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Last week, we wrote about the Studio Cafe becoming tangible—both cafe AND live animation set designs locking, materials being sourced, timelines tightening. The space that has already become our stage, has become less speculative (a.k.a. less intimidating to stand in) and started demanding real decisions. In short: sometimes you gotta just cut the shit, get out of your own way, and dive in.
If you know us, you also know that 2/3 of Flannel Donut is Pattern Integrity Films. If you know PI, then you know about their ongoing docuseries called PROCESS.
The core of the show is simple: Opening up the creative mind via interviews with brilliant people who are at the top of their craft, telling their stories, their failures and where they're headed next. Getting a peek inside someone else's mind, and their creative process, gives us so much information about ourselves, which can jumpstart our own creative endeavors.
The Studio Cafe follows the same mindset: creative work doesn’t need to be hidden. In fact, we think there are innumerable missed opportunities when you cloak mistakes, blood, sweat and tears with a polished production. There are so many people on this planet seeking their own creative outlets, the least we can do is inspire. The most? Show them what we do everyday. Yes, these types of stories are meticulously told one frame at a time, but there is so much beauty in being able to witness tiny movements on a stunning set, which has the hands of several artists showing up from painting to sculpture to puppet making, lighting and beyond. The animator being the conductor of this beautiful train we have ripping through our professional lives.
At the Studio Cafe, coffee is made while animation is made, under the same roof--the stage visible by all sides and via catwalk, open to the public. Dough is mixed while puppets are hand crafted. The public facing stop-motion set is there, in use, as a living, breathing creature, forever changing day to day. None of this process should be tucked away or scheduled as a performance.
In viewing these animated moments live, some of it will feel cinematic. Most won’t. And that’s intentional.
What’s visible is the reality of making: repetition, recalibration, small decisions stacking into story. By keeping that process in the open, the work becomes less mysterious. And each day, customers can follow up and watch all those small moments add up to stories told across socials.
This public workflow isn’t fully about documentation or spectacle, though we're definitely excited about showcasing that side of production. It’s about allowing the middle of the process to exist in the open.
Because ideas change mid-conversation. Puppets break and need fixing. Sometimes nothing visibly “advances” for hours. Those rhythms are usually edited out of the story of creativity. Here, they remain.
People witness more than outcomes—they experience effort, time, pressure and constraint weaving itself into creative process. And that's a damn beautiful thing.
This only works if it holds up under pressure.
The Studio Cafe has to operate as a cafe and as a production environment simultaneously. Drinks need to be consistent. Equipment needs to perform. Deadlines still exist in both spaces, by the minute, day and customer/client. The space still needs to function when it’s busy, noisy, or imperfect. We still need to push boundaries, each other and constantly adjust to the moving target otherwise known as the blockchain.
That’s what makes this a real-world test.
Public workflow is proven on ordinary days, when nothing special is happening—as well as intense production moments where equipment and timelines are challenged--and the work still gets done. Stressful AF and totally worth it.
Back when we were seeking participation and funds from larger orgs, one of them asked "what if you fail"? The answer was simple: Filmmaking and animation is all about bailing yourself out of an incessant spectrum of problems on the regular. Cast and crew shows up late, money comes in short, scenes get cut, clients get finicky, equipment breaks, you name it. Somehow at the end of it all, just before you're about to throw yourself off a cliff, you are awarded with this tiny beautiful thing that you made with really cool people pooling their talents that you can watch and share, over and over. And you never stop learning. For us, filmmaking and animation is the meaning of life. There is nothing else. Not even failing, we are known for finding another way.
Now, fast forward a bit after that conversation, to when that same org was shuttered. So, none of us are immune to the threat of failure--it's what you do with the possibility of it, and how you challenge it-- outsmart it even-- knowing failure is around every corner and waiting for you every day.
February 13th marks a soft opening, but not a finish line.
What follows is accumulation: days layered on days, frames stacked into sequences, conversations turning into collaborations. The Studio Cafe becomes a living record of what happens when creative work is allowed to exist where people already are.
No reveal. No grand statement. Just a commitment to showing up and making the work visible.
The rest unfolds from there. To us, the best stories are told this way.
