thatguytagg

Back in action! First 48min WIP Attached!

Hello everyone! Tremendous thanks again for your patience.

I've been gone for awhile to focus more on my recovery and make sure I have something GOOD to share with you all for my next update.  

I've attached the First WIP of my video for the new channel!

It's 41 minutes long and primarily contains the rough draft of the Intros Voice Over for the video.  

Rough draft meaning: There is still some fat to cut but I consider this rough cut and layout of the Voice Over to be completed. No major rewrites needed. 

Next on the list is my 2nd Pass, which includes slapping video over the script. Its still the rough draft so its not going to be tidy, but it'll begin to give the video its much needed "weight". 

After that, I'll be moving on to the rough draft of Part 2 of the video! 

This video will be long - but I'm super confident and excited about it. The circumstances around its delayed release are unfortunate for a multitude of reasons - but the extra time I was able to spend reconsidering things has resulted in an Intro and script that I'm entirely confident about. I think its rock solid and sets me up extremely well for the rest of the video and also future videos as well.

There's kinda no point in listening to a critic if you don't fully understand the critics tastes or their level of understanding/involvement with what they're talking about. In that sense, this videos purpose is more than just Monster Hunter.

It definitely wasn't easy figuring out how to balance everything which is why I consider this to be the hardest part, but I think i nailed it the best that I could - genuinely. 

It sets up everything the way that I want :) A yummy good diving board to give me the support I need to cleanly dive into whatever I want in the upcoming sections of the video :) 

I'm going to be posting updates more frequently from here on but I have to set up a better way to share the videos with you all in the future. I had to render this one at 480p in order for it to be small enough to attach.

---

As For my Health 

I'm happy to say that I'm about 75% on my way back to "good" health (still not in the "great" category but still good).  

That missing 25% still means I have a ways to go. But my ability to sit again has increased greatly. (What a wild set of years that have been thrown at us, wowie)

Thank you all once again, I hope you enjoy!!

Excited to hear what you all think, if you're unable to download the file don't worry! I'll find an easier way for you to view it for my next update <3

Lets collectively make 2023 our comeback year everyone! Thank you!

October Update: Revisiting Physical Therapy (Good)

Hello all, I'd like to first say that nothing has gotten worse! 

I'm alright and improving, I've made it out of the "debilitating" phase but can't seem to reliably make it out of the "constant discomfort" phase on my own. 

I still cannot sit or stand pain-free for very long and my migraines are less of a problem... but are still a problem. 

I'd say that I'm currently stuck at the 45% recovery mark  

I'll be visiting home (Chicago) for the first time in years tomorrow, so I'll be going to a Physical Therapy center that I've been to before and gotten great results from as well (Athletico) 

I have a laptop and everything I need to continue working when I can, so I won't be out of the loop. 

Hoping I'll be able to able to sit down at my desk, pain-free again soon. I miss you all

Thanks for you continued support <3 

Medium Update - September 4th: Recovery Speed Increasing!

Hello everyone!

Apologies for the late update, I could've sworn I posted two during the month of August but I looks like it unfortunately slipped my mind. 

I had my last Physical Therapy appointment on Friday and it seems that I am finally on solid recovery ground. I was fluctuating at around 35% health during August so things were unfortunately slow, but in the past few days I feel like I've improved enough to say I'm back at around 45% health. The root cause of my health issues has been locked down and the therapy is progressing far smoother now. 

September is looking like a good month so far. I've begun work on the project again and plan to kick it up a gear once I'm back at around 55% health, which shouldn't be long at this current rate. 

Project specifically. I've swapped out some elements to make them easier for me to complete. Mainly I'm toning back the amount of IRL shots and replacing them with VFX comps instead. The IRL equipment I have, mainly my camera, along with my health are not reliable enough at the moment for me to get the quality I want out of the shots. It's a slight bummer, but I can always work those ideas into future projects later down the road. 

I feel like I can reasonably say that I will definitely get the intro of the video done before the end of the month. I think that will be when the ball starts rolling at a decent pace again. 

I'll try and make my next update a solid meaty one for you all. Thanks again for your patience, I'm excited to be able to get back to work and show you all what I've been cooking up! I think the intro I've come up with is pretty cool :) 

Also! 

I've officially dropped the Adobe Suite of programs (Premiere & After Effects) and am transitioning to Davinci Resolve. 

There are a number of benefits to this swap but the biggest for you all is that Davinci Resolve is free! Which means it will be much easier to make my project files public and accessible to you all for those of you that may have interests in the Video Editing/VFX side of production. 

My work will be relatively simple to start out with but as time goes on I'm looking forward to this becoming a nice resource for people that are interested in learning more about this kind of work. 

thanks as always,

summerDogg

Soft Update - August 3rd: Slowly Returning To Work

Hello everyone!

Physical Therapy is starting to show its results, I'm going to try and slowly return to work as the week continues. 

My (possibly) last Physical Therapy appointment will be next week.

I have lots to catch up on so I'll be providing a more detailed update in the coming days.

Thanks again everyone

sDogg,

July 6th Update: Health Improving! Getting back into it

Hello everyone! 

Apologies for the period of silence, I ended up getting sick for the first time in years and it thoroughly knocked me on my ass. Things got paused for a bit while I was recovering but I've just finished my second Physical Therapy appointment and things are progressing well. 

The Physical Therapy Diagnosis is: Pinched Nerves due to Disk Bulging in my lower back and neck.

The Nerves in the lower back are what have been keeping me unable to sit or stand without immediate discomfort and the Pinched Nerves in the neck have been causing the migraines, eye problems and shoulder/arm issues.  

The Current Situation is: The Lower back is doing much better, I'm now able to sit at my desk again! The nerves in the neck have gotten better but are still a work in progress. I'm still struggling with the eye strain but I can tell it's been improving.

