We recently connected with Jean Francois ROLLAND and have shared our conversation below.

Jean Francois, appreciate you joining us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

The story behind the creation of Chronique Vintage came from childhood. A childhood driven by a passion for science fiction, movies and toys. With the upcoming release of Star Wars in the movie theater, a new generation of moviegoers was born and the kids of the late 70’s grew up with a magnificent choice of memorabilia like the Kenner Product toy range. From 1978 to 1985 Kenner was the only toy company allowed to officially manufacture Star Wars toys around the world. Back in the days in France, most of the toys were not available as it was in the US and I was lucky enough that my traveling Dad brings me wonders from another galaxy far far away every time he came back from his business trips. Even so, completing a Star Wars Kenner toy line was not easy, and as a young adult I decided to complete this journey by hunting Star Wars toys in a time where Star Wars was history. Coming from this childhood frustration, I Started again to collect Kenner Toys in the late 80’s early 90’s and to complete this task I subscribed to fan club magazines, creating contacts by sending mail to toys sellers in the States, UK, France & the rest of Europe. Step by Step I was able from 1990 to 2014 to collect what I couldn’t get as a kid & wanted to display in a book I dreamed of for years. 2012 was that very year I decided to create my interactive book about Kenner toys for good. hearing on the news that Disney took over Lucasfilm, was a point of no return to jump into writing the story of Kenner and it’s Star Wars toy line. During the week-end and late at night after work, it took me 10 years for the dream to come true. From collecting toys to coming back to school to learn book layout software, self publishing & self editing video learning (every item displayed got a QR code link YouTube Video description), Chronique Vintage is the achievement of a kid’s dream, a journey the author & Youtuber business that was completely unknown to me. But like George Lucas will say, never give up on what you really believe and want to create. I followed that path as it was the right one to self-publish a book and develop my Youtube Channel in English & French. Since 3 years my book has been published and available online, I’m happy to do conventions & conferences about this wonderful journey by meeting fans, authors from this business.

Jean Francois, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I come from the Design Automotive industry where I worked as a Sculptor-modeler for about 35 years. I was curious to discover the commun industrial techniques between the Automotive & the Toy industries. It was for me one of the driving points to investigate this business. Writing, creating book layout, editing videos in 2 languages & going back to school to learn Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop & Premiere were less difficult steps compared to dealing with the very last step, printing the book layout.
Printing companies can be very hard to deal with, especially when you are a beginner in this matter.
Delays, miss understanding, increasing original printing budget at the last minute is something you have to be prepared for.
Even with the great help of collecting 80% of the original printing & shipping fees budget true a Crowdfunding in summer 2021, pressure was tuff when original delivery plan for Christmas 2021 was delayed to Easter 2022. Hopefully with the great understanding of the Star Wars fans community, I was able to manage book printing delays by posting on social media every week, every manufacturing step with videos or pictures of this working progress and when the very first books were finally available in April 2022 that was a big release. Not to forget the 3 years video making process by filming, editing, downloading videos in 2 languages on my YouTube Channel linked by a unique QR code for every item in the book.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

After 3 months of delays (end of January 2022) the printing company announced to me that they have done nothing since December 2021 and they need another 3 months to do the work and that I have to pay an extra fee if I want to see the job done.
I was really disappointed & concerned at this point.
I was responsible for 350 crowdfunding bakers and I couldn’t cancel a 10 years work project as well so I decided to ask for a bank loan to pay what was needed to make sure that book will become real.
It was at that point my only solution to be able to get my project down. No way I could give up on people, this project had to become real for good !

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

To learn more how to deal with a printing company would be a great help at the time, that is the main issue I had to deal with on my own during the process. I should have learned more about it before starting this book creation.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jf_rolland_chronique_vintage/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChroniqueVintage/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanfrancoisrolland/
• Twitter: https://x.com/jf_rolland
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChroniqueVintage

Image Credits

©JF ROLLAND – Chronique Vintage