NEW VIDEO & CHANGEOVER ANNOUNCEMENT

Woooosh!

Pretend I just swung in on a rope from offscreen. Wow! How’d he do that?

First off, I’m uploading the War on Christmas Measured Response right now. It’ll be in the next post! I realised I wasn’t going to finish it for last Christmas, so I took a proper break to spend more time with my family and then went all out on making it the best video I could possibly make, and I’m really pleased with how it worked out. While I was making it I learned a lot of lessons about how I want to cover highly-politicised topics going forward. What started out as a more simple piece intended to be done by Christmas turned into a long journey of discovery, learning how to present data meaningfully, give more well-rooted critique of the economics behind right-wing ideology, and make a cartoon of Dennis Prager’s head that spins around. I feel more powerful for having taken this time.

I'm releasing it for Patrons, and the rest of the world will see it at the end of this year. For some reason I take a sick pleasure in releasing a Christmas video an entire Christmas late, lol - it’s also very funny to me that the video that got me to learn so many new tricks will come out months after the videos that benefit from it.

Secondly, in December I wrote here about considering switching to monthly on Patreon, instead of using the current per-video system, since I think I would benefit creatively from the push of committing to getting things done on a more consistent schedule. The comments on that post and the messages I've received over it were really positive and encouraging, so I've decided to make the switch this February.

But to make that change, I wanted to make sure I could actually go faster. As things were, I had to create almost every aspect of every video, which hasn’t been sustainable for me and often made it very hard to predict how long anything would take. As of last week, I’ve hired a project manager/producer to ensure the process is running smoothly and help me keep track of everything. I’m also going to bring on more people for art and research, which normally takes the most time for me. This frees me up to dive more deeply into the writing and editing, which are my favourite parts. With the benefit of this, I can make more videos, and do it more quickly. My goal is to make at least twice as many videos as I did last year. That’s about four more videos. Wow, I know!

This also frees me up to focus more on the patron-only content that people have been asking for, SUCH AS:

• Shorter Original Videos: I’ve wanted to make shorter videos, on more esoteric topics or things that couldn’t sustain a full video, but when I was working per-video on my own I was always struggling to get the main videos out, and I didn't feel I could justify charging anyone for the time, so these got pushed to the wayside, and furthermore the youtube algorithm seemed to punish making those kinds of shorter things when other people tried them - so making these types of videos now, just for patrons, would be really fun.
• Video Commentaries: I wanted to go through and review my older videos, where I talk about the choices I made, my mistakes, and my “””process.””” -- like commentary tracks, but with more effort and additional visuals. I have a lot of thoughts about what I could have done differently and what the changing intended impact of my work has been, and I think it’d be useful to share that.
• Behind-the-scenes Material: I’ll show the filming process of more complex videos, outtakes, and why I made some of the effects and editing choices-- like with the making of Serious Lore Analysis: Control Alt Delete. Making more videos faster also means there’s more material like this to show off, and the extra help gives me time to polish these up!
• Weird Shit: Hey, remember when I tried the Sonic face mask, or ate Sonic curry? I like making weird nonsense for fun, because honestly that’s what I do with my free time. I might even try things that aren’t Sonic related.

I’m aiming for at least one of these per month. My producer is telling me not to set expectations too high and say I’ll do more than that, but I really wanna do them so I’m going to try. With my improved process and time management skills I have time to really explore these without losing focus on my channel’s main videos.

Speaking of which, the RWBY video is well under way! While I’m aiming for late March, I’m tracking down some ex-employees to interview and animators to help me showcase animation techniques better than I could alone. This might make it take longer, but I think it’ll really help the project.

Oh and I really love the feedback you fine folks have given me through comments on the Master List of video ideas. People have been chiming in with their own thoughts about what videos I should be doing next, and even filled in the blank spaces at the bottom with entirely new suggestions. It really fills me with energy knowing what people want to see and having it all collected in one organised space. I really can’t wait to make all of these! 

In conclusion, I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’m going to hang up now. I love you - as a friend though. Goodbye~~