Fredrik Knudsen

Production Changes and Progress Update

tl;dr: We're starting another (much shorter and easier) Down the Rabbit Hole while we wait for the graphics to be finished on the current one and I'm bringing on potentially permanent help for research. Graphics are coming along steadily and the final orchestration for the current video has begun.

It's been a minute everyone, I hope you've all been well. Work from Ryan (composer) and Arc (graphic designer and animator) has been continuing steadily while I've been preoccupied with...

On Production Times

Hello everyone,

It’s been a minute. Before I get to the meat of this post, let me let you know where we are in the production process for the next Down the Rabbit Hole.

Right now, I’m waiting on Ryan and Arc to finish making the music and the graphics respectively. I’m having regular meetings with both of them to guide them in the right direction while I wait, but progress is steady. The final runtime will be approximately one hour, but it’s going to be a...

Progress Update: 8/9/2024

The narration for the next Down the Rabbit Hole is now fully recorded.

The next step is to take the next afternoon or two to begin editing the narration into the form it will be heard in the video, including the various different interviews that I've conducted with players who were present for the three day long battle.

I and my team have also sat down and gone over the script so that they can plan.

Once this is finished, I'll send them off to Ryan to make t...

The Prince: Chapters 4-6

To avoid spamming everyone, I'll be posting these audiobooks without posting notifications after this one until the more frequent uploading schedule is finished, so please check back to make sure you're not missing them!

-Fredrik

Progress Update: 7/24/24

The final draft of the script for the new Down the Rabbit Hole is now complete.

The next steps are relatively straightforward: once I record the final narration and cut the interviews in with it, Arc can begin taking the assets that he's been making and animate them in time with the descriptions and Ryan can fit the music. Before that, though, we'll all be sitting down together to go over the script and discuss the arc that the music will take, where it will swell and subside and where ...

Progress Update: 7/18/24

THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE SCRIPT IS COMPLETED

Those of you familiar with my process may know that my editing phase tends to be extremely short since I'm rather precise about my first draft, so it should only take another afternoon to have the script ready.

With this done, the next step will be to sit down with Ryan and Arc and make sure that they know exactly what needs to be done. Ryan and I will discuss the arc that we want the music to take and where we want to have it swell and r...

Audiobook: The Prince, Chapters 1-3 by Niccolo Machiavelli

We're behind again! The heat wave made recording rather unbearable and my space would have been unlivable without AC, and so I decided to delay recording. I intend to catch up this week, and I've made the decision to record the entirety of The Prince in full.

There are quite a few Italian names, and I have almost certainly butchered a few of them, so please forgive me. The translation is written in surprisingly plain English, and I hope that you enjoy it regardless of pronunciation diff...

The Doom that Came to Sarnath by H. P. Lovecraft

Another classic from Lovecraft, written almost like an Old Testament tale. Enjoy.

Audiobook: Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson

I discovered this satirical(?) article only recently and absolutely fell in love with it, and I'd like to share it with all of you today. It's about the way that administrative staff have a tendency to always and only grow, and how this effect is achieved.

We are behind on audiobooks, so I'll try to have another up tomorrow to cover last week's! I do not intend to stay behind for long.

Progress Update: 6/20/24

HELLO THERE, it's been a minute!

After the EVE video, while I never stopped working on the next Down the Rabbit Hole, work was relatively slow as I put my life back into order and I've prepared for a rather major life change.

Still, progress is going well! For this next video, I've compiled eight interviews that I'll be using for my video about Foxhole's final siege of The Baths in War 106, an epic struggle that lasted for days straight. Approximately half of the script is complet...

Cool Air by H. P. Lovecraft

Please pardon the abhorrent accent, I promise it only lasts for a few sentences and only once.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I wanted to record something a bit meatier, but I've been a bit ill and lethargic, so I hope this will do.

This is a story from Columbia in the 1960s and features both the peculiarities of magical realism alongside the peculiarities of a country decades in the past, which makes for something that feels like a fever dream.

The Time Machine: Part 1

The first part of The Time Machine, a fascinating novel and a classic.

If I had my way, I would read the entire book for all of you, though it would take a couple of months to complete at this pace. Please tell me your thoughts on the matter in the comments here. (This book gets incredibly weird, I should mention)

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov

Asimov's self-admitted favorite story. It's surreal to think that this author once had cola ads on the same page as his work. It won't be the last time we visit him.

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

Number two of 39.

I should note that the figure 39 includes the new audiobooks that will come due as the months pass, so once that number is reached, I will be properly out of the hole.

I'm taking the opportunity to experiment with EQ and recording methods, so please let me know what you think, if you're so inclined.

Audiobook: The Gernsback Continuum

By my calculations, I will need to record 39 audiobooks to catch up with what I owe. Let's begin here, with a classic from William Gibson about a man experiencing a future that America expected but never was.

