Waiting (short film)

***Waiting*** is a 2023 American traditionally-animated short film written and directed by Dozer Davis. The short film, which runs 2:17 minutes, focuses on Guy, who is waiting for the cable premiere of "Lonesome Warriors", which claims to only be showing once. The other guy attempts changing the channel to watch something else, but Guy conflicts that choice.

*Waiting* premiered in an undisclosed movie theater on May 24, 2023, and received general reactions from its attendants.

## Plot

After a dramatic logo opening, we see Guy (Max) waiting for the cable premiere of "Lonesome Warrior(s)" at a couch, The premiere claims to only be showing the film ONCE. As soon as it claims to be so, Other Guy (Ryan) walks in to say otherwise that it's "only an advertisement trick to get you to watch it early". Guy disagrees with this, claiming that he "missed the entirety of 'Multiverses'" because they also claimed to only play that film once. Other Guy doesn't believe him however, as he claims that "multiverses" is airing next week. He changes the channel to "The Single Show" as Guy suddenly freaks out. He flips through the channels as he discovers that the film isn't playing anywhere else! The two start to get into a big fight as the remote falls off the couch, coincidentally putting the premiere back on again. They settle down as the Guy asks the Other Guy if he wants to watch the film with him. Other Guy says fine, as the two watch the movie. We zoom into the TV as Guy claims that the film is "3 1/2 hours long". Other Guy suddenly gets angry as we cut to the credits.

## Production

"Waiting" took 2 weeks to animate, similar to how long the previous short, "The Two Guys", took. This short is notable for two things: for being the first "Guys" short to utilize Adobe tools, specifically Character Animator for the lip-sync, Audition for the 5.1 mix (which is also a first for the shorts), After Effects for the 35mm effects and Premiere Pro for final rendering; and for also being the first "Two Guys" short to be shown theatrically. For the latter, "Waiting" was specifically designed to look cinematic, unlike the previous shorts. Where as in "The Two Guys" everything was bright & colorful, "Waiting" was dark, vivid & slightly dull in color because of the dark atmosphere the characters are in.

### Animation

Animated assets were done mostly with the same software that Dozer had been using for the other shorts, that being Sony Sketch, which had been defunct since 2019. Alongside it, Adobe Character Animator was used to help animate the lip-sync a little more easier than the previous shorts, which were previosly done traditionally in Sketch. After making the assets, they were all exported into Kinemaster 6 (in a 1:1 aspect ratio) for smooth movement, all done shot by shot following closely from the storyboards. Research was done by Dozer to see what dark rooms with a bright TV would look like on film for the short's lighting. Archived footage from "The Single Show" and "The Two Guys" are spotted on the TV if you look closely.

### 5.1 Sound Mix

"Waiting" is notably the first short film from Dozer Davis Productions to feature 5.1 audio. All shorts before this were only made in stereo. To create the sound mix, Dozer extracted the MIDI soundtrack into three separate channels (L, R, C) and isolated them into the separate channel soundtracks. Left & Right channels include the MIDI cues and some panning sound effects, the center channel features dialogue, most sound effects towards the end of the short & the bass from the MIDI cues, but the surround channels only feature ambiance & a small bit of electric buzzing during the DDP logo. No subwoofer channel was created because at that point, he didn't know how to make subwoofer channels. All channels were converted to mono during the sound-mixing process and were all put into Adobe Audition for final mixing.

Strangely, the original 5.1 mix got distorted when it was shown theatrically, resulting in the "UnruledSound" sound system brand, becoming reviewed as crummy. All audio channels ended up being summed up into one audio channel that sounded very muffled, resulting in errors that were unintended for the mix, such as the MIDI soundtrack becoming louder than usual, resulting in the dialogue being quieter. Despite this, the YouTube release of the short, utilizes the intended sound mix for the short using the original audio files.

## Release

"Waiting" originally premiered on May 24th, 2023 at *Unruled Crateville 10*. It played 3 times throughout it' short & memorable run, receiving general responses during the premiere. A big poster was printed prior to the screenings in honor of the first appearance of The Two Guys on the big-screen, however, it wasn't shown publicly.

After it's premiere, it later got uploaded on YouTube utilizing the same theatrical master, but with only two differences: the correct 5.1 mix that hasn't been altered whatsoever, and the removal a specific title card at the front end of the short. The latter was edited into theatrical showings because alongside "Waiting", the short played alongside 57 other student short films for the specific event where "Waiting" was originally sent to.

On June 23rd, 2023, the short was re-edited in order to compete in TodayIGrewUp’s 2023 Fan Show. In this version, a title card and shorter credits were added, and the music cues have been turned down slightly. Of course, much like anything else that Dozer has entered in, it lost. The only response to losing out on the prize, which was a "cloud logo" variant of the Toy Story Collection Buzz, was: ***"Called it."*** He later reached out to confirm that "it didn't matter if he won it or not anyway" as it was only a "publicity stunt test". This version, unlisted, can be found here.