richieratterson - Tumblr blog

richieratterson · 27 days ago

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Martin just made a couple long Community posts over on Youtube giving an extensive update on the state of TWF 5 & 6 and explaining why episode production has taken so long. Here I'm combining both posts into a single Tumblr post for ease of reading:

"Hey! Long time no see, there's so much to talk about. I know I haven't updated in so long but I was waiting to have progressed a good chunk before doing another of these. Oh boy this one will be a long one.

WHAT WAS UP:

Woah what a year. Everything after episode 4 had been complete madness but I feel like I never fully dwelved into that? I've heard it so much: "Episodes 5 and 6 were said to release February 2024, what the fuck happened?" and first of all, let me apologize for that (given I never really adressed it properly). Truth is, Episodes 5 and 6 WERE almost finished by the time Episode 4 dropped. Why is this?

Well, episode 4, 5 and 6 were the SAME episode, they just got split into 3 episodes due to how much making the whole thing was burning me out because of the Jan 31st release date, ANOTHER miscalculated release date on my end (I should be counting these by now LOL). Original episodes 5 and 6 revolved much more around Sophie and the post-Bunnyfarm timeline. (It wasn't even my idea to split them, a good friend suggested it after seeing how stressed I was.) It was around Jan 9, 2024 when we decided to have Season 1 instead focus on Felix & the BSI crew and the downfall of Bon's Burgers in the 1974 timeline. Around this time we had about 90% of our original vision of Episode 4 done, and after we split them, what you ended up seeing was roughly around 20% of the content we had finished up to then. And the more high quality sections of the version of 4 we released (Felix in the river, jack in the car, wonderland and the high school opening) were made in a rush on the 22 DAYS we had left till Jan 31st, it may have appeared like a controlled and organized plan but I assure you, it was a MESS.

Cut to Feb 9, 2024. I was on the beach with my girlfriend when 4 dropped and i was ECSTATIC. I forgot how cathartic it felt when a new OFFICIAL TWF episode dropped and I immediately started hyping up 5 and 6 like they were just around the corner, and at the time, they were!

In my mind, all episode 5 and 6 needed were just small little opening and ending scenes that wrapped them up nicely as individual episodes, without realizing these were SEGMENTS of a greater episode and they would, obviously, not hold up as well on their own. (Picture if episode 2 was separated into different videos, one segment each unedited. Pretty anticlimactic, huh?) AND ON TOP OF THAT: I wasn't even HOME throughout most of february, so my plan was to just work on it remotely and edit it all in a whim on the last week, so ???? what the fuck was I thinking????

TO NOBODY'S SURPRISE BUT MINE, THIS DIDN'T WORK.

After february 2024, it was a constant cycle of "uhhm I'll release it in march! oh march ended, alright april! oh april ended, may! oh, june! oh. July. …oh. August." until I realized "oh fuck we're back to this again."

Throughout Spring to the end of Summer 2024 I was slowly reshaping 5 and 6 after I was realizing how much just, didn't work on its own. It was a slow evolution from "let's just add 2 scenes and call it a day!" (February), to "let's add these scenes to make the episode more full." (April), until in June 2024 it became "okay we have to completely rework these huh." and so we did! Or so we thought.

Let me tell you a bit about "The Walten Files 5 - Faces of Grief". Hands down the HARDEST most EXCRUCIATING Walten Files episode to work through. There are a total of 7 different scripts from this episode dating all the way back to 2021. We have reworked this episode so much that it's become a habit now. It was the least fleshed out one of the "CyberFun Tech Collection" and we slowly realized we had a trouble. On june 27, 2024 I wrote the official brand new script for TWF 5 on 3 hours at like 4 AM. And revised it with EVA on a day and wrapped it up.

Looking back at it, this script was shit. Everything from July to September was absolute confusion, there was no real work flow it was just me mindlessly picking parts of 5 just thinking "oh I'll rewrite this later" etc, etc. In what became the absolute worst cut of episode 5. You'd have scenes from 2024 mixed with rushed bits from Jan 2024 (and I do mean RUSHED.) and bits from as early as DECEMBER 2021. Total jarring horribly paced content.

How did all this get so out of hand? My absolutely insanely messy management, so what was next, then? Were we stuck in a limbo forever just mindlesly going 1 step forward and 2 steps back?

When all hope seemed lost, I got a message from Makeship…

WHAT IS UP:

On 2023, I presented my idea to Makeship on making The Mysterious House plushies. As always, they did a fantastic job on the samples and we decided to submit them for Makeship's 2024 Halloween campaign "Menace":

For context, this was when I was (WRONGFULLY☝☝☝) confident TWF 4 would release December/January 2024. So confident in fact that I stupidly stated the episode would release on January 31st, 2024 IN THE BON PLUSH COMMERCIAL. And so I vowed to not release any plushies until 4 was finished, something I've stayed true to. Even when it was split I still vowed not to release plushies until 5 and 6 were released.