Last week, we wrote about the Studio Cafe becoming tangible—both cafe AND live animation set designs locking, materials being sourced, timelines tightening. The space that has already become our stage, has become less speculative (a.k.a. less intimidating to stand in) and started demanding real decisions. In short: sometimes you gotta just cut the shit, get out of your own way, and dive in.
If you know us, you also know that 2/3 of Flannel Donut is Pattern Integrity Films. If you know PI, then you know about their ongoing docuseries called PROCESS.
The core of the show is simple: Opening up the creative mind via interviews with brilliant people who are at the top of their craft, telling their stories, their failures and where they're headed next. Getting a peek inside someone else's mind, and their creative process, gives us so much information about ourselves, which can jumpstart our own creative endeavors.
The Studio Cafe follows the same mindset: creative work doesn’t need to be hidden. In fact, we think there are innumerable missed opportunities when you cloak mistakes, blood, sweat and tears with a polished production. There are so many people on this planet seeking their own creative outlets, the least we can do is inspire. The most? Show them what we do everyday. Yes, these types of stories are meticulously told one frame at a time, but there is so much beauty in being able to witness tiny movements on a stunning set, which has the hands of several artists showing up from painting to sculpture to puppet making, lighting and beyond. The animator being the conductor of this beautiful train we have ripping through our professional lives.
At the Studio Cafe, coffee is made while animation is made, under the same roof--the stage visible by all sides and via catwalk, open to the public. Dough is mixed while puppets are hand crafted. The public facing stop-motion set is there, in use, as a living, breathing creature, forever changing day to day. None of this process should be tucked away or scheduled as a performance.
In viewing these animated moments live, some of it will feel cinematic. Most won’t. And that’s intentional.
What’s visible is the reality of making: repetition, recalibration, small decisions stacking into story. By keeping that process in the open, the work becomes less mysterious. And each day, customers can follow up and watch all those small moments add up to stories told across socials.
This public workflow isn’t fully about documentation or spectacle, though we're definitely excited about showcasing that side of production. It’s about allowing the middle of the process to exist in the open.
Because ideas change mid-conversation. Puppets break and need fixing. Sometimes nothing visibly “advances” for hours. Those rhythms are usually edited out of the story of creativity. Here, they remain.
People witness more than outcomes—they experience effort, time, pressure and constraint weaving itself into creative process. And that's a damn beautiful thing.
This only works if it holds up under pressure.
The Studio Cafe has to operate as a cafe and as a production environment simultaneously. Drinks need to be consistent. Equipment needs to perform. Deadlines still exist in both spaces, by the minute, day and customer/client. The space still needs to function when it’s busy, noisy, or imperfect. We still need to push boundaries, each other and constantly adjust to the moving target otherwise known as the blockchain.
That’s what makes this a real-world test.
Public workflow is proven on ordinary days, when nothing special is happening—as well as intense production moments where equipment and timelines are challenged--and the work still gets done. Stressful AF and totally worth it.
Back when we were seeking participation and funds from larger orgs, one of them asked "what if you fail"? The answer was simple: Filmmaking and animation is all about bailing yourself out of an incessant spectrum of problems on the regular. Cast and crew shows up late, money comes in short, scenes get cut, clients get finicky, equipment breaks, you name it. Somehow at the end of it all, just before you're about to throw yourself off a cliff, you are awarded with this tiny beautiful thing that you made with really cool people pooling their talents that you can watch and share, over and over. And you never stop learning. For us, filmmaking and animation is the meaning of life. There is nothing else. Not even failing, we are known for finding another way.
Now, fast forward a bit after that conversation, to when that same org was shuttered. So, none of us are immune to the threat of failure--it's what you do with the possibility of it, and how you challenge it-- outsmart it even-- knowing failure is around every corner and waiting for you every day.
February 13th marks a soft opening, but not a finish line.
What follows is accumulation: days layered on days, frames stacked into sequences, conversations turning into collaborations. The Studio Cafe becomes a living record of what happens when creative work is allowed to exist where people already are.
No reveal. No grand statement. Just a commitment to showing up and making the work visible.
The rest unfolds from there. To us, the best stories are told this way.
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Flannel Donut
Flannel Donut
1 comment
....But what if we fail?