My third Physical Therapy appointment is next week but now that I know what's been going on and that what I'm doing is working I'm hopefully seeing myself being able to (responsibly) get back to work in the next week or two 

In terms of work that needs to be done: I've finished my shotlist & need to get the last of my IRL shots done. Then its on to editing and putting everything together. The most complicated parts of the script are finished. The VFX Animations are 90% completed, everything is keyframed and in place - Just need to complete the "Make it looks nicer" Polish pass. 

I know I'm almost a full year behind schedule and it's been weighing heavily on my mind but I've been pulling through and doing what I can throughout all the troubles. The issues regarding my health are finally beginning to make sense and shape up. The source of the issues were overwork, neglect and impatience. Because of this I'm going to continue to refrain from posting an estimated launch date, but now that I'm on the correct road to recovery I'm starting to feel confident again <3

Thank you all for your patience, I wouldn't have been able to make it through this tough situation without all your support. Like always, I can't wait to show you all what I've been working on - I've just gotta be a bit more patient myself.

Thanks again,

sDogg

May 27th Update - Dislocated Shoulder, Fix On Wednesday

Turns out the injury I had in April that put me out of commission for 2 weeks was a dislocated shoulder and not a pectoral sprain like I thought it was! (lol whoops)

This would explain my current symptoms and why my physical wellness progress has stopped improving despite the daily stretches, massages & strengthening that were working up until this point. 

I'll be seeing a professional on Wednesday (holiday weekend + they're closed on Tuesday) and hopefully I'll be back on track and in functioning order soon!  

May 23th 2022 - Health Update: Officially seeing a Physical Therapist

Hello everyone!

Apologies for the lack of updates, as much as I'd like to say I have something new to show you all. My migraine issues are making it extremely difficult to get much work done. So I've decided to see a professional to get some help.  

The appointment is sometime this week and I'm hoping it will help get a better understanding of how to solve the constant migraines and tension I've been experiencing. 

I'll be posting another update as soon as I have more news for you all. 

I'd like to say once again that the planning and scripts are mostly finished, the delays are coming from physically not being able to use my computer to do the editing and animation work due to the constant headaches and eye-strain. Once these issues are taken care of things will begin to run smoothly again.

Thanks for your patience everyone, It means a lot to me and I intent to make it worthwhile for you all.

<3

summerDogg

April 23rd Update - Tough Month But Still Here!

Hello everyone! Apologies for the lack of updates. I was bedridden (not exaggerating) for most of the month and am getting back in the swing of things. 

This update is gunna be pretty bare-bones since I still have a few other things to get to today. 

-I'm currently getting prepared to get the final takes of most of my IRL Camera shots. - I really don't wanna have to do reshoots for these so I'm trying not to rush this part)

-I've made refinements and updates to the script and scrip outlines (Refined the Three Act Structure Storytelling feel. Trying to tell you a story, not read you an essay. Also blurred some stuff out so no spoilers)

-I've begun piecing together the outline in Adobe Premiere for the final video

-I've finished creating the animation template in After Effects for the VFX I plan on using in some of the shots.

-And finally: I've bought a subscription to Artlist.io  & found suitable Music for the video that is useable on Youtube without risking the channel getting copywrite strikes

My current focus is getting the IRL shots done before the end of next week. Once again, taking this step slowly since I don't wanna forget anything and then have to try and re-setup the shot days later. That would be a nightmare!

I'm also trying to find better ways to communicate with you all. I realizing that I kinda suuuper hate Twitter. Thinking about potentially un-ironically moving over to Tumblr at some point since you have WAY more options for formatting your posts there.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your patience and support. I'm hoping life will stop throwing me curveballs for a bit so I can get this project done! :") 

Summer,

March 24th Dev Notes: Writers Block Busted! - Firing My Manager

Hello everyone, thanks again for your patience! The time off was a immense help and I'm glad I made the decision.

I keep ending up giving myself Writers Block by being too strict with my Management Style. Leading to more time lost, than gained. 

I was putting myself in feedback loops and fighting with myself on which next part of the project takes priority or what shots I did or didn't have time to fit into the script. The result was that my attempts at making sure I didn't waste time, were wasting lots of time. 

A more fun way of saying it is like this: My Creative team has the entire Project set up and ready to be worked on. But Management keeps coming over and going "Hey! Are you SURE this scene needs this? Try and find something Easier and Faster to replace it. Remember we have a Deadline to hit! Can't miss it again!" and then the Creative team is like: "Ok well, it would've taken a bit longer to get the shots we wanted but now its gunna take even LONGER to figure out how to reshoot the scene! That makes no sense!"  And then they argue and then I'm in a feedback loop not knowing what to work on next!

So I'm done trying to be my own boss. I'm terrible at it. 

The last time I opened After Effects and was excited to try something new was when I made "The Legend of Butts McKraven II" back in 2015. I did that for the first time again to work on a scene for this video and I remembered that's the feeling I've been trying to find again : )

The result is: No more deadlines! I'm bad at setting them, they stress me out, they end up wasting way more time than helping! Me trying to treat this like a "Business" and be "Professional" is dumb and stupid. I didn't need to do it back then and its only been getting in the way up until now. 

I have LOTS to share with you all but I'm still trying to figure out the best way to share it. Since its mostly video I'm thinking of using my Twitter more often along with these updates to help view the footage. I'm also going to work towards turning my Discord into a place where I can easily share what I'm working on. 

I'll be working on a way I can share what I've made with you all tomorrow, I'm looking forward to it!

Thanks Everyone!

summerDogg 

March 14th Update: Good Progress, Taking a short break

Hello everyone! A Small update, I'll be posting a bigger one soon.

Progression is going smoothly, but its time for me to accept that I'm turning....30...this year, and I don't have the amount of energy available to me that I used to have. I'm simply running out of energy faster than I expect, no matter what approach I take. 

So its time to work smarter and not harder!

 I'll be swapping to a "Weekly Update" system. Instead of a "Set a deadline 18 year old you could hit" system. My goal is to get a better understanding of what.....30...year..old..me can get done in a weeks time rather than going off of the extremely outdated "18 year old me" that I've been referencing off of.  

