谢谢at

An Open Letter to All Who Treasured Monty Oum
by Shane Newville
Summary
I had big dreams for a long time but never believed in myself. I started going for it anyway and
met Monty Oum, who helped the crap out of me. After years of teaching myself, loads of
practice, picking his brain, and taking his advice, I eventually got a job that allowed me to work
with him and get paid for it. It was the dream job, for a time. Regardless of what follows I am
forever grateful for that. Working with him was really my only reason for being at Rooster Teeth.
Monty met one of the greatest women on earth (Sheena Duquette) and got married. For close
to a year both he and she worked together on RWBY Volumes 2 & 3 (herself unofficially and
uncredited). He spent more time at home working with her at his side than he did at the office,
hoping to bring RWBY back on track to the way he wanted to tell the story. Too soon, Monty
passed away. Sheena was not allowed to continue working on RWBY. After Rooster Teeth
closed the door in her face, she moved to LA to be around people who loved and supported her.
It was a long 4 months of politics and fighting to protect Monty’s legacy, as we cared about him
and his vision more than we cared about the company selling its IP and making bank.
My wife left with our kids. She wanted a divorce. It was difficult for her to deal with me, my
issues, and the insane amount of work I took on. She was hurting and lonely. I was still
supporting my family though as the main income provider, and because I cared so much about
honoring Monty I had 2 reasons for spending 7 months alone in Austin, TX: 1) To provide for
my family. 2) To do what I could to ensure every bit of Monty’s finished and unfinished work still
made it into the show intact.
I was not allowed to work the way I did with Monty, but was instead pushed to meet the new
standards— effectively doubling or tripling the amount of work I had to do. This meant more
time spent trying to make everything fit the new, “proper”, way, and leaving less time for making
cool stuff. At times I had to animate scenes without the assets, then do it all over again when
they were given to me later, often last minute or close to the due date. It was very discouraging,
among many other things, but I still looked forward to doing Monty proud and finishing his
scenes. Scenes which, several times, got completely cut or changed so that they no longer had
any relevance, or just way less of an impact.
An Open Letter to All Who Treasured Monty Oum by Shane Newville
As much as I wanted to leave throughout 2015, I was still committed to trying my best and not
quitting until my job was complete. I imagine Rooster Teeth knew this about me and chose to
let me go (for whatever reason they decided) in the middle of working on the last fight. It made
no sense to anyone who knew me and what I was dealing with. Especially so close to the end.
I was lied to and totally caught off guard. Without explanation or warning I was brought to the
office where I was given a speech about my performance not being that great. They escorted
me back to collect my things but they had already removed the computers and my personal
hard drives and would not return them until they finished archiving them all. And that was that.
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An Open Letter to All Who Treasured Monty Oum by Shane Newville
Introduction
While I have many thoughts and opinions about other people and their actions, I can’t speak for
them. But what I can do is tell you my story so you might understand who and what Monty was
(and still is) to me. I feel it’s the only way I can truly explain those things I want you to know.
I spent a large portion of my life wishing I could make awesome animations. I wanted to go to
school but no opportunities came my way, not that I even believed in myself enough to attempt
to enroll. I doubted my ability to keep up with the average person and learn, even if I were to
find a way in.
In late 90's I installed a trueSpace demo, pushed buttons, got lost, and uninstalled. I tried
Blender, didn’t get far before letting the UI overwhelm me, and uninstalled. I got the furthest
with DOGAL1/
L2, but had to delete any finished animation to make space on the computer for
the next. Eventually I put animation on hold to pursue music.
2007
Baby Steps
This was the year that it hit me. No one was going to make it happen for me so I needed to
make it happen for myself. I needed to be the one to pursue my own passions and stop making
excuses for why I couldn’t. The only thing I was ensuring by not doing anything was my own
failure, which was the biggest thing I feared, and it kept me from even trying. I was stuck in a
neverending
loop of nothing happening. It was time to start taking steps whether I felt I could
or not. Even if I was taking baby steps I knew that that was still progression toward my goals.
And so it began.
I grew up being a fan of ninjas and martial arts, so naturally I wanted to make awesome fights. I
loved watching cut scenes in games like Panzer Dragoon, the Final Fantasy series, etc., and
anything 3D. I began researching 3D martial arts animations and right away came across
Monty Oum’s “Haloid". It was the first time I saw the work of someone doing exactly what I
wanted to do and it blew my mind. I wrote a letter to him thinking slim chance I would get a
reply, but I had to try anyway. I had questions. Lots and lots of questions.
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An Open Letter to All Who Treasured Monty Oum by Shane Newville
Letters from Monty
To my surprise, about a week later I got a response. Maybe his inboxes were not yet flooded
with fan letters. Monty had just begun gaining popularity from his work so maybe the timing just
happened to work in my favor. I don’t know. Either way, I was overwhelmed with excitement
and couldn’t wait to read his response. I soaked in every single word he wrote to me, typos and
all. I tasked myself with doing the research and working to figure out what he was talking about
before I would even think about sending another message of questions. I valued his time and
