’s actually one of uh, numerous questions I have. I’d love to hear from people. What’s your opinion on how much should be completely new and how much should be j- obviously it takes a lot more time to make things that are brand new, and it’s a lot more fun as well, uh, but it takes longer, it’s more expensive, and uh, people like seeing stuff they’ve seen before, so I’d love to get your opinion on that as well as the bonus material. How important is that to our audience out there? [Pipe Dream 2 fades away]
Fiber Bundles
[Fiber Bundles begins right as Wayne begins to talk]
Speaking of bonus material um, this piece has some of my favourite bonus material on it if you go to uh, from the index menu to go- go to the submenu for fiber bundles you’ll find uh, four different what we call mixes. It’s both a music mix as well as video mix or a video blend, where uh, we’ve isolated certain instrument groups and you hear only those instruments and yous- mainly see only those instruments. A little bit of the rest of the environment you can see uh, a very faded out just, just- just to sort of give you the orientation, or the context um, it’s one single camera throughout the whole thing. Centered front on uh, looking- looking directly at this whole environment here, and uh, it isolates the different uh, parts of the music and the different instruments, and I enjoy just watching it by itself, you know, I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m unique in that, but I- I actually enjoy sometimes watching the bonus material where it’s very uh, sort of striped down and- and pure and you’re looking at just one instrument. I enjoy that as much or more than the animations themselves sometimes, but then again I don’t know- I don’t know how much people even watch the bonus material, we don’t hear as much feedback nearly about the bonus material as much as the main animations, and uh, I’d love to hear people’s feedback as far as, you know, how important is the bonus material to you? And wha- what are the ones that you enjoy the most. I know set construction seems to be uh, pretty popular, especially with kids, and uh, a couple of the uh, of the pieces on this uh, DVD have set construction shorts. I guess that uh, Pictures, and uh, heavy light uh, have some, uh, set construction behind the scenes stuff, but we actually uh, didn’t do set construction for every single piece this time as we did with Animusic 1. Instead we decided to have different bonus material for different um, of the animations, so uh, for example, the first on uh, Starship, we have, it’s a- it’s a three camera uh, multiple angle um, bonus material so you actually go through the whole animation and you can switch using you angle button between three different cameras. One focuses on the bass guy, one focuses on the uh, uhh- the red guy and the third one focuses on uh, the percussion. And actually nobody- nobody’s really sure that that’s a guy. Some people refer to the red Guy in Starship as “she” uh, and maybe it is. I- I’m not even entirely sure. But anyway, the bonus material. There’s all kinds of different stuff uh, for different pieces, so make sure you- you go to the index menu and you go down a level and- and see what all is there. Um, we- we spend a bunch of time doing it uh, maybe too much time, but anyway, uh, maybe we spend too much time on this whole thing and I- I do apologize for how long this has taken. I know a lot of people have been waiting and asking uh, “When is it going to be ready?” and it uh, took a lot longer than, than we uh, originally had planned for numerous reasons uh, one of which is um, the fact that at a certain point we decided to do both fullscreen and widescreen versions of e- of, of all the animations. Originally we had planned on doing only widescreen and we began uh, all the animations with just the widescreen version, but when you playback widescreen material, especially field rendered as ours is, on a regular, standard-def four by three aspect ratio uh, TV and- and your DVD player is letterboxing it so you get the black at the top and the bottom, it actually doesn’t give as pure a picture. Slightly fuzzy, slightly blurred, Uh, not as focused looking as uh, if you uh, play back a fullscreen version, so eeee- we decided. We thought about this for quite a while, and we said “You know, let’s go ahead and make a fullscreen and a widescreen