I cast and animated 10 minutes of a 50-minute sci-fi musical brickfilm called Space Opera. What I came to realize was that I was starting college and at the rate I was going, it would take me 4 or 5 years to finish the film even if I focused solely on it. Also some of my cast members were flakey and only had recorded part of their roles, and I was having trouble getting them to finish.

Later, I tried to start a collaborative brickfilm web series, "Horses that Talk," with a team of several animators. Keshen and 0ldscratch recorded voices for it. The animators kept putting off starting animation and eventually I realized it was never going to happen, I had probably chosen a team that (like myself) was too inexperienced to pull something like this off.

ONE LAST TIME, I started making a sequel to Crown of Syracuse, about Archimedes' war weapons. Keshen and Fancypants recorded voices for it. It was while I was in college, and I ran out of time to finish it.

I felt pretty badly about wasting peoples' time with these projects. At some point I realized that it was just unrealistic to try to make time to finish them because they all proved more complicated to pull off than I had planned, by a wide margin. Instead, I'm focusing on not starting any new projects that I can't finish, and finishing all my projects that I've currently got in the pipeline before I start something new.

Pre-2013, I cancelled just about every major project I started. I can be a bit hyperactive, and find it difficult to focus on any one project for long, so my Agents series never came to pass, nor did the Caden Hawke adventures, an alt-u BIONICLE series, and a ton of other stuff. Luckily for the latter the only voices I'd collected in were from some close friends, who were really understanding when I told them I couldn't finish the project, but I myself always found it tough to let go of something, even if I wasn't particularly enjoying making it. The truth was, most of the stuff of mine that exists from around that era is stuff I didn't spend ages planning out; I just got on and filmed it. I enjoyed writing and animating, but didn't have the patience to do a whole script, which is hindsight was pretty pathetic of me. Hence something like Space Ninjas, which was a twenty-three page script, never came to be. That one I am particularly sad about letting go. I even had two Batman brickfilms over the years (continuations of Batman Forever, please don't hate me) where I'd managed to shoot about ten to twenty minutes of minutes a piece, but I cancelled those too.

Since getting back into brickfilming, around the beginning of my second year of sixth form, I was still doing short stuff but managed to keep myself interested (I guess I had slowly become a more patient person, maybe that's just a part of growing up), and slowly starting building up the scale of the projects I was working on. Making Ozymandias, a project for sixth form that I had to finish and had to be 3 to 5 minutes, really helped with that. Now that i'm working on this shared Marvel brick-verse it's easier to find the motivation to finish something that's 8 minutes long. I'm able to bounce my ideas around with people, and we show each other footage and scripts and it's like a mini-community in itself now, but the motivational part is that it feels like they're counting on me to finish, in a way. I don't feel pressured to finish, just encouraged, and I think that in itself makes me less likely to cancel. Of coruse, that only relates to my Marvel work.

I do still cancel projects today, just for different reasons. A lot of stuff is lost in the ether: I normally script a brickfilm, collect the voices in waaaay early, and then eventually get to animating it. I have a short called The Genie where I've got both of the voices for that (thank you Pritchard), and then a series of four Middle-earth parodies called Istari Adventures where I have 70% of the lines in (thank you Jay Silver). I don't want to cancel a lot of these as I'm still interested in doing them, but sometimes it's best to know when to put a project aside for a while until the mood hits you again.

But then it's also good to be able to know when you've rushed into something too big, or a script doesn't work, or even just that you don't want to work on something anymore; most people brickfilm as a hobby, and if you're putting in the effort but getting no enjoyment from at all then maybe it's best to reconsider the project.

So in answer to your original question (sorry for the wall of text, I hoped it's been helpful) yes, I've cancelled projects, and there's nothing wrong with doing so as long as you've thought it through and are doing it for the right reasons. The right reasons can be as simple as "I'm not feeling this anymore", but don't cancel it in the heat of the moment and regret it later.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

Yep, this requires a list.

• A dynamic duo. I had cast Funmi, and some notable others. Cancelled upon realizing that it was unoriginal.

• A feature-length miniseries, based upon Michael Grant's Gone series. Cancelled due to the fact that I had actually never intended for it to be an adaptation of the series, since I had never heard of it. Some actually thought I was stealing the idea.

