In comparison to traditional brick-and-mortar studios, Geoff and Cynthia are convinced that, given the scope and the highly distributive nature of the Internet, one can get the same amount of work done, of equal or better quality, in less time and with better economics.

"Simply the logistics of moving people around and maintaining a facility incurs huge overhead costs," Geoff says. In a virtual studio setting, this same money can be invested directly in the artists and film. More attention and consideration can be given to the quality of the work being produced, and in providing the necessary technical training and equipment to ensure platform and software compatibility among team members.

"If there is a [facility] that you need to keep pouring costs into," Cynthia explains, "the pressure is on, out of necessity ... which drives you to constantly have to find projects, any old commercial work, just to keep the lights on. But that is a grind. You eat up a lot of time on projects on which you don't necessarily have creative say-so, in terms of time, budget or artistic direction... And then you look back, wondering, 'How many years have I been doing this?' Fussing over the look of a candy bar or some other commercial product... That's not really what I want to do with my life." She concludes, "Sure, do it for a while, make some money... But what have I really said, artistically?"

In establishing and running a well-oiled and efficient virtual production, it is a continual process of experiment and refinement. In finding the occasion to tell the stories that we would like to tell, as artists, we need to trust "beyond a shadow of a doubt" in our own ability, resourcefulness and imagination. For anything to be possible, we must first be able to imagine it.

Infrastructure

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Over the course of its two-year production, the short CGI animated film Major Damage passed through the volunteered time and hands of roughly 100 teammates from all over the world, from the United States, New Zealand, Brazil and points in between.

Producer Kellie-Bea Cooper says, "Our wrap party was remarkable for the fact that most of the crew had never met in person until the party!"

Inspired by the comic book artists of his youth -- such as Harvey Kurtzman of MAD Magazine, Marie Severin and Stan Lee of Marvel Comics, and the Jack Kirby monster comics of the 1950s -- director Chris Bailey originally developed the superhero mayhem of Major Damage as a comic book.

Chris Bailey, director and co-executive producer of Disney's Kim Possible.

Bailey's day job, over the years, has included animating on such Walt Disney features as The Little Mermaid and Hercules, as well as directing the 1995 Academy Award nominated short Disney film Runaway Brain. More recently, Bailey directed Kevin Smith's animated television series Clerks (1998), which has led to his current position as director and co-executive producer on Kim Possible, a traditional animated series for the Disney Channel.

During his spare time, Bailey expanded the Major Damage comic into a storyboard for a short film, where the idea sat for several years. "I wanted to make it in CG," he says, "but the technology didn't exist for me to produce it as a one man show."

While a guest speaker for a Women in Animation group, Bailey mentioned Major Damage and attracted the interest of independent film producer Kellie-Bea Cooper. Bailey recalls, "Kellie-Bea put Damage on the fast track. Between her, myself, and CG supervisor Doug Cooper, we had the creative, technical and organizational chops to make it happen."