That being said, I've still made some very good progression. I'll be taking some (much needed) days off get some energy back, then I'll organize everything for a proper update for you all soon. 

Much love,

summerDogg

2022 (Pre)March Update: "Eureka" Moment, 2 Week Extension

Hello everyone! I've made some sick as fuck progress in the past few days and I am going to extend my deadline by two weeks to flesh it out. March 14th is when I'll be done! 

Since the health issues causes so many delays I was going to shoot for a C+ grade with the quality of the video, in order to not have people keep waiting forever. But! I've finally nailed down an intro that will take the project up from being a C+ to an S+ in my own personal grading book. 

To give you all more insight.

Originally, due to time constraints, I was planning on the intro to the video to be action focused, putting together a montage of action synced with the Monster Hunter theme song in order to get people interested in the video. The idea being: Start with action before the talking so people get their candy sooner

But there were 4 issues with this intro and I was unhappy with it.

• This intro in general, was a compromise due to time constraints. It would serve its purpose and be fine and I could make it work. But its sloppy, one dimensional and loud. 
• What I want to talk about isn't just the Action in Monster Hunter, one of the things I think is so great about the game is that it's not always about Action, so that kinda tarnishes the message of the video and shoots myself in the foot immediately. 
• The Monster Hunter main theme (the Monster Hunter World Version) is really short and hard to work around. Syncing the action to the music would be possible, but way too much work for a mediocre and frankly, pretty boring piece of the video. 
• The intro, the most important part of the video. Being only action and so one dimensional, would lose all the personality I wanted to show with this video and the channel as a whole

I've rewritten the intro's script to be much more personal while not being boring. 

To do that, I've done the following.  

• The new intro now has more of a "Story-Telling Feel" which is what I wanna be aiming for on this channel. This allows me to "Control" the flow of the video directly from the start, allowing me to set up for future events way easier. I don't want this to be me reading you an essay, I want this to be me including you in the story of how I fell into this game.
• I am including Live IRL Footage to add much more dynamic content. The video won't be only Gameplay footage anymore. Here's a test shot I uploaded a few days ago: https://twitter.com/summer_Dogg/status/1496643581078949891
• I am expanding the Game Footage to include previous Monster Hunter Games. I have recorded gameplay from Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and more to include in the footage.

In addition to all of those. I've also been gathering better and better footage recently. I've made refinements to other areas of the script, and I've been working on other visual and audio elements to help bring more "life" into the video. 

I also plan to include Volunteers to help record some other footage I need to get.

Specifically: The Gathering Hub in Monster Hunter World can support up to 12 other players. This is something that impossible for me to setup myself. I plan on hosting a "Work" stream and plan to invite viewers to help assist in gathering more varied footage.

Pardon my French but this shit is gunna be sick, I'm stoked. I can't wait to see where this is gunna go cause I'm absolutely killing it right now >:))

I am going to try and avoid throwing out apologies for taking so long. It's been rough, but I think I've been too rough on myself. I'm glad I took this extra time to work these knots in the process out, instead of accepting the Loss and going for the C+ I'm going for the S+ and Its gunna be worth it. 

This stuff is hard!!! and I'm doing all of it on my own! (for now). But this is stuff I love and the stuff I'm good at. I'm gunna get it done and it's gunna be sick >:9

Love you all and miss you all. I plan to be back soon.

 Stay safe and take care of yourselves. 

summerDogg,

2022 Feb Update - Back in the Game : )

Hello everyone! Apologies for the radio silence during January. I've been doing physical therapy and I am happy to say I'm feeling much better now.

To help fill you all in the best that I can I'm including images in this update for the first time! Something I'm gunna have to get used to and practice as the channel continues into the future!

 Ok, Getting to the point: 

The channel will be launching sometime this month.

The TF2 video will be released after the initial channel launch.

The channel will launch with a video about Monster Hunter World.

 Along With two highlight videos from my playthrough of Resident Evil 8 and Mario 3D World.

More details below 

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Work Details(Health Details are further down)

The health issues and my poor handling of them slowed things down considerably, but I'm still confident in my ability to have the channel launched this month, especially now that my health is better.

My plan was to launch with two "Big" videos and a handful of "Small/Highlight" videos. The Two "Big" videos were the TF2 video and a video about Monster Hunter World. 

My plan was to work on the Monster Hunter video first as a practice run to warm up before getting deep into the TF2 video. The plan remains the same, but the health delays have made it so I'm going to release them separately. 

The Monster Hunter Video is in what I like to call the "Jigsaw Phase" in editing. I see Video Editing like a jigsaw puzzle. You have a story you want to tell, and you mold your audio & video into the pieces to tell that story then you fit them all together. Basically I have all the pieces I need to start putting this story together. 

I have the scripts, notes, music, sound and footage I need. I am currently working on sorting/organizing my notes and footage and then I'll begin putting them all together and make the video! 

Ideally I would've had this step done eons ago since it's pretty straight forward. But it required me staring at a screen for hours and my eye pain didn't let me get even minutes in before I had to give them rest. 

Lastly. Two games I have on my "Make Videos About Them" list - "Time Splitters 2" and "Time Splitters: Future Perfect" were recently added to the Xbox backwards compatibility list. They now run on the newer Xboxes with higher frame rates and resolutions which makes them MUCH easier to capture footage for. Because of this, the two games have shot up in my "Which Game Do I Make A Video About Next" list. I'm expecting that I'll visit those two games after I'm finished with the TF2 video! 

Health Stuff

I don't need surgery! The head and eye pain I've been experiencing were caused (embarrassingly enough) from my back, shoulder and neck muscles becoming so tight that the tension was causing headaches and nerve pain. Which is why Ibuprofen, warm towels, blindfolds and breaks from the screen didn't help alleviate the pain.

I've been spending the month exercising and messaging the areas and to be honest. I'm pretty upset at how bad of shape I was in, and I fear I would've ended up having a stroke if I kept ignoring the problems.

