Double Rainboom Taken Down

[Motion Spark 7,807]

Let me be more clear... I didn't like Double Rainboom.  I've watched it once, and thought it was a shoddy parody of the show and went in a horrible direction.  I think that it was idiotic for him to advertise it as a fanmade episode, because it wasn't that at all.

 

My feelings about the episode aside, this has nothing to do with that.  This isn't about whether I will watch it again or whether anybody will.  It's about the fact that it was a huge testament to what this fandom can accomplish and how dedicated this fandom is to producing quality fan-content.

 

There were tons of mistakes in this and areas to improve, but even so everybody making this had something to be proud of because whether or not it felt like the show, it took a massive amount of effort to physically make this.  It was something that those hundred or so volunteers could take and use for future jobs, and now they had that ripped away because a single person wanted to remove it.

 

Keep in mind that Zach liked this enough to put out there for the community and tie up people's lives for a year to make.  A director doesn't get to just jump ship on his staff and stab them in the back because of bad reviews.

 

I think that as the director and person responsible to all the volunteers time that was wasted for a production that was removed after less than a year, Zach should be ashamed of himself.  He should never be allowed to lead a project again in his life because he's proven that he has no dedication to his own art or the artistic work of others, he simply wants to worry about his own self image and is willing to dump thousands of hours of a community's time down the toilet to give a slight makeup job to his resume.

there's is really no point in continuing this, you went way too far and you are now talking about this guy director skills which is really not the point of this discussion.

We are never going to agree, but I would gladly give the reason if there was more than a very subtle note left by him, but there are no evidence about this whole situation. 

I hate to point at someone with the finger when I don't feel sure of what I'm doing, and this is the case. When someone of his staff publicly reacts about his desision of taking it down, then I'll acknowledge that he is a legit dick, but not before. I hope that you can understand me.

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

 

there's is really no point in continuing this, you went way too far and you are now talking about this guy director skills which is really not the point of this discussion.

Huh??????? 

 

How is saying it's irresponsible for a director to take down a video people worked on NOT relevant to a discussion about whether or not the director should have taken down the video.  What's irrelevant is arguing over whether or not we liked the video....

[Motion Spark 7,807]

 

 

 

 

Huh??????? 

 

How is saying it's irresponsible for a director to take down a video people worked on NOT relevant to a discussion about whether or not the director should have taken down the video.  What's irrelevant is arguing over whether or not we liked the video....

 

you went borderline when you said that he shouldn't be allowed to run a project again in his life, and I honetly started to feel unconfortable. And I said that the video was horrible in my very first post, before you started quoting me.

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

you went borderline when you said that he shouldn't be allowed to run a project again in his life, and I honetly started to feel unconfortable. And I said that the video was horrible in my very first post, before you started quoting me.

Why would anybody entrust a project to a person who has now demonstrated that they are fully willing to jump ship and stab the rest of their staff in the back like this?

I'm not saying that he's a horrible person, but I'm saying that he's demonstrated that at this point in his life, he doesn't have what it takes to lead a project like this.  Anybody who is willing to take down thousands of hours of a community's work for a completely selfish purpose isn't fit for that big of a leadership role.

He might mature more about his work and realize that there will be projects that he isn't proud of after a year, but what's going to happen when he gets hired for a movie and it gets a bunch of negative criticism mid-production?  Is he going to jump ship and leave a production company without a director to keep his resume spotless?

My point is that jumping ship like he did is going to do nothing but demonstrate to employers that he's not ready to enter the big leagues.

[Motion Spark 7,807]

Why would anybody entrust a project to a person who has now demonstrated that they are fully willing to jump ship and stab the rest of their staff in the back like this?

I'm not saying that he's a horrible person, but I'm saying that he's demonstrated that at this point in his life, he doesn't have what it takes to lead a project like this.  Anybody who is willing to take down thousands of hours of a community's work for a completely selfish purpose isn't fit for that big of a leadership role.

He might mature more about his work and realize that there will be projects that he isn't proud of after a year, but what's going to happen when he gets hired for a movie and it gets a bunch of negative criticism mid-production?  Is he going to jump ship and leave a production company without a director to keep his resume spotless?

My point is that jumping ship like he did is going to do nothing but demonstrate to employers that he's not ready to enter the big leagues.

your point? I'm not changing my mind, however @@Carbon Maestro, said something interesting about him, a personal approach that he had with him and now, I'm having a bad impression of him.

