An Update On The Finale And Videos And All That

Hey everyone! We're already more than a month into 2022 so I thought I was overdue to check in and update you all on what's happening. You all probably know by now that I'm very bad at relaxing and taking time off, but I want to assure you anyway that I'm not, like, putting the Patreon money into a month-long spa vacation.

The season finale is very close to being finished. Seriously. I mean it. I took January off from regular videos just to focus on this. We've been in this weird period for a while where I'm really anxious to get to all the videos we have planned for next season...but also we can't do that until the finale is out. So I have to keep pushing those back and in the meantime figuring out more small videos to make in the meantime.

Anyway here are some finale updates:

-One week ago we shot the final remaining part - a part that's extremely different from the rest of the movie, that's partly animated, and that has been in the works since last August. I think it's going to be incredible, and that's because the vast majority of it was made by other people who are extremely talented. Here's a tiny preview:

-There were a few props needed for some insert shots that I had been struggling to build myself for months, and finally I realized I should just hire this really talented guy from my hometown who specializes in this stuff, and happens to be going to college right in my neighborhood. He did amazing work and now I'm just sad these props only get to be onscreen for like 3 seconds apiece.

-We did Chloe's ADR session last week. I'm going to do mine tomorrow.

-The score by Brian Metolius is sounding AMAZING, and yes, it will be available to listen to when the finale is released.

-We locked down a design for the opening titles that I really love, and they're being animated now.

-My apartment is a mess of props and equipment all over the place since something I've realized is that as you edit a project with such an absurd number of moving pieces, you realize you need various little insert shots to make scenes work - closeups of objects or phones, things to make information clearer or establish a setting. I've learned a hell of a lot making this thing.

-I spent 3 days last week doing screen replacement compositing for one scene because I (an idiot), decided to have a TV in half the shots in the scene). And a few days before that I spent hours making a spinning newspaper gag where I wrote the entire article on the front page of the paper that will only be onscreen for five seconds because inevitably people will pause and screenshot that moment. So if you've wondered why this thing is taking so long...this is why. As much as we have a lot of really skilled people working on this, a lot of it is just being done by me.

Right now we're in the fun part of post-production where every day I'm receiving pieces from the various people working on this - music and color grades and sound mixes and VFX shots and animation and graphics. All these people working on this are way better at all those things than me and seeing each new piece click into place is so exciting. Every time I get one of these pieces and drop it into the edit, the finale feels more like a real thing.

Up next in the process we pretty much just keep chugging along as we are now: locking sequences, getting the sound and color and music done, taking care of all the many green screen shots of Charl. Then once that's finished, I'll show the cut to the core team and we'll refine it and figure out how to improve it. And then we release it.

As for what's coming up beyond the finale, here's what I can tell you:

We have new videos coming up soon. There's one completely written already that will probably be an hour long  (it's slightly different from the regular videos). And I'm actively working on the two videos that will come after that. Exactly when these will be released, and the order in which they'll be released, depends on the release of the finale, but I'm excited about this stuff and I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

I have a general plan for most of the video topics for the new season. Without spoiling anything, I think we have a lot of fun ones, some I've been thinking about for years. And yes, the Zack Snyder video is finally happening this year.

We're bringing more people onto the team for next season and I'm really excited about them. It will make my life a bit easier, and will definitely make the videos better. More on that when the new season starts.

And now, here's a question for you: what would you like to see on this Patreon?

This has mostly just functioned as a way to help support the channel and what we're doing, and you get your name in the credits and sometimes I do a live stream Q&A. And maybe it will just continue that way! And I've said before that as much as I love the idea of having exclusive bonus stuff here, I just do not have time to make anything beyond the videos (I've even stepped away from podcasting this past year because of a lack of time).

I've been watching this huge wave of comic book creators going over to Substack, and the different ways they're each approaching it. Obviously, a lot of them are releasing original comics there, but they're also doing things like weekly newsletters, behind-the-scenes stuff talking about process, etc. So I was wondering: is that something that makes sense for me to do here? I might not have time to make bonus videos but I could spare a few minutes each week to write a little newsletter about what I've been watching/reading, info about videos in progress, or...whatever.

So this is where I open the floor up to you folks. What would you like? What are you interested in? Are you perfectly happy sending your few bucks a month with sporadic updates from me about what I'm up to?

Please let me know! I don't want to radically overhaul the Patreon or anything, I'm just always trying to figure out better ways to do stuff.

Okay...I'm gonna make a pizza and then get back to compositing yet another green screen Charl shot (there are so many of these jesus christ I'm exhausted)