Until on September 20th, I got a message by Makeship about preparing the launch of PR and WS. And oh boy did we not know how much it would impact everything going forward. I excitedly approached the team about it, thinking it would be the same as our usual commercials we whip out in about 5-7 days lol. It wasn't

Throughout all of october, what started as a simple Halloween plush commercial intended for sillies, slowly evolved into our team's first GENUINE full team collaboration into what became The Walten Files' first solid, fully animated "Film". And what is to this day, the one thing released I'm most proud of.

The Return of the Pumpkin Rabbit was a miracle, and I don't think I'll ever be able to replicate the 41 days that went into getting it done.

Almost the entire TWF team locking in and making this the way we SHOULD'VE approached TWF 5 & 6, we scripted THEN we storyboared and THEN we animated. And it all ran like clockwork! But to me the most important moment of the entire production of RotPR was when I was working on the last 10 minutes of the film and was getting burnt out.

The team had to literally fight against my stubborness so I could allow them to help me past just Voice acting (in a lighthearted joking way ofc, not a serious manner.) And my workaholic ass finally accepted. And boy let me tell you it literally sped up the production SO MUCH.

To put it in perspective: A huge amount of shots were animated by Coraline and Kyle to help me speed up the process. (to the point I had them helping me on RELEASE DAY. to get it done.) Crystal made the ENTIRE first half of the plush commercial that released, in an extremely creative and fun PSX styled animation. (Literally THE most fun part of the commercial that I still see posted to this day.) And most ridiculous of all, if it wasn't for EVA's creative assistance, RotPR would've originally ended with Rachel and Lorenzo being turned into plushies by the ghost kids and SEGWAY INTO THE COMMERCIAL???? SPEAKING OF LORENZO, IF IT WASN'T FOR THE TEAM I WOULD'VE NAMED HIM "MICHAEL WATERMAN" INSTEAD. So yeah, this team deserves a LOT more credit. I'm not the creative mastermind some TWF fans make me out to be, but as a team we accomplished SO much.

The Return of the Pumpkin Rabbit released November 1st, 2024 after the most RUSHED and STRESSFUL production day as we managed to release it just BY A HAIR. but even then, it taught us so much. And showed us how to properly manage the series going forward. It taught me to trust my team and the vision they have of this series and to welcome the change and re-shaping of ideas I previously had.

After that? Well I had to study to take the PAES again (The final boss of Chilean tests). And in the meantime worked with Retro Release Video on a VHS release of Return of the Pumpkin Rabbit. Which originally would've been RotPR + Boozoo's Ghosts, then RotPR + a re-dubbed TMH, until it eventually evolved into Tales of the Pumpkin Rabbit, but one question remained.

What had to be done with The Walten Files?

It wasn't clear in the moment, we knew that despite how fun development was. RotPR definitely mentally burnt us out as a team, and at least I knew I needed to REST. I was satisfied knowing I had given something to this fanbase before the year ended, something I was proud of. (because, let's face it, realistically there was no way Episodes 5 and 6 would've released considering how messy production had been). So I spent the rest of 2024 studying and relaxing.

There were talks with EVA about what we could do with the series going forward, even going as far as to considering completely REDOING episode 5 from scratch with a whole new plot and name. Or switching the episodes so that 6 became 5 and 5 became 6. But we knew what we really needed was a proper structure and vision.

ENTER THE BIG TWENTY-TWENTY-FIVE.

Our priority was on "Tales of the Pumpkin Rabbit" and making a satisfying end to the Pumpkin Rabbit universe. And in March 2025, we neatly and calmly ended all of TOTPR in the team's first ever feature film: "Tales of the Pumpkin Rabbit", lasting around 1 hour 16 minutes.

AND THEN IT WAS WALTEN ON!

On april 2025 we started the official Walten Files "SEASON ONE WRAP-UP PROJECT", a properly structured document that listed out everything we need to make in a doable order with deadlines, we even added multiple release date estimates though we are trying to stay true to our earliest one. We are currently working as hard as we can to get this done before at most sandy claws comes to town.

Everyone on the team was IMMEDIATELY on board and we've been working nonstop almost daily since and oh god it really SHOWS how much we've improved given how smooth production has been.

