The Story Behind the Stuck Elevator
Context
As you probably already know I am not a visual artist. I am a writer, so I primarily use stories as my main artistic expression. This means that unlike visual artists, I had to figure out how to "translate" my writings into NFTs. I still have not found a good way to do that with stories and novels (but I am getting close to a nice solution it seems).
I have found a solution for my poems though.
I turn them into a multi-format digital storytelling pieces. For that I am collaborating with visual artists and musicians. To imagine what I mean - check what we've made so far here.
Origin Story
The poem Stuck Elevator (originally titled simply Elevator) was written ages ago. I started my writing journey in my teenage years with poems and unlike my stories and novels, never formally published my poetry. So few months ago I went back to the archives and chose few poems that would be suitable to be turned into NFTs.
Stuck Elevator was one of the first ones I chose, but unlike the BOLD, which I immediately knew that would be perfect to create with Pinxx based on her art's vibe and style I put this one on hold. I was not sure who would be best to collaborate with for it.
Just like most of my poems Elevator too was probably written in 5-10 minutes. Back in those days I would write in the evenings, with music blasting in my headphones, sipping beer straight from the bottle. And the birth of the written version of Stuck Elevator was hand written, long before I ever used a computer and way before the Internet got mass-adoption.
Collaboration process
Just like with almost everyone else in the NFT space we connected with Calvn on Twitter. To be completely honest I had not seen his art until he launched his Impostergram series. When the first one showed up on my Tweet thread I loved it. It stood out, because it was different, it told a story and it spotlighted an important social issue. The quality of the piece was top notch too.
When I saw it I immediately thought - "This style fits the Elevator poem!" and send him a DM.
I sent over the poem and ...
Although it took quite a while until we reached the end result (life, job, etc. kept getting on the way), the process was very smooth.
We had an initial call to make sure that we are on the same page on how we imagine it. Then we kept sending ideas on how would the characters look like and spend quite a bit on the choice of their hairstyles and clothes. I guess we wanted them to feel real and relatable. Luckily we were on the same page and there were no arguments whatsoever.
Then I kept procrastinating about the recording. I knew it was gonna be challenging. The hardest part was going to be striking the right balance, since if not narrated well enough we were risking it sounding cheap, funny or inappropriate...
Took me around 10 takes. I hated all of them equally and could not choose. So I ended up sending all 10 over otherwise the recording would have become a never-ending process...
Then it was Calvn-s turn to do his magic. And I was super impatient and curious to see what he would end up with. At the same time I did not want to pressure either...
the result was so much better than what I imagined/expected to be honest!
Check it yourself!
Results
We had our first bid within the first hour, there was no bidding war and the piece was sold within 25-ish hours after minting and listing.
We both were extremely happy and not because it sold for 1 ETH but also because we got a great collector (super grateful!)
Takeaways/Lessons
collaborating and co-creating is a special process and it is very important that you pick the right person to work with for each project
build genuine relationship first. If done in a genuine way you will have a community that supports you and artists that are willing to work with you
for a control freak like me it is much easier to work and create solo... but by doing it with people who are talented and have the skillset that you don't have you end up with something that would have been completely impossible to create alone
when you have established a personal brand and have fanbase for your art (just like Calv had done) you might not need to do extensive promotion of the new drop
quality matters - in this market where the barrier to entry is low often so is the quality and a high quality art always stands out.
tell a good story and create art that evokes emotions in peoples' hearts and touch their souls... the rest will follow!
Hope this was helpful.
Have a great week Rebels!