did not want to waste a moment of it. If I was going to bother him to pick his brain, I better have
some results to show from our last talk. Lots of people show interest and ask questions but
then vanish.
The years went on. Sometimes months would pass between letters. But I was learning, I was
moving forward. Any time I got stuck I had to remind myself that other people most likely ran
into these problems too, and that the answers were out there. Research. Practice. Practice.
Research.
2008
I made my first 3D test fight animation. I did it one night while housesitting
with my wife Katie.
It was total crap but a lot of fun to make. Most importantly, it was another step towards doing
what I wanted to do.
Test Fight
Animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyY3ROG7eI
2009
I finally met up with Monty in person at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Meeting him facetoface
was the sole reason I went. I prepared so many questions in advance, and I even offered to
buy him lunch to make it more worth his time. This is one of the few photos I have of he and I
together:
http://shanenewville.deviantart.com/art/MontyOumandShaneNewville128509564
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An Open Letter to All Who Treasured Monty Oum by Shane Newville
It was such a great time. I showed him my work on Little Ninja Project and, thankfully, he saw
potential in my work and gave me tons of helpful feedback and tips for things to work on.
Little Ninja Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJX2pjbxAsc
Death of Little Ninja Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe3nchjxpzc
I regret not taking more photos with him. I was always afraid of coming off as a fanboy. I was
insecure. I loved him as my brother and close friend, and I was worried pictures would take
away from that. But it is now a regret of mine. I no longer have the opportunity to take photos.
I saw Monty write before, “Life is short, take more photos”. Whether he was quoting someone
else or not, it is good advice, and I wish I had taken it to heart.
2010
I started working on another Test Fight animation, deciding to continue the “story”. I was hoping
to slowly develop it into something more as I learned how to animate. I met up with Monty again
at Anime Expo 2010 in LA, and again that month when he attended San Diego Comic Con.
He gave me lots of helpful feedback and showed me some incredible, still unreleased work for
future Dead Fantasy episodes. It was like being on cloud nine any time I got to have a
discussion with him. Not just from being a fan of his work, but here was a guy doing something
amazing… why the heck was he talking to me? Regardless, I soaked it in and learned all I
could from my time with him.
Almost Too Much
After he had gone back to Austin, my wife Katie snuck his number off my phone, called him and
set up the best birthday gift ever. She sent me off in November to spend a weekend with him at
an empty Rooster Teeth building. Everyone was out of the office all weekend except for him.
What did we do? Nothing but work.
It was glorious. I learned so much— so so much. I saw, finally, first hand, how he created his
amazing choreographed scenes in Poser. The Test Fight Animation 2 project I had spent
months working on… he took the whole thing and recreated it with me, in Poser, in less than 2
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An Open Letter to All Who Treasured Monty Oum by Shane Newville
days. Everything I thought I knew about how one was supposed to approach animation got
shredded to bits, scattered across the ground, and used as fertilizer for the new seeds planted
in my mind to grow and flourish. It was almost too much. But at the same time, no, it was not
too much. In fact, it was way less because this way allowed much more time for actually
creating things. His way of work was so pure, raw, unorthodox, and efficient. It was flawed— not
stuck in the cookie cutter shapes of standardization, and that is what made it perfect. He was
actually able to accomplish things. All the things that we’ve come to know him for.
Test Fight
Animation 2 – Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shfQ6G6Yp4I
Test – Fight Animation 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOwlCZzTZYI
Challenges
I had a lot working against me. Diagnosed with major depression at a very young age (4 or 5),
my self esteem had been shot to pieces by many things that happened or were told to me from
early childhood all the way into adulthood. I felt I had no right to call myself an artist, or a real
animator for that matter, even while working directly with Monty.
I have had people tell me right to my face that I was not going to stand a chance because I just
don’t have what it takes. I was working fulltime
at a job that did not pay me enough for rent.
My wife and I had to live in special situations where extra labor (yard work, house cleaning,
taking care of animals on a ranch, etc.) was required as trade for a place to stay. I thought
negatively about waiting this long to start pursuing my passion. I was married. I had 2 kids.
Where is there room for not only teaching myself animation, but getting good enough to make
anything worth watching? No matter what, I kept going. Monty’s undying drive and motivation
to create things, no matter what, kept me going.
I had hope. I took the many difficulties as simply a challenge to overcome. Because if I could
accomplish something even remotely cool with all of those obstacles, how much more would it
encourage others to keep going and overcome their own challenges? Even if one had greater
challenges, could I give them the motivation to face them anyway and overcome? It’s so
important to keep hope alive in the face of what seems impossible.
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卧槽，好长，有时间再慢慢看，慢慢理解……先收藏着

啃完了，表示震惊和失望，要是真是这样，我可能真的放弃RWBY了，看完S3我的想法就是：听说这还是MO大的剧本，不要急着下结论，后面也许有转机有伏笔，先期待着吧。结果这内幕一爆，我真的心累，且不谈RT对MO遗作不尊重，即使他们要抛MO大单干，也没拿出让我满意的干货来，以及看到这位和MO一起造梦的动画师的经历和内心，难过无奈的心情涌上来，但也希望他能度过难关，坚持自己的动画梦。
将来RWBY出后续，我一定会再去看的，但作为从当初出预告片，一集集追S1更新的我来说，太失望太心累了。
想到MO大的剧本被直接无视，我就又气愤又心痛。

楼主，能转否？高冷动漫吧