So I got back from Balkan camp last night. It was a crazy insane week that had almost nothing to do with animation, so I’m not going to talk about it much here.There were a few relevant moments, though….
I brought a bunch of copies of my best-of DVD to camp with me and gave them out to people who were significant positive influences on my camp experience. That is, I gave them to my friends (both old and new). Everyone was really excited to see my animation, and that felt really good. It’s great to see people be genuinely excited about stuff that I created.
The other relevant event is that every year at camp there’s an auction that benefits the organization that produces the camp. This year I donated one of my DVDs after one of my friends (who also happens to be the camp’s site coordinator) suggested it. The auction usually doesn’t interest me much because everything goes for way more than it’s worth, so I’m never interested enough to buy anything. This year, though, I went in order to see how my DVD did. When it went on the block I must have been talking to the guy sitting next to me because I didn’t notice the bids at first. When I realized what was happening it was already up to $30. That was pretty cool — I would have been happy enough with that price, but then it kept going up. It eventually sold for $50 to a couple I don’t even know (though one of them told me later that they met me last year or something like that). Anyway, that’s another little taste of yummy affirmation for my 2006 camp experience….