The amount of tension in my back, shoulders and neck were insane and they still aren't properly loosened up yet. Each time I'd find relief in one spot it just opened up the next spot which would be tighter and tighter. 

I've amassed a small army of tools to help break up the spots of tension in my back. The best (and the one that was late by 3 weeks) is THE LOBSTER which is pretty much the trump card I needed to get back in working order quickly.

 The Arsenal. 

I don't wanna go into too much detail - but the tools helped and it hurt alot! Turns out there's a big reason why people say stretching is important 

To sum up this post. I've learned my first lesson in proper Time Management the hard way!  Just because its something you like doing doesn't mean you're immune to the fatigue, don't openly sign up for crunch like its nothing just cause it'll make a cool launch - haha lol

I'm running out of steam on this post but I hope it's helped fill you all in and eased your minds in whatever way possible. I know some of you were worried about me and I appreciate it greatly. The health problems and the delay were my fault and I'll be more mindful not to make the mistake again in the future. Now, lets get this channel started.

Thanks everyone!

Hoping to make you all happy and proud this month,

Summer

2021 December Update - Health Issues + Moving Launch Date

Hello everyone, I hope the holidays have been treating you well!

Getting straight to the point, I'll be moving the launch date of the channel to the End Of January due to worsening health issues. I think I've found the culprit but I don't know how long it will take to get it in check. It shouldn't take THAT long to get it fixed, but the End Of January date is a "Just In Case" measure. If you have lost confidence in the project due to this and would like to cancel your subscription you are free to do so and I will still honor the rules I set in place and keep your names in the credits. 

I'm pretty bummed out about this, I was really hoping to have my first video on the channel be uploaded on Jan 1, 2022 and I even stayed over the holidays to continue working instead of going home (sorry mom!!!) But after 5 months of discomfort I realized that I needed to escalate this from "Discomfort" to "Chronic Pain" and take the appropriate steps and stop trying to power through it. 

Full transparency breakdown: I've been dealing with worsening eye strain since August and it's gotten to a point where it's gone from an annoyance to a legitimate problem. I've been trying to be mindful and let my eyes rest while staying productive but a health problem that's been going on for months needs to get looked at. Especially when It's making it harder and harder to complete meaningful work ahead of a major deadline 

I went in for an eye exam earlier this month hoping I just needed to get an updated prescription but that wasn't the case. Apparently I may be at risk of a Retina Detach but I need an actual specialist to make the call on that. That sounds very spooky but I don't think that's the main cause of the issue at hand. I have been experiencing pain which is not a symptom along with other things that don't match up. I do plan on getting this looked into but NA Healthcare (lol) + Self Employed makes that not as easy to do as it should be

After a particularly rough day yesterday. I realized that the pain I was experiencing felt like nerve pain rather than a localized muscle pain. The pain got to a point where I could feel it traveling along the left side of my neck, to my inner jaw and up into my left eye. After doing some research and some (literal) digging around. I discovered an EXTREMELY tight knot of muscles in my left shoulder that may be pinching some nerves and causing the neck, jaw, eye and headache pains I've been experiencing. 

After 5 hours of massaging the area I can confidently say that I helped! Just about all of the pain was relived. But the knot is still there.

Until I can get the knot out, the relief is only temporary. After a nights of rest the pain has returned but I now know where to put my attention to fix it. I don't know how long it will take to get it out but It shouldn't take THAT long. The area is currently extremely tender and I don't have much mobility but I can definitely tell if I can get this out then I'll feel much better overall.

Once again, I'm pretty bummed out about this and I apologize. Realistically I should've been responsible and taken a look at this earlier instead of trying to crunch to meet the deadline and ignoring the issues at hand. But now that I've found a definite source of the discomfort I'm already feeling a bit better.   

I've been dealing with quite a bit of anxiety due to all of this but reminding myself that all of you believe in me and are supporting me in this helps a ton. Trying to push through just to meet the deadline and ignoring my health was irresponsible of me and was the same mindset that lead to my immense burnout at the start of the year. I guess I still have a lot to learn! lmao 

Thank you all for your support and patience, I am very excited to launch the new channel and share it with you all. I have tons of ideas I wanna get started on and I fell into some bad habits again, I'll do my best to make sure it doesn't happen again.

You're all amazing, wishing you all the best and excited to start 2022 on the right foot. I'll be posting another update soon, I've still been making notable progress despite the health issues. I've got some deep tissue massage and trigger point tools on the way and hopefully I'll be back in working condition real soon <33

2021 November Update!

Hello everyone! Welcome to my first update regarding the new channel!

First off, thank you all for supporting me AND supporting me through these development phases.

I appreciate it greatly and I wouldn't be able to do this without your support (seriously).

Thanks for putting your faith in me everyone, you’re all amazing people <33

Now, down to business. I’ve made a number of important milestones and I’d like to share them all with you.

I’ll list them in bullet format like Patch Notes. Because I’m a nerd, and also dyslexic, and its just a good way of displaying information lmao.

In depth explanations will be included after the Patch Notes section, just scroll down if you'd like more detailed info. Thanks everyone!!

Update Topics: User and Channel Name Changes, Conceptual Refinements & Development Phase Completion

Username & Channel Name Changes

• I have made the decision to retire the usernames “ataggerung” “tagg” & “thatguytagg”
• I will go by the usernames “Summer” and “summerDogg” from here on out
• The New YouTube Channel Name Will Be: summerDogg - https://www.youtube.com/c/summerdogg
• My new twitter handle will be: @summer_dogg

