Fredrik Knudsen

Progress Update: 1/27/23

Oh god, I have miscalculated.

When I gave an estimate of five hours, I knew that it was a conservative estimate, but I undershot more than I thought. This week, Ryan showed me the total length of what he's completed so far for this episode, and it comes out to five hours.

However, those five hours only encompass the first 24 sections. This video will be 27 sections long, not including the introduction and credits, and the longest section by far is in the final three. This means th...

Progress Update: 1/20/23

Hello everyone!

Unfortunately, progress on my end has hit a bit of a snag. I'm waiting to hear back from a few people on the script before I can confidently continue recording. If all goes according to plan, I should be able to continue on Monday.

However, Ryan's making good progress on the music; he's currently making the rough draft for section 24 of 27, and it's sounding beautiful, as always.

Not a whole lot else to report, but thank you all for hanging on while we clear ...

Progress Update: 1/13/23

The recording of the final narration has begun.

The first hour and ten minutes is finished, and while I had to throw out a lot of the early recording and re-record to get the tone just right, the process is proving much easier than in the past in part thanks to my new condenser microphone (an Audio Technica AT4033a, for those curious). With my old microphone, I was forced to speak directly into it to get the tone that I wanted, but now, I can have it just to the side, almost entirely mi...

Progress Update: 1/6/23

Script editing is complete.

However, there are still just a couple more things to be done to the script before I can call it truly complete. I have a few more people with whom I need to review the script. Unfortunately one of them is feeling under the weather, and so it will be a few days before I can cap it off. However, while I wait, I can begin recording the final narration for the first two and a half hours.

Editing only saw a few hundred words added to the script, but I'll be...

Progress Update: 12/30/22

Apologies for the updates so late in the day, I'm a bit of a night owl and tend to work in the evenings and at night.

The good news is that the script is mostly edited now! I've been pleasantly surprised with the second half of the first draft, which has required surprisingly few edits; this isn't entirely surprising, given how close my first drafts are to my final drafts, but this is a standout example of that habit. However, I can't call it complete and start recording until sometime ...

Progress Update: 12/23/22

Merry Christmas!

I've been taking the Christmas week a bit easy, but I did manage to get some editing done. I decided to edit one of the final sections first so that I could meet with people to discuss it.

I've just gotten done sitting down with Asher, the current leader of the Imperium and fleet commander during the war, to go over the section about the most recent war, and I'm negotiating a time to meet with ProGodLegend, leader of TEST Alliance during the war, as well. I've als...

Progress Update 12/16/22

Yes, the announcement of the completion of the rough draft was two days ago, but I did say I'd give an update every Friday! This one will just be short.

After grinding out the last of the script, I gave myself a short break and just recorded the rough draft of two of the last three sections for Ryan. As I've been writing this script, Ryan has been writing music along with it that will be edited to fit the final draft once the recording is completed. This means that I won't have to wait ...

Progress Update and Addressing the Delays

tl;dr The first draft of the new script for Down the Rabbit Hole is completed. Updates will happen every Friday evening until release. I don’t have a release date, but it will take at least another month for everything to be completed.

Long Version:

The first draft of the new video is completed, and the final word count is approximately 50,000. (For reference, this is about as long as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Great Gatsby, or Slaughterhouse Fi...

Progress Update: 10/17/2022

Hey everyone! Obviously September proved to be optimistic for the release date of the new video. However, progress is continuing at a solid pace; the script is currently at 39,000 words and I have a bit more to cover. (We're about to exceed what is usually considered novella-length, which is 40,000 words)

For those of you who are a bit more EVE-savvy, I've just finished writing about the Casino War (or World War Bee as it's more formally known) but I'll be moving through the rest of EVE...

Progress Update: 8/16/22

Hello there!

Progress continues to chug along. This will be a short progress update, as I simply want all of you to know that I'm hoping to finish the script by the end of next week. Music continues to be concepted as I write the script, as is the graphic design work, meaning a much shorter interval between finishing the script and the release of the video. We're now looking at a final release in the first half of next month.

Thank you all for being so patient; it's been a difficu...

Progress Update: 5/27/22

Earlier this month, I and my team had the opportunity to screen the first two and a half hours of the new Down the Rabbit Hole at EVE Fanfest. We had to crunch a bit to create something ready for viewing, but we were able to have it presentable just in time in a rough state.

The screening was, as you might expect, a stressful experience; we were showing a work-in-progress to who would certainly be our harshest critics: long-time players and fans of the game. But to my relief, it was rec...

Progress Update: 4/22/22

Hello everyone! I just spent the last five hours recording final narration for the new Down the Rabbit Hole. Right now, the narration for the first two hours and fifteen minutes has been recorded which will be debuted as a sneak-peek in Reykjavik. (We originally wanted to share the first three hours, but we faced a significant setback late in production that set us far behind) I and the team are scrambling to have things ready for our trip in the first week of May.

The focus of the vide...

Progress Update: 3/16/22

Hello everyone!

I have made a significant miscalculation. When I first announced the video, I mentioned that it would likely be at least three hours in length. This was a purposefully conservative estimate made knowing that it might end up being longer. I assumed that it could possibly be closer to four hours. But now that we're so deep into the script, I'm realizing that this video will likely be longer than five hours to capture everything that I hope to share.

...

Progress Update: 3/12/22

WE LIVE.

Progress has been continuous but nondescript; I continue plugging away at this monster of a script, which has reached just over 22,000 words now, Ryan continues working on the music, and Arc continues work on the graphics that will be used throughout the video.

The release window is still looking to be early May. I mentioned earlier in the production process that it was looking to be over 3 hours, but it is now obvious that it will exceed 4 hours. Right now, I can't say t...

