This Month in Snark Tank - Video Podcast, Solo Episodes, + More! (UPDATE)

HEY EVERYBODY!

Hope you're all doing well despite massive spikes in plague numbers and brand new lockdowns in what can only be described as Hell Year 2020. There was no episode this week which we'll get into later, but we've got some announcements regarding the podcast that, I think are pretty cool, so before the existential dread becomes too much to bear let's get into the meat and potates (puh-tates) of this nonsense!

SOLO EPISODES! - Going Deep

As a slightly above average host, I prefer to keep the conversations in our podcasts flowing as best I can in a way that every member is able to contribute to. As a result, a lot of great questions don't get used due to their specificity or inaccessibility to one or more hosts. Every week we get a decent number of questions that may be hyper-specific to a specific host. Chris gets a lot of Halo, Destiny, Rise Against questions, Sweeny gets a lot of D&D and nursing questions, and Derrick gets a lot of metal and fitness questions, so on, so forth, etc. 

Rather than bringing these questions into the show and potentially having half of us sitting in abject silence for an unpredictable amount of time (Sweeny during any conversation about mixing music), we'll be doing Snark Tank Solo episodes where, Derrick, Sweeny, or I will sit by ourselves and go in depth on questions that would either be too serious for the main show or too specific for the other hosts to meaningfully contribute too. 

I'm excited to finally answer your nerd questions.

These will be extra Patreon Exclusive episodes and wont take the place of the normal weekly show. The first episode will be a Chris centric episode, going live on Friday the 20th and the second episode centered on Sweeny will be exactly one week later on the 27th.

Obviously, the frequency of these episodes depend on the volume of hyper specific questions we get so don't expect these every single week, but I think we can reasonably plan one solo episode per month AT LEAST, with a chance of two per month like what's happening here in November if the volume of questions is high enough to supply the content. So feel free to direct questions to specific hosts! They'll have a pretty high chance of being answered in a Solo episode in the coming weeks.

SCHEDULING! - Tempus Fugit

Speaking of dates and days! Episodes have been inconsistent lately due to a number of factors, some controllable and some not. Either way scheduling needs more consistency so moving forward, here's exactly when you can expect the episodes to go live on respective feeds.

• The Snark Tank Podcast
  10:00 AM, PST - Every Tuesday on Patreon
  10:00 AM, PST - Every Friday on Free Feeds (YouTube, iTunes, Spotify)

This is one day later than our previous recording schedule which I'm sure is a slight bummer for some of you who enjoyed starting your week with us, but this will make it far easier to get episodes out in a timely fashion. Sundays have become increasingly unreliable as, for some reason, some nonsense always happens to us on Sundays. We hope this scheduling change isn't too annoying. I feel it's genuinely the best format going forward.

VIDEO PODCAST! - The Ugly Cast

Speaking of formats! We've been talking about doing a video version of the podcast for a long time now and the moment of truth is at hand. We'll be doing a trial run of the video podcast for our next episode, but there's a catch.

Editing the podcast is a bigger job than it sounds. Every episode you listen to has literally hundreds of cuts. Dead air, silences, ums and ahs, all chopped up by the elegant blade of Premiere Pro and relegated to the cold unfeeling wind. With three tracks of audio, two hours a pop; that's a lot of cuts. Cuts that, quite frankly, would be impossible to do in a timely manner with yet another variable (video) added to the workload: So, here's the solution.

Episodes will go live on Patreon, the same way they always have on the day after we record. On Fridays, when the episode hits free feeds, there will now be two versions. 

Spotify and iTunes will have the same content as the Patreon version just at a later date. Same audio, same edits, same cuts, same length (unless we have a sponsor.) The YouTube version however will be the video podcast. Bigger, longer, and (relatively) uncut for those who wish to have the added benefit of seeing our beautiful faces at the trade-off of having a slightly messier, slightly more improvised style and tone. 

The look and style of the video podcast will likely change drastically over time as we learn how to do this sort of thing, but we figured the best way to figure it out is to just do it. 

Chris's Corner - Let's Get Serious

Normally, I would just sign off and get back to work but I feel it's necessary to apologize for the lack of consistency and communication in recent weeks. This weeks episode just straight up not happening is also my fault. This year has been hard for everyone for obvious reasons but I unfortunately let some personal issues bleed into and effect my professional work. I thought I was better than that but I guess I can't always be. Ultimately, I'm the one who runs this show. I make the thumbnails, I render every version of every episode, and I do the final edit; so it's my responsibility when things don't go as planned or when things aren't up to snuff. 

The changes we're making, while slight, are for the betterment of the show and I hope you guys enjoy the stuff that's coming, including some of the fun surprise guests we have lined up for the near future. We couldn't do this show without your support and for those who have been here all this time, I speak for everyone here when I say we appreciate it to an unfathomable degree. The world's a shitshow right now, but I'm glad we can counter it with our very own shit show.

Much love, and sincerest apologies
Chris Ray Gun