Good news and bad news, my friends.
Let’s start with the bad news and just rip the band-aid off. There will be no Wooly Week in the spring of 2021. Ouch, that was even more painful to write than I was expecting.
Yes, we are incredibly disappointed to have to postpone it. We had been holding out hope that we could pull it off even up until last week, but we then got animation news that cemented our fears.
It’s not that we haven’t been creating content. We’ve written a lot of new stories this past year, including a face-melting rock song with a metal band from Spain. You’ll be seeing that collaboration soon, I promise.
No, creating new stories hasn’t been a problem. The problem, quite simply, is Covid.
We can’t film during the pandemic without putting large amounts of people at risk. Yes, some larger production companies have started filming in-person, but the safety protocols required to pull it off are far beyond what we, at Wooly, can afford.
And while we can animate, all of the animators have been snatched up by larger companies and music studios (since most of them aren't filming in person). For example, I was in talks with one animator who suddenly said, sorry, he was now working on a project with Katy Perry. We just don’t have the budget to compete with Katy Perry.
Quite simply, we just haven’t been able to get the new music videos created in a timely manner and so, unfortunately, we have to postpone Wooly Week.
That said, we haven’t been sitting here twiddling our thumbs. Let’s get to the good news.
In only a few weeks, we will be launching one of the single most exciting Wooly projects ever. It’s related to digital graphic novels, but it’s so, so much more than what any of you are expecting. This is not just some repackaging of existing content in a new format. Far from it.
I know that I’ve been incredibly secretive about details, but I assure you that what we are creating is BIG, one of the biggest things we have ever done as a company. When you finally hear all the specifics, you will understand where we’ve been for the last 6 months. You’ll understand why I’ve essentially disconnected from social media. We are creating something truly novel – something that’s never been done before. In fact, I dare say that many of you will find our announcement in a few weeks to be far more exciting than Wooly Week.
I know I’m running the risk of overselling. But I believe deeply in what we have created here at Wooly. We are aiming for no less than a revolution in reading for Spanish classrooms.
Stay tuned.
Sincerely,
Jim Wooldridge
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