History of Lucky — Part 6

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
—T.S. Elliot, The Hollow Men

On March 17, 2004 (St. Patrick's Day of course) Legacy unveiled the story reel of Lucky to the studio crew and supporters. A handful showed up and the screening was fairly well received, although not with the same enthusiasm as the initial pitch. Some people gave notes and we tossed around some ideas. I think I was too close to the project to say how it really went but I do remember telling Joe Sandstrom that it didn’t think it went well.

My notes on our benefactor aren’t very clear during the next few weeks. But in a nutshell it went like this; She liked it, she didn’t like it, she loved it, she wasn’t sure. Several of us met with her and offered to rework the idea or to present her with alternatives, but she couldn’t give us a decision on what she wanted to do.

Strangely enough I have an email from her days later.

Eddie,

In all of this I hope I am expressing how much I love the Lucky development up to this point. The story is super sweet and the character design is fabulous. I also am thrilled that you want to work with an original composer vs. a music library track.

Thank you so much for pouring your heart and soul into this endeavor. You are doing a great thing for the animation world.

You can imagine or confusion when our next communication with her indicated she was no longer interested in supporting the project or the studio. We had suspected for some time that she was interested in backing another start-up animation studio in town. So there we were, stuck with preproduction on a short and no clients and, at this point, no money.

On March 31, 2004, I sent this email to the Legacy crew:

Hi Everyone,

As most of you know, we met with our investor last week hoping to get the next installment for Lucky. Unfortunately, she has now decided that she is not behind this project. We offered to rework the idea or to present her with alternatives, but this too was not of interest. Until we find investors for the project, I'm afraid we will have to shelve it. Legacy will now focus on bringing in outside jobs to generate revenue for our group. We have a couple of leads that we will be pursuing and hopefully will know more in the next few weeks.

I had wanted to call each of you and tell you personally but I know the news will travel faster than I will be able to dial. Thank you to all who contributed to the project. I still believe in it and will do all that I can to get it up and running again.

For the next few months we tried to find work for people but we didn't have much luck (no pun intended). A couple of jobs had come in from Disney Publishing but only enough for one artist. Many of the group had gone for too long without drawing a regular paycheck and had to take what ever job they could find. While we still had the studio space I used the equipment we had purchased to make reels for a few of the artists but by the end of June we had to leave.

For myself it had been eight months of living off savings so I soon found myself in a theme park drawing caricature. My professional life had come full circle.

Stay tuned to see Lucky...