Is PACKED.
Hey everybody!
Sorry I've been missing updates and things lately, guys. This series has been an absolute bear. Between sickness and losing a few weeks to re-writes, I'm pushing my sponsorship deadlines quite a bit at this point, which means I'm working pretty much night and day to get this thing done.
The good news? We're in visual production as of tomorrow.
The bad n... 2019-04-10 21:18:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Heyo, Foundry maintenance crew!
Apologies for not mentioning this earlier in the week—I've just been hard at work wrapping up the writing for the Pratchett series so we can swing into video production mode! Nevertheless, if I have an opportunity to get you nerds together in one place to chat, I absolutely will.
So, join me in the Forge tonight if you want to join in on some pre-emptive worldbuilding for the forthcoming short story at the end of the Pratchett series!
2019-04-05 20:13:07 +0000 UTC
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Heyo, maintenance crew!
As I wrap up this Pratchett script, I actually have something else on my mind. Something that's proved a problem since I first decided I wanted to discuss myth, legend, and folklore on the show forever ago.
I don't quite know how to approach it.
And I don't actually have a solution in this Patreoncast, but I do present some of the hurdles. Now the question is, how shall I approach these topics in the future with all the depth and bro...
2019-04-04 21:00:22 +0000 UTC View PostAlright, all y'all helpful humans. I've learned my lesson.
Never again with a list this long. At least not when the subject matter is as densely-populated with brilliant ideas and concepts as Terry Pratchett's work. Honestly, just choosing what to put into the outline was a several-day-long task.
That said, I've got some news about the Pratchett series and some other exciting things beside.
Let's chat about it, shall we?
Where are we now? 2019-04-04 00:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, foundry maintenance crew!
Phew. This Pratchett series has been a task and a half, but aren't they all? This week I discuss how the process for deciding what content I can make for the show changes based on the subject matter of the series at hand, and specifically, how this affected my work on the Pratchett series.
There've been more changes than usual as I've gone through the production process for these videos, which means they've definitely taken longer to scrip...
2019-03-29 03:14:14 +0000 UTC View PostGood (2 hours after) Monday, foundry Maintenance Crew!
I hope you're all off to the right start this week. I myself... well, I'd say I'm getting there. The "there" in question being... the right start. Which implies I haven't started yet. Which is a convenient way of saying that I'm not quite where I'd like to be so far this week, but when are you ever, really?
There's much to be done, but as always, the gap between ignition and completion draws...
2019-03-26 07:09:35 +0000 UTC View PostHeyo, helpful humans! Before I post the progress update for today, there's something I've been meaning to ask all of you.
I see the Patreon and the TF community as a living, ever-changing organism. I just wanna nurse it and make sure it (that is, all of you) is as happy and healthy as it can be. This requires pretty frequent check-ins to make sure that either we're doing things right, or that there's something we can be doing better.
On Patreon, that often means adjusting...
2019-03-25 22:17:58 +0000 UTC View PostHeyo!
Just a reminder that we have a Forge Session beginning on the Discord server in just a little over 30 minutes! Find all the details here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/25522257
—Benji
Heyo, helpful humans!
My return from illness hasn't been half as glorious as I'd been hoping, but that's how these things go, isn't it? Still, the progress chugs along and there are videos on the way!
—Benji
Hello, Foundry Maintenance Crew!
It's time! A few weeks back, I'd planned to dedicate a Forge session to brainstorming all the delicious details of the forthcoming Pratchett short story, but... things happened. To be short, pneumonia was an enlightening experience.
I'm doing a lot better now th...
2019-03-21 06:15:06 +0000 UTC View PostPhew. Alright. It's happened again.
I spent the day working on the script for the Pratchett list, and realized that it just... wasn't very fun, nor very interesting. I felt like I was kind of missing the spirit of Pratchett in this series.
The reason for this is that I've been so laser-focused on the technical aspects of Pratchett's voice, I've been trying to carry it over into the list video. And I just... can't. It feels like there's no good way to spend an entire...
2019-03-20 03:10:59 +0000 UTC View PostHeyo, foundry maintenance crew!
The last week was a doozy. I'm not sure I've ever been quite so sick in my life. But at last, the phantoms of illness have left my side and taken their miasma of noxious fever with them. I am once again whole... for the most part.
The most exciting thing about this, to me, is that I can finally get on with my work. Even so, recovery's a slow process and I'm still not quite functioning at 100%. Last night, for instance, I was up until 5am wi...
2019-03-19 07:10:03 +0000 UTC View PostHelpful humans! I have... weird... news.
Good news, but weird.
A few days ago, without a word to me, without allowing me the opportunity to reapply for monetization eligibility, Youtube silently re-monetized all of the videos on the channel. Even some videos I had never monetized in the past.
This thing is? I don't think I want Google Ad Revenue.
Money is good. It allows us to do cool things with the show. That said, I've manually de-...
2019-03-19 02:03:29 +0000 UTC View PostHeyo, Foundry Maintenance crew!
Great news! I'm well enough to be writing again, which means production has started back up! I'm actually writing up the episode script at this very moment, although something in the process has given me pause.
I'm referencing three examples of voices Pratchett uses in the book Guards! Guards!, and the excerpts I'm using are actually quite long—maybe a half-page each, as printed in the book.
So, here's my question to all of you:
Hello, Tale Foundry Maintenance Crew!
Seeing as I've been sick, there's not much I've been able to do in terms of production lately. With any luck I'll be back on that horse soon enough. But in the meantime, something I can do: get well and prepared for what's to come.
So, let's square away what we'll be doing after Pratchett so that I can get cracking in the downtime alongside producing Pratchett.
This is your moment! Have at it!
Heyo, helpful humans!