Conceptual Refinements

• Massive progress and refinement of the “Core Idea” behind the channel
• Several Video Series Names Will Be Changed.
• The “In The Details” will now be called The “Appreciate” series
  • Example: “In The Details: TF2” will now go by “Appreciate : TF2”
  • “In The Details” is a stiff and frankly boring sounding name for the series. Sounds like I’m a college professor and I’m delivering a lecture.
  • “Appreciate” is the name of the series and will not be changed to “Apprecating”
  • The goal is not to be grammatically correct, the goal is to have a consistent name these videos for “”brand recognition”” purposes. (In the most non-corporate way possible, I just want these to be easy to recognize and find lol)
• “Level By Level” will now be called “Pre-Recorded”
  • Example: “Level By Level: Subnautica” will now go by “Pre-Recorded: Subnautica”
  • This change leans (heavily) into the casual yet focused Pre-Recorded Stream feeling I want these videos to have
  • Text Formating? “Pre-Recorded: gameName” - “PreRecorded: gameName” - “Prerecorded: gameName” - “prerecorded: GameName” Feedback would be helpful with this
• “What It Needs” will now be called “Thought Experiment”
  • Example: “What It Needs: StarFox” turns into “Thought Experiment: Rebooting Star Fox”
  • “What It Needs” comes off as presumptuous and cocky, which is not my intention with this series
  • “Thought Experiment” is more neutral in tone and open to interpretation, which is my intention with this series
  • Open to other suggestions for the title of this series
• New Video Series: “summerTime”
  • A flexible video series that focuses on discussion of any topic I want
  • Example: “summerTime: Microsoft’s Gaming Turnaround” (temp name)
    • Video will talk about GamePass, Backwards Compatibility, FPS Boost, etc efforts being made by Microsoft and the possibilities those things pose
  • Example 2: “summerTime: Apple And Arm” (temp name)
    • Video will talk about Apples recent advancements with the ARM CPU architecture and what possible opportunities this tech could open up in the future. (vr & mobile devices)
• Under Development: New Name for Highlight Videos
  • Still want to make highlight videos but I want them to have a Series Name like the other videos
  • I’m thinking I could release them monthly, as clips and moments pile up. In order to keep things tidy in my folders and on the channel
  • Possible Name: "summerHighlighs: 2021 December"
  • Need help figuring out the naming conventions of this series, want them to be easy to find and organized but have not boring as hell names?

Development Phase Completion

• Pre-Production & Development Phase has been completed
• Moving to Production Phase
• Still On track for launch! :D!
• Yummy!

In Depth Notes

Username & Channel Name Changes

I outgrew the “Tagg” username years ago and have been wanting to retire it. I was apprehensive at first because “BRAND RECOGNITION” but it would be stupid of me to put that above my own well-being. My goal is to feel comfortable with this channel. “Tagg” to me, represents my adolescent phases. I literally made the name in middle school and I’m one year away from being 30 lmao. Aside from just being a much nicer sounding name, Summer to me represents a good time (back when summer was like 15 degrees less hot) and I wanna have a good time from here on out with life and this channel. Also I’m trans LMAOOOO LETS GOOO

My username will be “summerDogg” as I still intent to use a “MASCOT” to be my online buffer and represent myself online. Currently unsure what they will look at but this is lower on my priority list at the moment. Anyways, I like the imagery the name invokes and it has flexibility with its use, summerTime, summerTalks, summerShares etc

Conceptual Refinements & Development Phase Completion

I could say a lot in this segment so I’ll try and keep it to the point. I can comfortably say that I have completed the Development phase of the channel and I am now entering the Production phase!

The Development phase is the hardest and most important phase in all of this. Starting on Production before having a clear idea of what you are making results in a massive amount of wasted time, effort and energy. Not knowing what your goal is means you end up re-writing scripts, re-recording footage, re-editing footage and much more. Having a good development stage makes everything afterwards much much easier.

The Development Phase for this channel began just shy of a year ago, I worked and refined the idea until it was in a presentable state and re-launched my Patreon along with the announcement of the new channel. I've been working on finishing up the final defining loose ends in terms of the channels tone, goal and overall feel. I've now gotten to a point where I can confidently say I now have a clear understanding of the channels identity and am now ready to fully enter the Production phases. 

To keep you all in the loop, the first stage of the Production Phase will be to finalize my rough drafts for my scripts in progress. Since my Development Stage has gone well, I already have a "Skeleton" in mind for the formatting of the scripts so I'll be able to move much faster as a result. I am confident when I say that things are on track to meet the December Channel Launch Deadline!

I have much more I want to say but I’ll end it here and save my thoughts for the next update!

Thanks everyone! Hope you’re doing well and stay well.

summerDogg~

Fisting Engineer - Matchmaking Adventures

Last month went pretty well video wise. I made 4 videos, Spy is a stress based class, Old Doom New Doom, Fisting Engineer, Never trust Doom and Hooks of a Lifetime.

Went pretty well but this month might be a bit rough. Keeping the balance between streaming and working on videos is really tough. For one, Streaming is my primary method of income by far but if I stream daily I have no time for working on videos, which sometimes take days to finish. In addition, I'm leaving to volunteer at the i58 Insomnia TF2 LAN in mid August. 

Long story short, I don't have much time this month to get work done and deciding to spend a day streaming or working on videos isn't an easy decision to make. 

Last huge annoyance is Comcast. Starting this month Comcast has included data caps with their service. Which means that uploading VOD's is going to be a large pain from now on. I admittedly have fallen behind on uploads, juggling moving, streaming, video making and VOD uploading was pretty tough. But now these Data Caps are a huge obstacle for the VOD channel. 

Before you ask, No. There is no other ISP that services the area I live in. It's Comcast or no internet. The alternative is give Comcast more money monthly to lift the Data Cap, but 1. That's really fucking dumb and 2. I don't make that much money

So right now the VOD channel is in limbo due to Comcast wanting more $$$

August is a pretty stressful month so far but hopefully it'll get better???

Spy Is A Stress Based Class

Heya Heya

I have returned from Vacation and now i'm back to work.

This video was one of the "quickie" nature, a highlight of some bits and pieces from games that happened recently. I'm trying to not be so stingy with what videos I make and pretty much make two different categories now. 

Consider these the new "Stream Highlights" videos but with more flexibility.

Previously with the Stream Highlights videos I'd wait until I had enough clips to make something past 5min long, add background music and have to juggle clips from several different games and edit them all together in a way that flowed and made relative sense.

