March Update

Hi everyone!

Just thought I should check in before the month was done. It’s been good getting back into the swing of making videos and I’ve still got a few promises to fulfil next month, so I’ll be getting into where I’m at with those, though not before talking a little about the most recent video. So, let’s do that!

My Old Embarrassing Videos

I’d been going through an old hard drive looking at some of my old work and discovered, remarkably, almost all of the files from my early forum days were pretty much there. One or two things were missing, but I guess I was just really bad at deleting stuff. At first I did some general housekeeping, the files were saved all over the place and I went about putting them all in the correct folders, and as I did I thought huh, I haven’t told anyone about this for a long time. Maybe that should be a video.

Originally this was going to be a Notes on project. I’m always looking for something short that could go between my big videos and this didn’t take long to write, given I was intimate with the history and had all the files ready to go. When I sat down to voice it though, I suddenly realised this wasn’t working, I couldn’t talk about all the things I did back then in a short, casual way. So right on the spot I rewrote the entire thing and went straight back in to record. For some reason I felt much happier with that, and when it came to editing I felt very liberated, especially after Psychonauts 2, getting to make fun of myself, playing fast and loose with the edits on stuff I got to revisit after so many years (some of those out of context cutaways were pure accidents. I spent most of the editing time deciding what to use and found myself free styling a lot in the process, felt real good.) I guess this was, going by the response, the right decision.

It’s been crazy seeing how people reacted to this one. For me this was my chance to air my dirty laundry, earn some closure, and move on. I wanted everyone to know about a period of my life I’d been quiet about for a long time just because I thought it reflected badly on me. Instead people told me it was one of their favourites, that they found it funny, inspiring, heartwarming, and most importantly, emblematic of everyone’s shared experience on the early internet. This was not intended! I saw some brilliant observations about how the video actually detailed the intentions of everyone on YouTube in a way that reflected on what’s happening now- where people used to make stuff not for the algorithm or to bait audiences with crappy titles and thumbnails or even for the content grind but because they just wanted to. It’s not often that I make a video and the response changes my view of something in such a big way, but to everyone who contributed to that, thank you, it’s made me feel a lot more proud of something I initially treated as a throwaway project. It’s actually made me reflect on the Notes on video title as maybe something that isn’t working, because these short videos keep ballooning into big projects. Going to have to reconsider how that one works.

Now, the million dollar question is, will I release those old videos online?

I can see an enthusiastic response, and I get it, but there’s a few caveats. The video had an intense response but the views have been low. I don’t know if I’m yet willing to release a bunch of videos that I’m frankly still embarrassed by that I haven’t had a chance to edit around when, statistically, only about 100 people are asking for them. That might seem like a big number but I have 60,000 subscribers who didn’t weigh in on that, and some people in the comments even thought I was bragging, which really tells me they haven’t been in the animation industry!

I just don’t know. The other problem is that if I did it, I’d need to decide what channel they would end up on, how much I should edit around, if all the people involved are comfortable with the full breadth of that stuff being available. Most are very okay with this video, but I don’t know if the full releases would get the same response. Plus, I really did show you guys the best stuff. I wanted to make a monument to all that work and I’ve done that, and I’d like the focus to remain on that for at least a little while longer, while I move on to other stuff.

I’m not saying definitely no because I don’t think the book should be closed on the subject, you never know what might happen. But I will say that I’m just not yet comfortable or settled on those plans. I think demand would have to be extremely high for me to relent- but what I will probably do as minor compensation is put out a couple of things on my socials like screenshots and stuff as well as an article or two here detailing more behind the scenes stuff from that time. I feel like you guys have gone the extra mile to support my content, so I feel much more inclined to share stuff with you that way. So, things may change, they probably will change, but for now, well, I’d like to keep thinking it over until I find a really, really good way or reason to do it. I hope that’s not too disappointing to some of you, it’s not an easy decision but I think it’s the best one I can make right now.

That said, I’d again like to thank you all for the opportunity to put this together. The lack of content was weighing heavy on me, even with everything that was happening last year, but your support has helped me pull through and there’s plenty more stuff on the way. I’m definitely considering if there’s anything I can do more like this video too- still plenty of B stories to tell.

Streaming and Future videos

I’ve been testing out Twitch Streams over the last few months and gradually understanding how it works. It’s been hard for me to keep a schedule at the moment because I got deep into my writing phase again, but I enjoyed the streams I had and I’d like to make more concrete plans for the near future to do it regularly. I need to sort out emojis, banners, and let everyone on YouTube know I’m doing something properly. I recently completed a collection of games I’m very keen to play on stream, and if I can sign off on this next video script I’d like to announce those plans very soon. In the meantime I’m just playing Psychonauts now and then to relax and have saved all the VOD’s so far, maybe it’ll be nice to upload highlights from those somewhere to show people what I’m up to. I’m experimenting, we’ll see what works.

My main worry is that I’ll actually be a bit busy the next two months. In 2019 I started rehearsing a play that, three days before rehearsal in 2020, was nixed by COVID. I was convinced it was over, but instead the production has been revived and they’re very interested in having me return, even though I’m a whole city over now. I feel like if I don’t do it it’ll be unfinished business I’ll regret, so I’m travelling down to London a few times to do some rehearsals and for the entire back end of May to the beginning of June I’ll be staying there to get this done.

This means I may need to reconsider my video and streaming plans slightly. When I travel down I won’t have any way to complete my videos or stream, making my main options to release stuff slightly limited. The next big video is essentially written but I’m digging even deeper on research to see if I have any blind spots, and discovering so many hidden things I didn’t realise. It’s already quite a long script and I’m trying to keep it as concise as possible, but on the off chance that it still won’t be ready for next month with all this stuff going on, i’m considering swapping it with a shorter project. You may remember when I promised a couple of short videos before my illnesses around the Mando one - I said in an update that a few of those were fully written but may need changes now. This is still true, and I don’t think it would take long to turn at least one of those into next month’s video. I’ll keep you posted.

So, my video plans right now are-

-A shorter video that may or not happen before the one below

-A discussion of one person’s musical projects

-A surprise video essay

Needless to say other promised projects are still happening, and we’re making our way through the list of previous promises as fast as I can without losing the quality. The list may change slightly but all these things are on track to be completed soon.

Well, that’s everything gang. Once again thanks for all the kind words and patience over the last few months. I was very tempted to announce the next big video but I think you’ll prefer the reveal much closer to the date, it’s a video I’m currently quite excited about and it’s high time for me to get back to it. Until then, my lovelies-

-Fearmasterscarecrow (I mean, err, B)