• A 30-minute long epic "Dane Cook Gets" adventure comedy. Cancelled upon realizing that I should just leave the Dane Cook stuff to the pros (i.e. KG and Buxton).

• An entry into the Kitchen Sink contest held on BiM a few years back. It was about a kid that defeats an underground organization of sorts. Cancelled upon realizing that I wasn't really up to doing something that ambitious.

• A political satire about the 2012 re-election of Barack Obama, mostly inspired by some LEGO Spongebob video I watched when I was little, that featured Obama. Cancelled when my dad told me I shouldn't be mean to political figures, or something, I don't even remember his legit reasoning.

• A stop-motion trailer adaptation of Zach Synder's Sucker Punch. Cancelled because I forget why.

• Another stop-motion trailer adaptation of 2012. Cancelled because Roland Emmerich is an idiot.

• Yet another trailer for Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2. Cancelled because my stupid ten-year-old self thought that this kid did it better than me. Boy, I liked the weirdest movies back then...

• Some LEGO Ed, Edd, n Eddy thing that I barely remember any details of. Cancelled because I was nine--this was before I started brickfilming--and I thought it would be too ambitious.

• A sequel to "Not Welcome", a now-deleted brickfilm from 2011 about a home invasion that goes horribly wrong. Cancelled because I deleted the original.

• A sequel to "Tintin's Christmas", entitled "Tintin's Thanksgiving". Cancelled because I didn't have enough grey bricks for a set, or something.

• A THAC 12 entry about how Santa Claus and a giant turkey dude duke it out because they take over each other's holidays. Then Baby New Year comes in during a post-credits scene and things get out of hand from there. Cancelled because I had just gotten my wisdom teeth extracted that weekend, and I was still recovering, and in too much pain to film anything, even though I already had a script written. So, I just ate Jell-O and played Minecraft for the rest of the day.

I don't feel like this next one deserves a bullet. It's kind of something unrelated, since I still kind of want to return to the concept.

Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. For BRAWL 2013, I had made what unexpectedly became a cult brickfilm of epic proportions, featuring my prepubescent, terrible singing voice. Because, you take Concert Choir in Junior High once, and you automatically assume you're hot stuff. Well, this one was going to be my entry into BRAWL 2014, and even though I had a great script going, I was barebones for a set--my brother had moved all the LEGO in the house to his room to build his own custom LEGO playground. No baseplates for me, except a few small roof pieces from a dilapidated LEGO Star Wars set that he had purchased years ago and never played with. At that point, I was learning more and more about the concept of "sequel syndrome", and didn't want to turn my one gem into something overly silly and contrived. I wasn't feeling the idea of a LEGO musical anymore, and the original was so great, because it really represented the idea of a "surprise success" being created in one day. The whole idea of an original and humorous concept being repeated for a cheap laugh or two--well, I didn't want that for my brickfilms. I'm not Adam Sandler!

Maybe one day, I'll post some unreleased footage or something, but the Dell Vostro 1000 laptop I used to make all my brickilms post-2012 to the present-day is slow and used-up, and I really don't feel like using it anymore. I honestly feel like I'm much more interested in live-action, seeing as I'll be taking some Editing classes in my upcoming last three high school years. I'll be graduating from my Freshmen year in exactly one month, and I honestly think that I'm destined for greater things. I'm not feeling brickfilms anymore, but I do think that it will make an interesting adult hobby, when I have more money and more resources. And maybe, during the summer, I'll make some sort of grand finale, or something. Maybe, I'll dig up an old failed project that is referenced in the aforementioned list, and give it some new light.

Because that's the thing. No brickfilm is ever really cancelled. It's just up in the air, for possible rebirth at a future date. There's always a second chance for everything. It's just your decision.

Last edited by Mickey (May 6, 2015 (07:32am))

It's so nice to see that Johnny Thunder's had such an impact on so many brickfilmers. This isn't news to me, but it's always nice when you have that moment where you suddenly recognise that someone (or more than one person) has a strong connection to the same thing.