It was pretty hard and took a ton of time to do. Which in turn would cause massive backlogs of videos I had on my computer. Bundled with constantly creating new content because I stream daily, the backlogs would just get bigger and bigger and bigger. Then delays on "Which mess should I go through next" would occur.

SO in order to stop that and also just to get more content out on a regular basis (something I've just not really started getting dedicated on doing for my youtube channel, been focusing on streaming a tad too much recently) I have now gotten that dumb "You need to save this clip for the BEST MOMENT" idea out of my head and now am doing "I have an idea for this clip right now so its being  made now" plan which will hopefully turn out well??

Guess we'll fine out.

I have 3 videos in the work in progress stage right now, hoping I can get those done before I get backlogged :sweat drop emoji:

Sunshine Hell

Sorry for the wait on this one.

This video chronologically should have been made before Super Mario Hell. 

I actually did my play through of Super Mario Sunshine before I played Super Mario 64. However, I made the Super Mario 64 video first because it was way more fresh in my head and I had a way clearer idea of what kind of video I wanted to make with it.

After that I decided to make the Sunshine video in a same format, focusing on dumb deaths that happened in the game. Unfortunately I got kinda distracted by TF2 and made some Matchmaking videos. Since this playthrough had been weeks ago, every new stream had video content that was way more fresh in my mind. Making it easier to edit something together quickly. It took me some time to be able to go back to these clips and figure out where the good parts were and what to put in the video. 

I'm always creating clips from streaming faster than I can edit a video together. Since I try to stream everyday it makes it hard to fit editing time into my schedule. Some streamers actually hire people to make videos for them since they stream so regularly but lol i dont make that kinda $$$. 

I've been thinking of changing my streaming schedule to avoid these huge video backlogs and I will probably act on it soon. After i'm back from vacation

Thanks for the support everyone!

TF2 Matchmaking Adventures Part 3

Wonder how many people forgot this was a thing

I haven't made a Patreon post in awhile for a handful of reasons. The main reason was that I was upset and didn't feel like doing it lol. 

Long story short, a month or two ago I put in many hours of work into making a constant stream of videos for my channel. After the month was over, it got me 100 thousand more views than last month...and only 2 more dollars in revenue than last month.

That coupled with the fact that my income has been steadily the same from Youtube for a year now including my sub count, I took some time off to get away from it.

About a month off 

But now its fine, whatever I'll just keep doing it till it works. Onto video talk

This video was another where I tried to make it without background music but ended up adding some anyways. The reason being is just the general natrue of The Classic.  You charge up a shot and waddle around real slowly and click on a dude across the map. There's a ton of dead air between that time and also...my keyboard is super loud because I messed up the sound mixing during those streams (oopsies).

The ingame sound is too low so the audio is just keyboard clacking while i'm focusing on hitting a shot. Didn't sound very good, so I decided to add background music and make it pretty loud too in order to distract from the keyboarding noises. 

All in all this was an alright edit once i started getting back in the groove of things. Sorry about the lack of content for awhile, some goodies are on the way. 

Thanks for the support everyone

Hitdude Blood Money

I made two videos in one month! Wowie!

Alright so this one, like always. Was supposed to be easy, and then it wasn't and then it kinda was again.

Hitdude Blood Money was supposed to be a quick and easy edit. A "Stream Highlights" of one game that I had just beaten. Quick and easy

But, it turned out not to be that easy. Because many of the funny bits of the game happened after 30mins of setup. Choosing the balance between "does this cut make sense" and "is this cut too long" really made things stressful. SO i shelved the video for like, a week. Opened it back up at 12am one night and finished it by 3am somehow. 

Anyways, I don't think its a very strong video regardless if its done or not. But I think that's due to the nature of the game. Blood Money is a game about waiting for the right time to attack, and its a LOT of waiting. Fast cuts weren't possible and the video is pretty slow because of it.

Or maybe because I've been working on it for so long I've become jaded and no longer find it very funny, who knows.

In other news.

In order to keep myself from going literally crazy(more on that in a later date) from trying to pump out big edits as fast and efficiently as possible. I'm going to start plucking clips from possible "highlight" videos and just uploading them to create buffers between major video releases.

For example, a clip from this Hitdude video didn't make it into the Final cut because it required too much setup and context and was too long. So, instead of being in the highlight video, I'll be uploading it on its own in a few days.

I'll be continuing to do this with other videos as well so keep your eyes out!

Anywhos thats about it for this update, thanks for the support!

Story Time: The Large Man & the Jetski

Surprise

This video fell into my lap one day after finishing up a stream

I've been wanting to upload more talking and chat based clips from my stream to my youtube channel and I finally got one out. The main issue really is that I've lost most of the Vod's with good stories in them so i'll pretty much have to retell them in the future. 

Anywhos, I honestly planned for this to be a quick and easy 1 day edit. Find where I told the story in the Vod , cut it out and then upload it. But then I really didn't want there to be just 13min of story with a totally static background. SO the "quick and easy edit" became a "two day stay up till 3am" edit. I had to have someone else review the video after I finished it because I heard the story and had seen it so many times that I was completely sick of it and would stop paying attention lol.

Anyways, people liked it

I'm glad it worked out well

There will be more uploaded in the future when i retell more stories to chat

I've got 2 videos still pretty far along in development that just need some finishing touches so those will be up soooonish i hope. Really trying to start uploading more often from now on, hope I can stay on schedule

Thanks for the support!

TF2 Matchmaking Adventures Part 2

So. I was brain farting on another video and wanted to get something out before the end of the month so I decided to push out Matchmaking Adventures Part 2 early since its a way easier edit to do!

And by way easier I mean took 2 days to sort clips and an entire day from 10am to 10pm to edit together!

I only ate once and then ran to Wendys for 10:40pm burgers and nuggets before they closed after I uploaded this one.