SNEAK PEEK at the new Down the Rabbit Hole

This Saturday, on February 12th, at 1:00pm PST, I'll be entering the voice channel of the Down the Rabbit Hole Discord server to share some of the writing from the rough draft of the script for the new Down the Rabbit Hole video.

As of right now, the script is about 16,500 words long, and will likely be 40,000 words long once completed. While I'm aiming for an early May debut, I understand that it's been a long time coming, and I'd like to share some of the w...

The Four-Month Plan

I've spent quite some time fumbling about in EVE Online, trying to get my bearings and learning about the gradual evolution of the game, the company, and the community. I've been writing script, Ryan has already created the skeletons of many of the tracks, and Arcaxon is working on the templates that will be reused throughout the whole video.

But now that we have a deadline of May 6th, I have enacted The Plan.

It begins with finishing the rough draft. From the beginning, I have pl...

Progress Update: 12/22/21

Progress on the new Down the Rabbit Hole has begun to hit a steady rhythm now that the core research is finished. As I write more rough draft script, I record rough audio and send it to Ryan, who begins writing rough music that can be altered and fit as needs be. His enthusiasm when I send him new pieces of the script is extremely encouraging. I was worried that the beginning of the video might be a bit slow, but as I write, I realize just how fascinating it is from the outset. At this rate, ...

DtRH RELEASE WINDOW: Progress Update: 12/15/21

Right now, myself, Ryan, and Arc are all focusing on our individual parts while we continue work. This, for me, is the difficult part: taking all of the information I've gathered and putting it into a script. This is often an arduous process, obsessively referring back to my sources to make sure that I make as few errors as possible, though I'll also have other people to look over the script once it's finished, something I haven't had before.

Most importantly for all of you, however, I ...

Progress Update: 11/30/21

(Almost) season's greetings!

While I'm still away, I've found time to get work on the new Down the Rabbit Hole done. Recently, I've been digging into old posts and discussion on one of the most significant wars in the history of EVE: the Casino War. This war, which started as a small-scale dispute between an Imperium alliance and a casino that ran on in-game currency, evolved into a war that included the largest alliances in nullsec and dramatically changed the dynamic of power for year...

Progress Update: 11/17/21

I LIVE!

Apologies for my long bout of silence, I have been preparing to go on a long trip. While I won't have access my normal workstation, I've invested in equipment to bring with me so that I can continue to work.

While I'm still performing research, I'm now in the scripting phase of development. The scripting process for this video will be quite different; this time, rather than writing the script from start to finish, I'm writing certain parts as I research them. Right now, I'...

Moby Dick by Herman Melville: Chapters 1 and 2

Upon revisiting Moby Dick, Ishmael is a rather insufferable character, and I can't tell how much of it is the character and how much is Melville; maybe some of you can help me decide.

The Rocket by Ray Bradbury

Compared to the other stories in The Illustrated Man, and even on its own, this is a remarkably cute piece of sci-fi. Please enjoy.

This should have been posted in July, so please enjoy the sudden rush of audiobooks as I catch up before the end of the month.

June Audiobook: The Four Fists by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is where I apologize for getting so behind on audiobooks. I'll be taking the next few weeks to catch up on them.

#1 in Audiobook Catch-Up is a lovely little parable by the author F. Scott Fitzgerald, best known for some of his writing including The Great Gatsby and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Sometimes, a person of decent character needs a solid blow to the jaw to realize when he's wrong.

Standout quote: "Snobbishness is, after all, merely good breeding grown dictato...

Progress Update: 8/31/21

Spoiler Warning

Hello everyone, apologies for the belated progress update. Much has been done since I last wrote.

First, I've managed to speak with a number of people about the history and current state of EVE Online. Just this morning, I spoke with someone who performs margin trading in Jita, the trade hub of New Eden, buying and selling large quantities of goods. It's fascinating to hear about the way that the market has sprung up and created jobs like this, whe...

Down the Rabbit Hole Progress Update: 8/14/21

SPOILER WARNING

Hello again, everyone. Progress continues relatively smoothly in terms of research.

I mentioned in my last progress update that I had begun playing EVE, but I didn't spend terribly much time discussing what I was doing and how I've been learning.

While I was enjoying myself as a high-security miner for a little while, I quickly recognized that if I was going to make this video in a reasonable amount of time, I would need to dedicate myself to...

Progress Update: 7/21/21

SPOILER WARNING

As I mentioned before, the progress updates during this research cycle are going to be much more frequent. I'm aiming for weekly updates, since I'll be able to share a lot more about what I'm learning and what I'm doing due to the public nature of the topic.

As I've mentioned before, the new video is going to be about EVE Online, and while I've stated publicly that it will be at least three hours long, I expect it to be significantly longer, though...

State of Down the Rabbit Hole

With the release of the new Down the Rabbit Hole about the Battle of May Island, I thought that now would be a good time to speak to all of you about the state of the show, how the development process has changed over the past few videos, and the plans for me and my team going forward.

The first order of business is to reiterate what I announced just yesterday on Twitter: the topic of the next Down the Rabbit Hole is EVE Online, the now-18-year-old MMO game responsible for some of the g...

The Battle of May Island | Down the Rabbit Hole

Progress Update: 6/2/21

New release estimate for the next Down the Rabbit Hole is early next week.

Arcaxon is now finished with the graphic design, and it was absolutely worth the extra waiting time for him to finish. I've shown his work to a few people and the consensus is that his work looks excellent and acts precisely as the clarifying factor that this topic needs.

Vex, the person responsible for the illustrations that have appeared in the last two videos, is also just about done with their art, whic...

Down the Rabbit Hole has Reached 1,000,000 Subscribers

Thank you all for supporting me through these four and a half years and for helping me make Down the Rabbit Hole the way I want to.