Regarding Missing Audiobooks

Hello everyone,

As some of you may have noticed, it's been some time since I've recorded audiobooks. The "audiophile" tier states that I would release an audiobook every month for people pledging at that level, but I have not been meeting that incentive.

This is unacceptable.

My impulse is to rectify this as quickly as possible, but given the amount I use my voice, to spend weeks straight recording audiobooks would wreak havoc on my throat, exhaust me, and c...

"Revitalized" Water | The Warrens

EVE Online Q&A Question Collection

Hey everyone! One thing that I haven't forgotten about is catching up on Patreon rewards, and one of those things is Q&As! If you have a question about the EVE Online Down the Rabbit Hole, leave them here. If a question isn't suitable or we can't answer for one reason or another (sometimes people have spoken to me in confidence), I'll let you know so that you have the opportunity to ask another.

Please leave your question as a comment on this post.

I, Ryan, an...

Progress Update: 3/10/24

Hello everyone! Progress continues steadily on the video. Right now is the most dull part of the video making process from an outside perspective, I believe, since there are few obvious milestones to hit. Rather, it's been a process of building up information and bits of the script.

Despite the lack of milestone markers, this has been an incredibly satisfying episode to research because of all of the interviews I've gotten to have. Recently, I put out a call on Twitter asking for people...

Progress Update: 2/10/24

Hello! I hope everyone had a comfortable holiday. I myself took an extended period with my loved ones, something that was drastically needed after the arduous production of the EVE Online video, but even so, we all have been making progress on the next Down the Rabbit Hole.

Much like the EVE video, and for much the same reasons, the subject has been made public: I've decided to talk about the siege of The Baths in Foxhole's War 106, a fight that lasted for approximately 36 hours straigh...

Limited Collector's Pins Available Early to Patrons

Our limited-run artisan collector's pins are finally ready for sale.

Each one is carefully handmade and plated in 18-karat gold, with an individualized signature machined into the back based upon a unique card that I've signed, which is also included with the pin along with the case sporting Down the Rabbit Hole's iconic rabbit. Suffice it to say, this isn't the kind of piece that's meant to be pinned onto a backpack or bag; this is an artisan piece made with great care and precision, s...

Progress Update: 12/15/23

Hello, all!

Progress on the next Down the Rabbit Hole continues at a good pace. Ryan is already working on the song that will serve as the credits track and will fill space for more action-oriented B-roll; our hope for the video is to try something a little bit different, emulating Ken Burns with a small amount of space on occasion for video and images to tell the story. This will likely mostly take the form of video footage of the battle itself.

To that end, I've contacted quite ...

Next Topic Announcement, Action Plan, and Collector's Pin

We’re approaching four weeks since the release of the video about EVE Online, and in that time, it has accrued nearly 3,000,000 views, blowing past the next most popular release, the WingsofRedemption video, which had 2,500,000 views in the same period. Along with practically every other metric, this new video has exceeded even my most hopeful expectations.

However, there are numerous things with which I’m unsatisfied, primarily the process of produ...

A Post-Mortem of the EVE Online Release

It has now been a week since the release of the new Down the Rabbit Hole on EVE Online, and since then, it has accrued nearly two million views. The only video that has accrued more views in the same amount of time in the channel's history is the video on WingsofRedemption, and not by much, but the watch time has a much wider gulf, as is perhaps to be expected, with the EVE video having 1.3x the watch time.

But what is more meaningful to me is the reception by the EVE community. EVE pla...

EVE Online | Down the Rabbit Hole

Patron Names Closed

As I write this, I am about to add the names of the patrons who have helped support the production of this video to the credits, and once that is completed, I will export it. As such, if you came to this Patreon page hoping to get your name in the credits of the EVE Online video, know that if you pledge now, your name will not be included.

Because of the extraordinary circumstances of this video and in the interest of fairness, I have made the decision to include no...

Changed Release Date to Early Next Week

I am losing my goddamn mind.

Editing has been proceeding steadily, but tediously. The orange lines indicate the section of video where I still have things to resolve, such as highlighting text, adding quoted text, or injecting Arcaxon's animations. Everything before the orange lines is in its finished state and has been completed in the last week.

Astute readers may have already noticed that there are a LOT more pieces of media and volume adjustments to both the audio and visual t...

Estimated Release Date: October 28th

Just wanted to check in and let everyone know that I'm putting the final touches on the video now. After working for a day and some change polishing everything, the first hour and twenty minutes is now in its final state. As of right now, my goal is to have the video released next Saturday. The only impediment I can foresee is YouTube causing me grief or struggling with rendering issues in Sony Vegas. I'll keep you all apprised.

-Fredrik

Progress Update: 10/7/23

Fredrik: This is it, what is likely to be our final progress update for our Down the Rabbit Hole on EVE Online. What's left for me to do is straightforward; once all of the finishing touches are done and Arc's animations are applied, I'll be running it through YouTube's monetization and unreliable copyright algorithms to make sure that there are no problems, and if all is well, we'll send it live.

I'll admit, there's a bit of melancholy seeing such a la...