Anyways

I'd like to become more flexible with my music choices and I tried in a bit in this one, didn't work out as well as I wanted though. Ended up running into pacing/mood issues when I tried to swap songs in the 3rd part of the video so to save time (and my sanity!) I just used the same song from the first half for simplicities sake

I have another NEW video already planned in my head so I think i'll be working on that one next annnnd I'll be seeing if I can add more video/audio effects to it for funsies.  The OLD video that I have no idea what to do with is still a jumbled mess in my head so i'll put it off until I finish the next video. Or maybe not! My brain is weird! 

Thanks for the support! 

Hoping to have this next video finished pretty quickly while its still fresh in the head.

TF2 Matchmaking Adventures Part 1

The birth of (hopefully) a new series! 

This was another one of those straight forward videos that was semi easy to edit.

I only stayed up till 4am twice making this one! zzzzz

The song I used in the background of this video was the song that was supposed to be used in my other video, Stream Highlights part 10.

It didn't mesh well with the Highlights video so I decided to save it for later and I think it paid off pretty well. 

I honestly didn't do anything special here, besides making a new outro screen which I rushed out in 30min. I do need to make a new intro splash but that will take much more time since I need to decide on a design for its animation. 

Anyways, there will be a Matchmaking Adventures Part 2! 

But it will be released after I am finished with a different video

Don't wanna run through all of my matchmaking clips too quickly!

Thanks for the support as always guys, next video will be a long awaited one

Stream Highlights Part 10

Wow this took forever to finish!

I feel really bad about it taking this long!

Stream Highlights Part 10 has been in the works for more than 2 months i'd say, and for several reasons!

The first reason is I've been making more "One Game Videos" 

"One Game Videos" being videos that are focused entirely on...One Game

IE - Exploring Garrys Mod, Synergy, resident evil the 4th, soma & Butts McKraven II

Making "One Game Videos" means that i'm using up way more clips from games that I have. Leaving less clips available for Highlight videos.

In addition I also have to go through a Games footage and clips and make the decision of if it should be a "One Game Video" or be put into a highlights video, which takes extra time.

So its pretty much, It takes longer to get enough clips for a Highlight Video. 

Videos also have to go through more screening to see if they will be better as a "One Game Video" or better in a highlights video.

But thats not all!

Some of you may have noticed that this is the first Stream Highlights Video without background music!

This is the case for several reasons.

1. The song I originally found and chose for this video was a pain to loop. (I manually edit all background songs to loop so they can be long enough for the video)

2. After I looped the song it turned out it wasn't a good fit for the video after all

3. I didn't want to spend another 2+ hours searching for more copyright free, good, background music

4. I rely too much on background music in my edits

The 4th point in that is the most important.

In all of my Highlights videos I've used background music. I've used background music in so many of my videos it feels weird editing without using background music to drive the pace of the video and cuts. I've become too dependent on them and I'd like to be able to diversify my editing skills, so I decided to scrap the background music completely in this Highlight video. 

The reason I started using music for my videos was to create a constant thread that was always the same in every clip. Something reliable i could edit to and something that would drive the pace of the video. Since I started out editing TF2 frags this was great in helping me in keeping the videos interesting. 

It was an even bigger help with Highlight videos. Since I am taking clips from so many completely different games with different situations, gameplay etc it helps a ton with having something that's always constant to pull all the clips together.

I've been using background music in my videos for so long its hard editing without them and I need to make sure I don't end up ONLY being able to edit to music. 

So yeah, that's my 12am ramble on Stream Highlights Part 10

If you have any questions feel free to ask them here (no one ever does)

Thanks for watching/reading/supporting!

Exploring Garry's Mod

Hello!

Sorry for the period of innactivity here but i've been pretty busy these couple of days.

Before I start talking about the Garry's Mod video I want to talk about my previous video first. 

I actually made a video before this one called Synergy that I didn't make a Patreon submission on. Why? Because I had nothing to talk about with my Synergy video and didn't feel comfortable charging supporters for it. The Synergy video was as straight forward as something could be, no fun tidbits or things to talk about with it so I decided not to make a post on it.

Honestly I feel the same about this Garry's Mod video.

This was a pretty straight forward and clean edit I did here. I was working on another video but decided to do this one because everything was still fresh in my head since the recordings happened not too long ago. Because of this it was pretty easy to remember what clips to add in.

The part that took the longest time was finding suitable background music and choosing how the video should start out.

I lost quite a bit of sleep on this one. Spent about 5 days of staying up till 3AM after streaming to get this one done as quickly as possible. I don't feel good only uploading one video last month so I made sure to do this one quickly so i'm off to a good start for this new month.

Anyways, Since the video here was so straight forward. I've made a new "Behind the Scenes" video showing a new editing technique i started to use recently. If any of you guys here are interested in video editing you can check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcULRrAj72E&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for reading and thanks for the support!

Resident Evil The 4th

Been sitting on this footage for a few months now.

The primary reason for delays was an audio video desync that happened with the longest and largest chunk of the raw video (5 hours)

Nothing I did fixed it so i had to go in and manually find and fix the desyncs. While that was going on I was working on other videos and streaming so this one just kept getting pushed back and back. In addition, with the fact that I came back to this footage months after I completed the game. I had to sort through the raw files much slower because i couldn't remember where all the highlightable parts were.

All in all, I'd say this is not one of my best works. I felt like I could do better and i realized it after completing my first draft of the video. This is actually the first video I have ever gone back and edited again after uploading it. Still didn't turn out how I liked. I'd have to go through all the footage again in order to get clips that I feel would be better and I may do that at some time. But for now, here's "Part 1"

On a technical standpoint. Nothing much visually going on here. But this is the first time i've ever used Adobe Audition in my workflow. Instead of editing audio levels in Premiere like I usually do, I decided to do it through Adobe Audition and i think it worked out well!

I'll be sure to create a more in depth look of what I did later for you guys.

I already know what video I'll be making next so i'll see you guys around next time

SOMA Video

Lucky for me this video was way more straight forward to make. But it still had some difficulties.

This video was easier to focus on and make than the Oblivion video because the highlights are clear and easy to find. What parts were scary? Alright, but those parts in the video.