I had a Johnny Thunder adventure in the works at one stage. Weirdly it was before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out, but was also the story of Johnny coming out of retirement to help a new generation of adventurers. I seem to remember that they were searching for the lost realm of Lemuria, though I would need to check my old box of paper scripts (before I started typing everything, wow those were the days) which is a good six hour drive away

There was a Jing Lee short I scripted last year. I wouldn't call it cancelled, just on hold. I agree with Mickey's sentiment of no brickfilm ever being truly cancelled - you can always resurrect an idea in some way.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

I have an "Abandoned Projects" folder that contains 28 projects in various stages of incompletion. Most of these were very rough ideas that didn't go past the "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" stage.

However, here is one that stands out:

Alex and Derrick Behind Bars
Set after Spoilerz!, this multi-part series was going to follow the fallout of Derrick blasting away the apartment ceiling with a giant gun in Material Possessions. A neighbor of theirs dies and Alex and Derrick are held responsible. The crime scene team from Beast were also going to star, and ultimately Alex and Derrick would be broken out of jail by Alice. The series would have continued my parodying of cop shows like CSI, Law and Order, 24, Judge Judy and Cops. Highlights included timely references to "Head-On - apply directly to forehead!" and Team America: World Police.

In the climax, everyone escapes in an elaborate car chase through a junkyard, which I would ultimately repurpose for Driven.  The final script was 19 pages long. Very quickly I realized I was way over my head, and it didn't progress beyond a script. Reading back over the script now, I'm absolutely glad I didn't continue. Even if it hadn't ended in failure, it would have put Alex and Derrick on a different, more fantastical and slapstick path, instead of the generally realistic slice-of-live series they have become now.

And of course, there's always Dear Cousin... which is totally not dead <_<

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This is a nice idea for a thread. It's quite interesting to read about other people's cancelled projects. I'll try to recall mine, keeping it to ones that got past the idea stage:

Benny n' Lee: The Obligatory Christmas Special (2007)
This was entirely different to the Benny n' Lee Christmas Special released in 2008. I really should have brought back that title as it's pretty funny. I don't remember much of the plot (if there was one - not likely), but I got the beginnings of two scenes shot. In the first one, Lee goes to the computer to order Christmas presents but keeps ending up on dodgy sites, and in the second, Benny is drinking in a pub, and the barman was going to call Lee to have him bring Benny home. These scenes featured liberal use of Trans-Siberian Orchestra music, heavily inspired by the Alex and Derrick Christmas film.

World Destruction (2008)
This was a planned co-production between me and some brickfilmers who would be known as Ogel Productions and Brain Wave on BiM, and we were later joined by Filip. There was absolutely no planning behind it as we just wanted to make a co-production for the sake of it, so all that was made was one or two random clips of destruction (not including much destruction). I did however make and upload a stand-alone trailer for this film, which was seen by Filip and he asked if he could join the project. This was the first contact I had with Filip.

Filip and Seán Do Stuff (Working Title) (2008)
Another co-production for the sake of it! This one actually had some semblance of plot, and I still have an unfinished script. It was a shameless rip-off of Da Europeans, but I guess it was also kind of self-aware. The plot would be that Filip would be on the run from BertL after making a rip-off of Onorno, and I would have to help him. The intentionally bad Onorno rip-off was actually uploaded to YouTube so it could be screen-capped and used in the film. If I remember correctly, Filip showed it to BertL, who apparently declared it better than the original (he's wrong). I think Bert had agreed to voice act in this strange project and I actually had built a recreation of his house as seen in Da Europeans. Filip and I would collaborate on Filip's THAC Idea series, and the house in that was basically a clone of Rolz's house from Da Europeans.

Untitled THAC 5A Film (2008)
This attempted entry to THAC 5A had dreadful animation, and the joke was bad, too. Voice acting was provided by Filip and VN. It was not finished because during the filming, my computer completely died. I had to access the internet on a PS3 for a while afterwards. I reused the set (which was mostly copied from a set in one of Filip's films) in a film called The Insane Alleyway (which also isn't good).

Live For a Death (2008)
An intended reboot of a film I made in 2007 with the same name. It was a spy film and was meant to be the first part of a series. I filmed some intro shots of the spy infiltrating a building, and one of these can be seen on the TV towards the end of the Benny n' Lee film, Satellite TV.

