— DAY 5 —

Chicago, Illinois

DAY 5, in which Little Buddy reaches the big city he's been following his compass for, only to discover it may not be for him.

TODAY WE crossed 5 states + one time zone.
(THE EXTRA HOUR WAS A WONDERFUL SURPRISE.)

We talked a lot during the long drive.

We talked about the project, which we thought was going pretty well, despite staying up until 4am yet again. We knew this wasn't a sustainable amount of sleep, and we felt it after this 9 hour drive. 

Mike worked on our postcard rewards, which we sent along the way to 36 backers. We quickly learned postcards take a very long time out of our precious time, especially as we wanted to do our best to write meaningful messages to everyone individually. Our backers became our motivation, everything else melted away. We were making this project for ourselves, with the support of strong group of 125 who were watching along, every single day.

We also talked about narrative, and started calling our character by the name we adopted for him: Little Buddy.

Little Buddy made it to the big city he was searching for, but what do we do with him now?

We rolled into Chicago tonight wanting some sort of urban location under a bridge if possible, and found a great spot near an area suggested by our friend, photographer, and backer, Ashton Ray Hansen.

It's called Park No. 556.

We pretty much immediately wanted to play with shadows.

We knew a dark spot in a bright city might be tough, but this spot offered consistent light cast from street lights in the area. 

This inspired Craig to play with shadow borders and force perspective of buildings from another world, while Mike animated Little Buddy as he follows his compass through the streets.

another 4am night, and we felt a sinking feeling as we realized we just backed ourselves into a narrative corner.

Little Buddy didn't really do anything. Now he's in a city, tomorrow we're headed to Omaha, Nebraska, after that we're out to the badlands. Full-on nature. We had to somehow wrap up his urban story and send him on his way.

This is something we'll beat ourselves up heavily during the long drive to Nebraska, but now it's time for a few hours of sleep.

Huge thanks to our close friend Justin Kuzma for filming some behind the scenes.
Also, thanks for staying out, and giving us a place to sleep. Justin's great.