There are still things to take into account with the edits though. For one, I don't want to put every single scary part of the game into the video. For length reasons, repetition and because I respect the game too much to give away all its scares. The game is fantastic, if people want to know what else happens in it they can play it or watch a play through to see everything themselves. 

Secondly, you also have to make the decision of how you want the video to flow.

The hardest part of this video was figuring out how to start it off and how to keep the flow up.

Basically, what do I open the video up with and where do I make my cuts with the scares that require a bit of lead up to them. How much of the situation do i show before hand and where can I make cuts to save some time. The other issue I had was what to do with the pauses. Part of me wanted to take the pauses out and edit around them. But the cuts were never smooth enough and the clips lost a lot of emotion since there were more reactions from us during them. So I kept the pauses in and cut around a few of them.

No music was added to this video because SOMA is a heavily atmospheric game on its own. Adding non diegetic music to the mix would just ruin the atmosphere in the clip so that's why there's none. In addition, I went into this video expecting to do lots of closeups and zoom-ins like I did in the Oblivion video but i ended up doing far less than I expected. Once again I felt as though they messed with the atmosphere and I pretty much only did them when the game was paused. I didn't want to do a zoom in of my face while the game was running because then you'd only get a screen of my reaction, and not what I'm reacting to. So while the game was running I left the camera alone so you can see my reactions and the game at the same time.

After I created the SOMA highlight video that's linked here I had to then Cut up the entire VOD's into 24, 30-min parts to upload to my Vod youtube channel. Which means that I have to go through the actual entirety of the play through, review it and add cuts where necessary. In the situation of the SOMA local recorded files.

OBS and Adobe Premiere were giving me trouble. For some reason the high quality recordings I made through OBS became unsynced when ported into Adobe Premiere for editing. Which means that I had to manually sync the Audio and Video in the clips and make sure they were fixed in every single part of the 24 parts.

I also have to cut out bathroom breaks and other extended amounts of time where I wasn't playing. 

Still easier than the Oblivion Video though. 

New Video: The Legend of Butts McKraven II

wow this took a long time to make

This play through was recorded back in April of 2015. Finished the edit and put them together on November 22, 2015. 

There are a few reasons it took this long.

1. This was a 9 hour play through of the game

-Meaning that I had to sort through 9 hours of footage and find the most interesting and fun parts 

2.  What is considered "Fun and Interesting?"

-Bethesda games are full of talking and walking. Nothing funny just happens out of the blue in these games. There is always a very long buildup to something ridiculous happening if you're playing the Vanilla game.

3. How do I make this enjoyable to watch, with also providing a story?

-I could've just made the video those two fights and finished it. But that's just lazy work that I don't agree with. I want the viewer to experience an established setting and to know whats going on in these videos. I want them to view these events like I experienced them, and how people experienced them Live. That means I need to set the scene. The viewers ultimately need to know what lead me to this ridiculous situation or else the humor of the situation looses all its weight. If a video just starts off ridiculous and wacky then you know what to expect. But if a video starts off normal and slowly starts to get more ridiculous its much more enjoyable and dynamic to the viewer. Trying to take 9 hours of footage and squeezing it into 15min while keeping a story intact is very challenging 

So yeah. Trying to figure out how to squeeze 9 hours of footage into something that's quick and fun to watch isn't easy. Especially when its with a game as slow paced as Oblivion. 

Sorting through the 9 hours of footage and finding what was worth watching and highlighting was what took longest. Then I had to find out how to present what I chose. Just editing it all together raw with no visual effects didn't feel right to me.

With a game as cut and dry as Oblivion I had to make edits to make it more visually interactive and appealing. Also my live commentary alone didn't spice things up enough either. 

The intro text took the second longest. About 4 hours in Adobe After Effects. Most of the time was figuring out what I wanted it to look like. But even then i'm not too happy with how it turned out. I tried making it look as close to the actual Elder Scrolls Oblivion Text I could. But I didn't have the source texture they used in the official trailer so I had to make it with what I had. Overall, the text blends in too much with the background and doesn't stand out enough. Could be better, but I didn't want to sink more hours into it.

Anyways, it turned out nicely for what its worth.

One of the hardest parts about editing footage from my stream is that I can't spin the narrative around. My reactions are set in stone. 

I can't add a voice over and change up the reactions in the video because it wont match my visual reactions that are already in the video.  

Any changes I make to the video are very limited, I can't make that many drastic changes due to how many audio and visual elements are baked into the original files i'm working with. 

I used Adobe Premiere to make the video

Used Adobe After Effects to do the masking work, intro, and some minor text spam

Used Adobe Photoshop to create the text used in the intro 

New Vod: Splinter Cell Coop - Panama Mission

Just in case some people here missed the update vid.

I am changing my Patron to be Video based instead of Weekly/Monthly.

I've decided to focus on my Youtube channel and Stream and but down the camera for awhile now.

From now on Patron pledges will be submitted per Video

HELLO

Sorry for the lack of video updates buddies but I've finally got a new one here.

My move isn't 100% finished yet but its starting to settle down enough that I could make this for everyone here.

This weeks update is about Clip sorting and organization for videos!

Fun and exciting stuff

As always, thanks for the support. Stuff regarding i55 is getting pretty complicated honestly but i'm hoping for the best and i'll make an announcement about stuff once I know what these outcomes will be

taggCat /

Weekly Update #11

Hello everyone, once again sorry about the text based update and sorry for the lateness as well. 

The move is complete!

Sorta complete.

Everything is moved in and now its just getting the last appliances that are needed for the place. I would've done a video showing the place to you guys but there are some things that still need fixing/cleaning by management. Right now there is a painter man painting up the walls and it smells like butts

But yes. Streams and Videos will start to be coming out at a more regular intervals now. I also have a new ISP provider so multiplayer games I wasn't able to connect to in the past won't be an issue anymore. 

Things are looking well, thanks for the support as always. 

See you guys next week