If you've got a bookmark coming to you and you didn't buy it directly from the store (as in, you unlocked it by signing up at the $10 tier during February or got it for free automatically from being at the $100 tier), then I have some slightly obnoxious news...
I've been trying to wrap things up with the bookmarks and get them sent out for a good long while now, but I haven't heard back from our merchandiser until today. Someone I was corresponding w...
2019-03-13 00:15:41 +0000 UTC View PostHello, Tale Foundry maintenance cr—*cough hack sputter gag*
...
Alright, so there's not much to report in terms of progress at the moment, as I'm still dirty sick. I've been running a fever since Thursday evening last week, and today's the first time I've really been out of bed since.
Things have actually gotten quite a bit worse, but it was this turn that drove me toward what looks like will be the solution.
Let me elaborate... 2019-03-12 08:46:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, maintenance crew! 'Fraid I've got some bad news today.
I'm writing this from my bed, in the cocoon of blankets and fever and gross, unshowered bleariness that comes with illness. Benji is very, very sick.
Came out of nowhere and suckerpunched me at Starbucks yesterday. I thought it might be caffeine withdrawal at first, but later that night I developed a fever that went up to ~102 and stayed there for maybe 5 hours before falling again.
Now, day two, it's looking like...
2019-03-08 21:28:10 +0000 UTC View PostHello, Foundry maintenance crew!
Barely three days until the next Forge session! I'm fairly certain this'll be the last session we spend on Pratchett, so let's make it count and try to figure out what exactly we're doing with this short story, shall we?
When: Friday, March 8th, 6:30-7:30pm CST
Where: The Ta... 2019-03-07 05:38:34 +0000 UTC View Post
G'monday, maintenance crew!
The "maintenance crew" thing is kind of a new development. I'm trying it out, and it just seems to... fit. It's sticking in my mind. What do you guys think of it? You are a bunch of helpful humans and engineers, after all.
More to the point, I've been hard at work incorporating all the new goals you guys have unlocked for the show! Things are sliding into place, and soon we're going to step into a new phase of Tale Foundry production.
What a time ...
2019-03-05 01:42:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Heyo, helpful humans!
A... little late on the draw with this one. Deep apologies there. I've been a zombie lately, trying to get everything back in order after London. Timeliness is not generally among my virtues.
But, things are looking up here! Despite some minor hiccups, the Pratchett series is coming along quite nicely, and we're finally carving out a proper space for Felipe on the team. The coming months should be excellent indeed.
—Benji
2019-03-02 18:12:50 +0000 UTC View PostHello, helpful humans!
The time has come! It's March 1st, and as promised, we're officially taking the bookmarks off the shelf never to be seen again. Thank you so much to all the new patrons who joined over the last month and all the old patrons who gobbled the bookmarks up. I can't imagine how this could have gone any better.
We're going to begin sending bookmarks out tomorrow, so this is your chance to make sure that:
Hello, Helpful Humans, Engineers, and Artificers of the foundry!
It's a ways off yet, but better it's so much better to get a head-start on these things. So, weeks in advance, we're going to dedicate the whole session to figuring out what we want to see most in the forthcoming Terry Pratchett short story, what jokes we can make, what symbols absolutely need to be represented, etc., etc.
These story discussions are often the best of all, so I'm gonna say here and now that...
2019-02-27 19:30:41 +0000 UTC View PostG'monday, foundry maintenance crew!
Things are chugging along. It's been a bit of a slog getting back into the rhythm of work after Vidcon London, but at last, here we are, trudging ever onward to our glorious destiny.
It may not sound like a lot's happened since the last progress update, but anyone who was there for yesterday's Forge session can probably tell you, that's largely because a lot of this is a cloudy, highly-abstract mess that really boils down to the a lot of brow-fu...
2019-02-25 23:58:40 +0000 UTC View PostJust trying to get a feel for what works best for our community!
NOTE: comments matter a great deal on this matter! We're trying most of all to cater the times to our most active/involved community members.
—Benji
2019-02-24 23:52:37 +0000 UTC View PostHurry up and hop in! We'll be talking about the scripts I'm presently working on, as well as my trip to London!
Details here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/forge-pratchett-24881011
2019-02-24 19:29:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Vidcon London was a fascinating experience for a lot of reasons.
Chief among them?
I felt at home.
It's hard to explain what it's like to move from relative isolation to a subculture of people who share your interests and passions, but I gave it a shot in this Patreoncast. I hope this was an interesting little retrospective of my feelings coming out of the trip, and you can definitely expect more details on all of this in the future.
For now, it's back to readjus...
2019-02-23 09:24:35 +0000 UTC View PostWith little warning or context, I'd like to announce that we're having a forge session this Sunday.
Sorry to catch you all off guard; this is something I wanted to announce on Wednesday, but it's been utter chaos reclaiming my daily routine after London. I see this (and the imminent late upload of the Patreoncast) as symptoms of that.Another quick note: Rather than the usual time of 6:30pm CST on Friday, we're going to experiment with 1:30pm CST on Sunday. 2019-02-22 15:29:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Out of our entire stock, only 50 bookmarks remain! After that, they'll never be available again!
For all of you existing Patrons who are interesting in buying a bookmark (or another one if you really want to jazz up your bookshelf), now's the time! As a bonus, if you buy a bookmark from the link below, you'll get it a bit quicker than everybody else (the rest ship March 1st)!
2019-02-21 05:54:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Well, here I am at last, sitting in the London City Airport waiting to return to my life. It feels like so much has happened over the last week, and I know I'm gonna have a heck of a time articulating all of it.
I can't tell you everything here and now, but I want to soon. I want to find the words for everything I experienced. I want to share as much of it with you as I can.
Soon.
For now, let's talk a bit about the advent of my return and the future of the Foundry... 2019-02-18 18:25:43 +0000 UTC View Post