Untitled Batman film (2008-2009)
After getting a bunch of Batman LEGO at Christmas, I began making a Batman film (booo). This was one of the very few films that I actually wrote a script for. I wanted to do something different to the other Batman films at the time, and it was also going to poke fun at ForrestFire (this was when his films were pretty poor). This never got made because IP films are boring. The house Batman and Robin were going to live in was reused as the house of the guy with no arms in Benny's Jobs, and a custom Batmobile was used in the last shot of Benny's Car.

Benny n' Lee in: Benny Dies (2010)
A Benny n' Lee planned for April Fool's Day, so Benny wasn't actually going to die. The first scene was finished and uploaded, and it has some gags that I still really like. The fake cheese shortage would have been revealed as an April Fool's joke by the news man. At the costume contest, Lee was going to be dressed as Professor Monkey-For-a-Head from Earthworm Jim and Benny would have a terrible Spongebob costume. As far as I remember, Benny was going to inexplicably win the costume contest and the Skelly would steal Benny's cheque to go buy fake cheese. Outside, he would pass out from lack of fake cheese in his system and would be found with Benny's name on the cheque, leading people to think that Benny had died. Some other scenes weren't turning out well and we didn't know what should happen in the costume party and after the Skelly is found. With the April 1st deadline fast approaching, this film was given up on.

Well, that turned into a wall. Hopefully somebody finds some of it interesting.

Pebble (2005) YouTube Link
This was going to be a spoof short film of "Kung Fu" the the tv series. The Student, starting from a very young age, tries to snatch the pebble from the Teacher's hand. But each time, the Teacher has some sort of lame/humorous excuse as to why the Student failed. This would have been the first time that I was going to use 'special effects' in a film. In photoshop, I digitally created candle flames for each frame of the film. ("Pebble" was about 2 to 3 minutes long.)
Why didn't this film get made? So, in late 2004/early 2005, my old PC crashed. I lost everything. At the time, it would have cost over $1,000 to take it to a shop, recover all of the data from the computer and fix it. I could not justify the cost of doing this vs. taking the money and putting it toward a new computer. This clip is all that is left. The only reason why this lone clip survived is because it was on my bf.com website/host account as a 'sneak preview.'

Origin of the Artichoke (2004?/2005?)
One of several cancelled film projects during this time period.
It was supposed to be a very loose history about two Italian guys named Mario and Artie who go looking in a field for a new topping for their pizzas. (Both of them had really terrible Italian accents.) They go looking for a new topping to discover, then Mario finds this 'plant thing.' Artie tries to taste it....chokes on it. Artie dies at the end of the film by choking.
Mario then names the plant "The Artichoke" in memory of his friend Artie.
Script was written, set was built, etc. But while living in Italy at the time of creation, I discovered through local culture that Italians dislike how they are portrayed in typical fashion in various films & television. I had a sinking feeling that this film would not go over very well and might not be perceived as humorous. So I scrapped the film.

Untitled THAC Film (2006?/2007?)
Dunno which THAC it was, but I had a rough script written and a partial set built.
Then my better half had a work-related emergency, so I had to drop everything.
If I find the script to this, I'll share it here.

Project Heart/Listen to Your Heart (????) (working title)
This was going to be a 30 minute to an hour long brickfilm that I've been working on off an on for several years.
It was going to be a romantic feature length brickfilm about how the captain of the football team risks everything for the girl of his dreams that happens to be the biggest nerd/geek.
I had to totally scrap this film due to the fact that there are too many similarities between my script and this film.
*sigh* Sometimes I think that Hollywood has my house bugged.

Only every single one of my projects...

I wrote and started filming a Blacktron story somewhere around 2005. Got most of the way through it but wasn't happy with the ending. Five years later, I came back to it. Wrote a new wraparound bit to make the ending better. Got Keshen and a couple other people to do some new voices. The original footage was all shot on an old SD webcam so I reshot it all in HD, this time using blank heads so I could do digital faces. Got most of the way through and gave up again. I'm probably due to have another crack at it this year. Maybe I should reshoot it in CG and give up when it's 90% rendered.

I also spent three weeks making a music video for another Fight Like Apes track (with the band's blessing this time) but couldn't get the story to work and canned it.

There's also the matter of the scripts for parts 2 and 3 of Out of Time and the five Doctor Who scripts I've been sitting on for over ten years.