version.” The cameras are slightly different. We’re going to optimize uhh, the camera views for each format uh- on a shot by shot basis, and we re-rendered everything uh, in both formats. We realized that’s a little unusual, and not the most efficient way to produce something, but hopefully it, in the end, it gave the- the best results. This is probably my favourite animation uh, on animusic 2. At least uhh, one of a couple. Both visually and musically. Uhh, I think Dave did a great job on the model. It’s very organic and alien looking and yet still friendly and happy, and uh, true confessions time: I’ve- I’ve played all three Ratchet and Clank video games uh, more than anyone probably should, and I love the music in those games and it’s probably had a little bit of influence over this piece. [Fiber Bundles fades away]
Gyro Drums
[Gyro Drums begins]
Gyro Grums. This was. I would say, the biggest troublemaker for us in this whole project um, and there’s always one animation that uh, it just seems to uh, be a little bit more challenging and present uh- a few more technical problems, and uh, this was the one for Animusic 2, and one of the things for me was how many different drums and percussion instruments there were and keeping track of them all. I actually had to spread them across uh, 2 different midi keyboards because there were- there were so many of them and then I could never remember which drum was where on which key and what was the midi number and which channel it was routed to and which instrument object on the screen corresponded to which sound and it was like the game of Concentration. I can’t ever remember what card is where and here’s a drum version of the game of Concentration. Extremely frustrating. I ended up writing a bunch of software that would help me uh, to- to keep track of things uh, better and to uh, make much more clear what corresponds between the uh, you know, basically which drum goes where. Uh, plus the fact that I love writing software so any excuse I have to write more software uh, I found one here and I had a good time. Eh- this started out, as many things do, sort of with more simple initial vision and it, and it grew much in the same way that this uh, this contraption in here is growing over time with more and more components being added it. That’s sort of how it went with the, with the animation. We- we started with uh- uh, a more simple kind of vision and then we kind of kept adding to it, so we could add this on and then we could have more of this and then this could attach here, and it just kept growing and growing uh, kinda like it does her not uh- e- in exactly the same order, but it ultimately got- got a little out of hand, but it was a lot of fun to see it come together. Well I have someone special with me here uh during the director’s commentary uh, it’s my son, Andrew, who is nine. He’s nine right now, at least when we’re recording it uh, if you’re watching this year’s from now he’ll be older, but anyway, I wanted him to say hi! [Andrew Speaks] Hi.
[Wayne Speaks] And uh, do you want to tell us anything about how uh, this, this animation? [Andrew Speaks] Well this part is really colourful and it- I think it took Dad a very long time to make it, and this is my favourite animation because right now it’s going to the electric drum part. [The electric drum part begins]
[Wayne Speaks] Oh is this- this is your favourite part here, is it?
[Andrew Speaks] Yeah.
[Wayne Speaks] Now what do you like about this part? [Andrew Speaks] I, uh, I just like the electric drums, the sound they make and all.
[Wayne Speaks] Well thanks for your comments, Andrew. Uh, speaking of the electric drums, um, in the surround sound soundtrack on this DVD uh, I panned them in a very extreme way. They sort of bounce all over the room which is kind of fun. Uh, in general though, I’ve kept the surround sound mix a little bit more tame. It’s actually an interesting challenge to uh, to figure out the instrument placement in- in the 5.1 mix ‘cuz on one hand you got these visual queues right in front of you of the actual position visually, but if you constrain yourself to mixing according to those positions everything would come out essentially the center speaker and maybe a little left and right, but if you do too much of an extreme surround mix it’s almost disorienting and conflicting with what you see on the screen.
