Author, Todd Alan Robertson

The Hunter Hunter Back Story

Hunter Hunter began as an idea swimming around in my head that just kept nagging at me. I had read somewhere that when you get an idea for something, anything, you shouldn't wait until you have everything figured out because you never will, you just have to start and one thing will lead to the other, so I decided to sit down and just start writing. I had written poetry before but never a story, but I started writing, when I got stuck I would stop and leave it be, then I would think about it whenever I could until I came up with the next part. Before I knew it I had a couple chapters completed.

Then I suffered a badly broken ankle on a window cleaning job which was a difficult time, but I decided to take a positive attitude. It also occurred to me that now I had plenty of time to write and think! One thing truly did lead to another and I finished my story. After two surgeries and five months being out of work I was finally back on my feet as well.

I thought my story was pretty good, but of course I would, I wrote it! I decided to see what "professionals" might think about it, so I did an online search and found a major cinematic short story contest and entered it... I made the quarter finals and that was exciting, but that's as far as it went. I was a little discouraged but then I thought this is the first story I had ever done and I made the quarter finals, that's pretty good! So I decided to go further.

I found a freelancer website and ended up hiring two very talented screenwriters to adapt my story, one for a full length script and the other for a short script. I was very pleased with their work and I entered both screenplays in various contests and had some success but didn't win anything. At this point I was finished with this approach, too much time and money being spent waiting on other people and being at their mercy. I tried crowd funding but that failed miserably and a live action or even animated video were just way too cost prohibitive. I felt stuck at this point, I was a complete novice in this whole process and didn't know what to do next, but everyone has to start somewhere and this is how we learn, besides, I just felt like I wasn't finished yet, there had to be a way to bring my story to life, so I thought about it for a while. One day it occurred to me, how about a video with illustrations and music, based on my words and not an adaptation, which I could narrate (I have some experience with acting/voice acting). Now... that I could do, even on my limited means!

So, I went back to the site where I hired my screenwriters and was blessed to find Ryan Groskamp, who was with me from beginning to end on this project and went above and beyond, a true rising talent... Hunter Hunter, it's been a fun ride! Mission complete! Stay tuned...

Todd Alan Robertson, Author

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