November Update (BCS video and Thunderbolts Progress)

 Hey Hey Hey

 While I’ve had less out than I wanted, I’m reaching the end of the year with a good productive feeling thanks to a lot of long held ideas finally getting realised. It’s been an extremely busy couple of months and there’s been a lot of good and exciting news behind the scenes, so I just want to get into all that before the overall wrap-up post at the end of this year.

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 As you might have seen yesterday, the Better Call Saul follow up video I’d been planning was finally released, and while it’s not shot off the way my other recent content has (nostalgia for cartoon content and Longform retrospectives is way hotter right now, just as well I have some in the pipeline) personally I’ve been moved by the way people have reacted so far. I love BCS so very much and was really worried I’d made a very boring video, not quite finding the flair/rhythm I wanted to cover the sound the way I felt I managed last time and also trying to skirt my way around copyright bots, which lead to it being delayed a day as I went through multiple test uploads until it finally told me it was clear (I’ll get into that in another post at some point.)

  It was a really fraught process I didn’t have a lot of confidence in, but someone in the comments put out a new perspective when they said they liked it because they felt I worded it like a eulogy. I suddenly realised this was so much more appropriate than what I’d initially envisioned and now, having rewatched it, I’m much prouder that it conveys what I was clearly feeling in comparison to my other recent videos. I’m sorry it took so long, but maybe it needed to be this way.

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 In the meantime I have been hard at work on The Real Thunderbolts Story’s first episode because, yes, the dialogue for that is now 100% recorded and complete. Pretty much as soon as I got it and edited all the audio into the timeline I started experimenting with the look and, friends, things have gotten a little bit extra. 

 I should really set this up first- as with the Fantastic Four video, we have a number of isolated scenes from the comics dubbed by the actors in-between the analysis where I show the respective panels, sometimes with pans and zooms or movements just to make them feel alive and, I’ll be honest with you, it was feeling really limited. The actors were bringing stuff to the performances I wasn’t able to do justice to that way and honestly, I felt like I could do better. So, I began trying some new things out, and, well, I got very, very carried away. 

 I’m not going to tell you exactly what I’ve done yet, I’d like that to be a surprise, but I think this video has now become something even better than I planned, and without seeming insurmountable. Despite being a lot of extra work stretching into the rest of the episodes, I’ve already assembled about half the scenes in three weeks or so of solid work, which means we are still well on track to have them all done long before the movie comes out. I’m not convinced everyone will love this change- if you liked the amateur charm of the old video this might bother you a bit- but I’m still trying to give the video a textured, hand crafted look to avoid that sort of typical motion comic feel, so hopefully it will pay off in the end. My only hope is, if people like it, it might inspire others to help me on future episodes, because it is all just me right now and it’d be nice to share the workload.

 The last real steps of this episode after those scenes are done will be to focus on my analysis sections which will be a lot easier to edit, as well as continue working with the artists providing their contributions as well. We also, as I’ve probably alluded to, are arranging a group recording session with the main cast for the final episode which I will be documenting as we go. I have no idea if this is going to work, but I’m quite excited to get even more of these wonderful people together to close out something I have been thinking about for probably way, way too long now. 

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 Anyway! Thank you all once again for your continued support, which again has been instrumental in allowing this to happen. It’s been a tough year but Patreon has been invaluable in ensuring the quality of this new series can be maintained and I’m really hoping you’ll see your investment pay off in a big way when the first episode lands next year. I’ll be back at the end of December to talk about my plans and wrap up everything discussed so far, so until then, take care of yourselves and have a wonderful Christmas, or at least a really good rest, because boy, we need it.

 -B