[Gyro drums ends]
Heavy Light
[Heavy Light begins]
Well here we are in Heavy Light. Uh, the last piece in the DVD. And uh, this is one of my favourites. Usually if I’m watching this one I think it’s my favourite and then if I uh, if I look at uh, Fiber Bundles I think that one’s my favourite. Whichever of those two I happen to be watching. I think personally I tend to um, gravitate towards the electronic sounds uh, light based animation uh, not that I don’t dislike in any way the acoustic stuff or physically based- things like Pipe Dream is a lot of fun. Uh, I just think- ya know, sort of m- my taste a little bit, but it- it’s interesting it seems that there are sort of two very broad uh- categories uh, uh, of our audience as far as their preference and this one fits one of those two things. There’s the people, the younger crowd, for example: Andrew, uh, really likes things that have lots of lights, and uh, electronic stuff, you know, robots and lasers and stuff like that, and then there’s uh- sort of the other group of people that really prefers more of the uh, acoustic instruments or at least things that are more physically based. They bounce around like uh, under the influence of gravity or whatever, and uh, so, uh, we actually really enjoy doing both, and hope to continue doing both uh, although it’s certainly been discussed that we may sort of fork at some point into maybe doing a couple of different lines of DVDs. One being a little bit more of the electronic uh, modern uh, you know, techno music. More rock, more uh, you know, lasers and robots and stuff like that, and have a different line that’s uh- perhaps more acoustic, more physically based uh, maybe more uh, some more classical stuff, and uh, of course it can split to uh- an- an arbitrary number of different categories like that, but for now I think we- we uh, we enjoy the sort of eclectic, you know, sort of collection of all kinds of different things all mixed in there together. There’s uh, there’s something there for everyone I guess or uh, since I’m kind of a bit of a pessimist I like to say there’s- there’s something there for everything to dislike, but uh, hopefully there’s something there for everyone to like too. Anyway, this uh, this animation is- is kinda cool in that this is the one that we actually has four different people involved in. The background was again done by uh, by Eric Chauvin uh, which is- which is beautiful. I just love uh, the mood that it creates and how it blends in uh, w- wit- wi- with the models, and uh, the modeling was a shared effort uh, you know, Dave did, as always, the sort of intricate details of- of all the um, the instrument components and all that stuff, but the outer structure uh, was modeled by Steve Deffeyes uh, which came out gorgeous, I think, and um, ye- uh- and Steve’s specialty in this project is in- in- involved in three different animations was sort of the more symmetrical uh, stuff and- and uh, see if you can guess which other animation he did the background modeling for. If you think back on the different ones uh, which is the one that is very- also very symmetrical, very organized, uh sort of I think suits his personality to some extent. Steve is someone who I have known for uh, over 20 years. Uh, he actually was a friend of mine uh, back in highschool days, so it was really cool to be able to uh, collaborate with him on this project too. Um, so we had, you know, Dave and I, as well as Steve and Eric, and also um, early on in this project we were working uh, a little bit with Knee Okan who is a fantastic artist I uh, I love her work and I just uh, just called her up one day and said “Hey! You know do uh, do you wanna work on an- Animusic 2 at all?” and she thought that was really cool and we did some sort of initial brainstorming stuff and- and she did some- some consulting and advising and- and whatever. Uh- and- and that was really cool uh, you can see some of her concept art for a couple of our animations in the slideshows in the bonus material. Another plug for the bonus material lest you forgotten it’s there. Just a little paranoid that nobody ever looks at it. Maybe if we just not put it there. I wonder if anyone would know. Um, let me tell you a little bit uh, about Animusic as a company. I mean we’re- we’re a e- it’s funny because there’s sort of uh, a couple of misconceptions out there. One is the sort of the myth that Animusic is Wayne Lytle, and uh, you know, something that I do in my spare time on the weekends on a laptop, and it’s really easy and quick and uh, I do it- I do it for fun in my spare time, and then there’s the sort of the other extreme uhh, where- w- we- we’re in this uh, big, big office building with multiple floors and different departments. There’s the shipping department and accounting and uh, IT and everything, and it’s uh, definitely neither of those two extremes. Uh, it’s actually the core production team is Dave and I, and uh, or uh, absolutely full time and then some as far as, you know, working on this stuff. Uh- We don’t have day jobs. This is our day job, and uh, thanks to you and the people who have bought this uh, this- this is something we can do full time and dedicate all of our brains to. Um, I cannot express enough how much we appreciate that because there’s nothing uh, at least speaking for me, there’s nothing I’d rather do than make these things, so uh, we really appreciate everybody who’s bought our stuff and all the great feedback we’ve been getting. Uh, please continue to send us feedback we- we all look at it, it’s distributed around to the- to the whole production team and a number of other people, and uh, we’d love to hear from you and so uh, please continue giving us your feedback. We really appreciate the uh, the encouragement that we’ve gotten from everybody over the years, and uh, thanks again very much! Wayne Lytle signing off. Enjoy. [Heavy Light’s last gong plays and the credits fade in as the song fades out.]