Throughout April 3rd to May 7th, we worked hard to rewrite 2 scenes and write the remaining scenes an ending. Putting a proper "END SEASON" on paper on May 7th felt so cathartic to me. We finally wrote our full properly structured visions of how these 2 episodes will wrap up and it genuinely warms my heart. The final scripts of "Faces of Grief" and "Behind the Smiles" are the very best we've written for this channel and, at least to me, represent everything I want this series and my art to be. I haven't been able to stop thinking about some of the moments that wrap up this season and let me tell ya, I doubt ANY Walten Files fan could accurately guess what is coming. It's insane.

So where are we now? We are storyboarding! It's been going super smooth and hearing the VAs give it their all has been incredible! I took a break last friday because I will admit I did butn myself out from drawing the same characters so much, on thursday I will resume work and finish storyboarding episode 5 (We are almost there!) Episode 6 has much less stuff to be storyboarded considering we RE-storyboarded finished scenes from 5 so they'd flow better.

We finally figured our shit out (THAAANK GOD!) and we are excitedly making our way through these episodes with a proper vision that holds up to Episode 4 and Return of the Pumpkin Rabbit. I'm so excited to finish this I've been ITCHING to announce a release date or even say the season of the year we believe the episode will release in. But I can confirm we are not there yet. Not fully ready to say WHEN it will come out, but we're doing progress every day, no more delays or hiatus. AND SPECIALLY NO MORE FAKE RELEASE DATE ESTIMATES! (February 2024 my ass.)

"Tales of the Pumpkin Rabbit" released this week and got an INSANELY good reception, you can buy it on Retro Release Video's page! I've heard some criticism on the decision of making it exclusive to VHS (which, y'know, isn't as accesible as it was when your grandmother wanted to watch all seasons of Columbo) And I'm sorry if I made the fandom feel left out on this. To be clear I didn't want to "hide content behind a paywall", We sold the VHS first and then I wanted to do something extra special for those who went their way to buy it. I'll keep all the very valid notes in mind for future RRV releases. That being said the tape IS copyrighted and any publishment of it online will be taken down and possibly harm your channel. (Please don't try to upload it, the last thing I want is strike an unassuming person's channel who just wanted to make the stuff they like more accesible).

"Faces of Grief" and "Behind the Smiles" ARE BEING WORKED ON AT THE SAME TIME and will release 2025 and wrap up Season One of The Walten Files. Bringing a close to the BSI Family part of the timeline. I'm looking forward to the day I can say "Friday, 9 PM EST" I won't be cryptic, I won't play or tease my audience. When we are ready, you will know.

So, that just leaves us with…

WHAT "WILL BE" UP:

Right now? Our focus is on finishing Episode 5 and 6, that's it! Lol. There aren't any plans on more horror shorts or a Boozoo's Ghosts remake (BG is the worst thing I've created, it'll be a cold day in hell when I revisit it.), in fact, RotPR feels like a neat book end for the Pumpkin Rabbit and his universe, Tales is just a little desser after. Needless to say we wont be seeing Lorenzo and Rachel any time soon. It's Bon time.

After storyboards are done our focus turns into drawing and animating the scenes which is a lot easier considering we have actual "blueprints" to go off of this time, like in RotPR. Some of these shots are INSANE and I can't wait for you guys to see them. When it's done we'll announce it on Twitter, here and on our brand new OFFICIAL Instagram @thewaltenfilestv! Episodes 5 and 6 will release back to back a week apart, both on Fridays at 9PM EST like usual. So I'll see you there!

As for merch, Makeship and I are working on a "Bon Collection" to release around the second half of this year! Including a total of 10 products available including: Lorenzo and Rachel enamel pins. A jumbo Bon plush with fluffy fur and changeable eyes, a Bon keychain and more! So we'll be announcing those when the time is right! Right now our priority is getting these episodes done for you guys.

On the more general side of things, I really want to do more with The Walten Files and its characters, I'm always open to collaborations when it comes to creative and fun ideas! You can contact me at [email protected]! I've considered fun ideas for a Walten Files videogame too if I ever had the opportunity to make one. (There's a very fun TWF fan-game called Bon's Burgers: After Hours by MSPie which looks fantastic! Def support it if you can!). And of course I'm still dreaming of Lego Walten Friends.

I can honestly say despite all I couldn't be happier that I made this series and I made something for all of you to enjoy. I am happy and I will continue making and telling the stories I love to tell.

Be seeing youuuuu

-Martin :)

(TLDR: Walten 5 and 6 worked on at the same time, will release week apart, storyboarding rn, merch on second half of year, contact me at [email protected] in case of anything and I love working and creating stuff for you :D)"

#the walten files #<3 #I'm so glad they finally figured out how to properly work on these episodes #this is the best thing to come out of 2025 next to totpr

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