Thing is, that you don't know him or talked to him, so everything that you said it's very.... ummm lets say, quick and progressive, he may backstabbed his staff...but he may be not.

And really I don't want to continue this because I lost interest already so I leave it as it is, till we got news about this.

[Thrashy 2,800]

I can somewhat understand his reasoning behind this. Using myself as an (admittedly rather poor) example, my dA account is full of things that I've spent hours, days, even weeks working on, and yet it is a single stamp - which took me a max of 10 minutes to make - that is by far the most popular piece in my gallery. I sometimes wish I could just delete that stamp from my history so that my other work gets at least a fraction of the notice that stamp did. That being the case, I can kind of understand where he's coming from, not wanting to be associated with something he feels will detract from his future works.

 

However, completely removing the video was not the way to do it IMO. Regardless of whether the video was anything to write home about, it still stands as a testament to what the fan artists of our community can accomplish, and thus deserves to be seen. It'd be like if Ed Wood came back from the grave and destroyed all evidence of his work because he realized it was total crap. Would that be right? Hell, no. Whether or not his movies were total crap is of no issue - good or bad, his films had a huge impact on the filmmaking industry, and certainly deserve to exist and be viewed by the public to this very day. Can you imagine if musicians did that kind of thing? Took a look at the weakest songs on their albums, then refused to release them on any future remasters of those albums?

 

And then, there's what @Simon said; what about everyone else who worked on the video? This attempt to basically strike DR from the history books, as it were, is kind of a huge slap in the face to anyone who contributed to it, is it not? If he doesn't want to include it on his official work portfolio, that's one thing. But to try and retcon it like "What, that never happened!" seems a little childish to me. Not every piece an artist creates is going to be a hit - in fact, an artist is liable to produce quite a lot more misses in his/her career than hits. Trying to deny the existence of your flops isn't going to bolster your credibility as an artist. IMO, it's the artist who fully embrace both his/her failures and successes who knows what art is all about.

 

Just my two cents.

[Simon 4,557]

@, You really said everything I was feeling perfectly, so thank you.

 

As for knowing how the staff feels, I think this is a good indication of how much the staff supported the decision.  Silly Filly Studios has said before that the vast majority of their staff worked on Double Rainboom as well.  And they posted this on Tumblr just recently in response to being asked to not take down Snowdrop:

We’ve no plans or intentions ever to do so, even if we start producing only original content.

Even if an IP dispute were to come up, a worst case scenario would be we make a secondary channel and move all our videos to there. That may happen if our name becomes so iconic.

I have an archivist mentality. I don’t think any creative and artistic work should ever be outright removed or destroyed, no matter the claims or circumstances.

Granted, the person who wrote this might not have been one of the people working on both projects, but I think it's a strong indication that at least some of the staff, if not most of the staff, was not supportive of his decision.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Simon

[ShadowRose2k 271]

Well I found an upload with Subtitles so i'm downloading that now.  Incase that dissapears for some reason...  I didn't hate DRB, it had its flaws but was still fun for me to watch.   

[MayorMare 12]

I met Zach and some of his team in Gainesville last month at a showing of Double Rainboom.  He didn't come across at all like you are all describing him.  In fact I invited him and 5 others from the Double Rainboom team to come to the Grand Brony Gala and do a showing of Double Rainboom at the Gala. 

 

They were incredibly nice!  And I'm still hoping they will come and do that.

 

So... if you didn't get a chance to see Double Rainboom, you may have a chance to see it on a BIG SCREEN theatre style at The Grand Brony Gala in August.

[Simon 4,557]

@@MayorMare, Don't get me wrong... I don't know him personally and would hardly try to speak to whether or not he's a nice person.  But based on his actions, what I can say is that if I was running an animation studio, this would make me not hire him.  You don't direct a year long volunteer collaboration and take it down out of your own self-interest to bury it in your past.

 

And while I believe he may have fully had the intention of showing it at your convention, you might want to check with him to see if that's still the plan before you advertise it, because it really seems that he's for whatever reason had a sudden shift in opinion and wants to completely hide Double Rainboom in the past.

[LordDiscord 289]

Richie... why you do this to us?

 

YES I  MAD INDEED. Thanks for noticing. 

