In many ways, Colin Levy has lived the dream of many Blender artists. He directed the Blender open movie, Sintel, right out of college. He then landed a job at Pixar and later quit the 9 to 5 to pursue his dream of writing and directing a television series, Skywatch, after his short film of the same title took off and attracted a lot of attention. In recent years though, the Skywatch project has stalled out, dropped by multiple studios, and Colin has been learning the hard way how difficult breaking into Hollywood as a writer and director can be.Kent sat down with Colin at BCON LA to talk about the current state of Skywatch and what Colin has learned about mental health after watching his decade long dream slowly die...for now. You can listen to the conversation below or wherever you find your podcasts, or read on for a short summary.One interesting connection that Kent and Colin share is that they both worked at a studio called Make Visual. Kent joined in 2010 shortly after Colin left and never met him there. But it was actually seeing all of his coworkers gathering around a laptop and cheering on their old buddy Colin while watching Sintel that initially sparked his interest in Blender as a production ready tool. The rest is history!Colin in the podcast room at BCON LA 2024After the success of the Blender short, Colin secured a position at Pixar as a layout artist. There he worked on Piper (my personal favorite short film), Finding Dory, the Good Dinosaur, Inside Out, Monsters University, and more. While he enjoyed working as a layout artist, his heart was always set on writing and directing. After a few years, he decided to strike out on his own.Colins first project using everything he had learned at Blender Studio and Pixar was the short film Skywatch, which took several years to create. It attracted a good amount of attention online after its release, thanks in part to Colins fame in the Blender universe and the fact that he managed to get a celebrity, Jude Law, to play one of the characters. Colin used the short film as a way to pitch a full series to Hollywood production companies, and the rights to the IP were eventually bought by Peacock as well as Fuzzy Door, Seth McFarlanes production company.At this point, the project had a pretty stacked deck and was looking promising. But a sudden one-two punch from COVID and the Hollywood writers' strikes knocked it out completely. Fuzzy Door dropped the project entirely. Another production company could pick it up at any time, but they would need to pay Fuzzy Door a fee plus the full cost of the work that had already gone into it. Convincing another studio to do that is possible, but not likely in the current climate. So, according to Colin, the current version of Skywatch that hes put over a decade of love and effort into is dead. One side effect of his long journey is that hes learned a lot of important lessons about mental health and personal growth over the last several years. And, luckily for us, hes very open about sharing them. When talking to Kent for this episode of the Denoise podcast, a big topic was perfectionism. On one hand it enabled him to become very good at writing, directing, and computer graphics at an early age and certainly helped him land a job at Pixar. On the other hand, being hyper critical of oneself makes it difficult to finish projects and be confident in the value of the work. Imposter syndrome is a very real thing. Interestingly, while Colin might feel those things personally, he clearly has no trouble stepping up and making big decisions for the sake of telling a good story. During the production of Sintel, Tons maxim for the short film was, No story, maximum impact. For a director like Colin, having little emphasis on the story makes it difficult to assess meaningful artistic choices about the world and characters in the film. He had to pushed back and ended up clashing with Ton several times over it. This collaboration (and tension) is what ultimately produced a short film lauded for its touching narrative and beloved by many; specifically for its story. At the beginning, though, it wasnt a certainty that the film would be a hit. When Colin arrived in Amsterdam to help Ton pitch the idea to the Dutch Film Fund to secure funding for the project, he froze up and could not answer their questions that Ton had specifically prepped him for ahead of time. Ton jumped in to save the day and they ended up getting the grant regardless. Colin thought for sure that he would be sent right back home for the mistake. Instead, Ton continued to believe in him throughout the project and, despite their creative differences, supported him 100%. What a compelling reminder to not give up on ourselves and to not give up on other people! Whats next for Colin? Thats still to be determined but, knowing him, we have no doubt it will be great!