Edited February 3, 2014 by LordDiscord

[Megas 27,550]

Double Rainboom was a steaming pile of overhyped garbage that I won't miss one bit.

 

But I won't deny that a lot of people worked really hard on it as far as animation is concerned and to take it down like this without even crediting anyone else who help is really douchey and lowers my already low opinion of Rich

Edited February 3, 2014 by Megas75

[HappyGasProductions 19]

Double Rainboom was a steaming pile of overhyped garbage that I won't miss one bit.

 

But I won't deny that a lot of people worked really hard on it as far as animation is concerned and to take it down like this without even crediting anyone else who help is really douchey and lowers my already low opinion of Rich

Yeah, this isn't about Rich, ok people? Fuck that guy to Oblivion and back, I could really care less about him. The injustice here is that there were SO MANY people who devoted a lot of their lives to that animation, and it was not Rich's place to invalidate that effort. I'm glad to see someone else on this forum gets it.

[Castle Bleck 19,313]

Lame writing, excellent action.

 

Reminded me of the Star Wars Prequels.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Anti-Villain

[Orablanco Account 3,707]

Now on one hand, this sort of undercuts all the people who donated their time energy to the project and to the fans who would have held this up as an example of the fandom's creativity. On the other hand...

 

...wait, no, this sucks. Good luck on the new series, guy, but geez.

[Shift 4,272]

Did I just start a flame war thread?

 

...huh. That's one thing I can check off my 'Shift's Hit List'.

[Simon 4,557]

Did I just start a flame war thread?

 

...huh. That's one thing I can check off my 'Shift's Hit List'.

One thing I've learned from being a forum admin... it's never the threads you expect to be a flame war that'll be a flame war.

 

I've seen threads on a character's eye color end in swearing matches, and a forum full of people agree on a heated political issue.  Forums are unpredictible

[Mr. Changeling 132]

Professionally, I see where he is coming from, however as a brony, it feels like he is giving the community the bird. He could have handled it better, but this was a bit rude

[Sonicrules831 520]

Well when I first saw this I thought Hasbro took it down. I see where he's coming from but I don't really see why he would take down the episode. He could've kept it up there :/

[Carbon Maestro 1,003]

Professionally, I see where he is coming from, however as a brony, it feels like he is giving the community the bird. He could have handled it better, but this was a bit rude

 

Then again, there might be genuine reasons as to why he took down his greatest work IMO. Take these into account:

 

1. This film was purely a learning experience for the animators, as fame was never the goal. Remember that this is a college project for Zach. It's always good to make stuff that you like for fun, not a chore.

2. Most of the animators, musicians, and voice actors in DR are now working on True Tail. It's a win for these people who pretty much know each other already.

3. Most of the artists who worked on it posted personal contributions to DR on their respective channels, so they can still show it off. 

4. There will always be copies of it on the internet, so it's not like it's gone forever.

 

Is Zach a people person? I don't really think so from what I've personally dealt with. But he doesn't seem like the type who would keep bad works that are old. To be honest, I kind of do the same thing with my early music. However, after December 2012 and new music software, I never remove my stuff on Youtube. He and I do share a similar mentality and that we want to be great in some manner. But to take off your crowning and only achievement is a bit much.

 

Because I don't think he should be embarrassed by it. That's the vibe that I'm getting but that's his decision.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Carbon Maestro

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

It would've been nice for him to leave it up as a memory, for all the hard work the fans on his team did.

 

But, life does have to move on. I still have to agree that it was kind of a jerk move.  

[Radiance64 7,053]

That kinda sucks I guess, only saw it once myself.

Seems he's only doing this to raise awareness for his other project though, pretty sketchy if you ask me.

[IHazTommyWiseau 84]

Pretty stupid of him to do this. Makes me more thankful that I download a majority of the Youtube videos that I enjoy. 

 

BTW here is a new link for the video that didn't get taken down.

 

 

[Toon Richard 534]

*eye twitch*

....

.....

........

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!

Seriously?! WTF IS THIS?! This.. is just bunk!!

[Alpha-neos 46]

Double Rainboom is one of those videos I'd want to watch again some other day.

I thought it was interesting.

Though the thought of Rainbow dash doing two rainbooms and destroying a whole town.

Kinda scary.

But my inner boy very much likes that destruction though XD

Edited February 3, 2014 by Alpha-neos