randomencounters

REport: Baking with AJ!

Despite our best efforts, our good friend THE TROMBONE CHAMP won't be showing up until Friday, February 3rd! We knew going into this project that time was limited, but in order to deliver a better product with more time put into it, we've decided to delay it and make it February's musical. This delay also gives us all of February to work on March's musical, which is time we'll desperately need, given that we're heading to Florida for Sunrise Comic Con in March as well! Anyway, expect to see a teaser for THE TROMBONE CHAMP MUSICAL on the main channel THIS FRIDAY!

Beard Salute!

~Nate

REport: RIP Headphone Users 💀

HeyJ, team! I want to lead off with an apology for getting us backed up and off schedule. Last week was a rough one for me mentally, and I wish I’d gotten more accomplished. I am much more pleased with this project, however, since taking extra days to finish writing it, and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too!

Our goal is to have a finished musical still out this Friday, and assuming we meet it, I’ll reserve a little time in the afternoon to voice chat about it on Discord. Thanks again for your support and patience during a rough patch!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Quick Follow-up from the (not) Castle Set

I grabbed an extra minute or two with the others a bit later in the day and forgot to share it! Here's that in-between phase of our house that -- let's face it -- we all need to avoid the disorienting whiplash of going from dungeon to home decor in one REport. x_x

We're moving fast with Trombone Champ and have plenty to share with you! Sit tight just a little longer... It's pretty bonkers, and the baboons haven't even showed up yet! ;)

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: CASTLE CRASHERS: The (Not) Musical

HeyJ, everyone. This may be the saddest REport in a while... Our castle set is FINALLY coming down! ;_; It's lingered for months, and I've honestly loved having it here, but we know 2023 will demand more house and living space sets than... er... creepy dungeon sets... Honestly, that sounds like a fault with video games. What timeline are we living in where games feature basic suburban homes more than spooky dungeons?!

Anyway, it was fun while it lasted. Thank you for making that set possible, and for helping us recoup Castlevania's budget a bit even after it tanked (as did our double-dip attempt with Cult of the Lamb: The Musical...) We're glad to have made some great projects with it, and no doubt there will be other interesting things to set up in that space next... Stay tuned for Trombone Champ updates and a bit of Minecraft music shortly!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: BLOWING the Lid Off Our Next Musical!

HeyJ, squad! Thanks for hanging in there while waiting for updates for what's coming next to Random Encounters! It took us some time to regroup from the holidays (and we're still in the process of doing it...), but we're finally ready to reveal what's underway... We think it'll be a fun, simple start to 2023, and we hope you'll stick along for the ride as we expand the RE library each month.

Thanks again for backing the channel and we're stoked to be gearing up for an exciting year together!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: New Year, Same Animation Issues

HeyJ, everyone! We're getting started with some of our first musical projects of 2023, and already an email or two has come in regarding animations we had in progress. It's becoming apparent that what we want out of our animated projects is a bit out of reach (at least at our budget), so we'll weigh our options and hopefully find a way to finish the projects we lost steam on.

In the meantime, you'll start to see another long-awaited video (or at least its soundtrack) coming together in the next week or so. We're admittedly still deciding which game(s) will be worth pursuing as our next live action projects, but there are a few fun options already circulating.

Thanks for supporting RE during a financially devastating month on YouTube. We know your budgets are just as tight as ours post-holiday, and it means a lot how generous you are. We hope we can pay that kindness forward and provide some really fun music videos you'll be proud to be part of!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: The End of 2022! 🥳

Happy New Year, Encounterers! We’re home and happy to be on the cusp of a fresh, promising year. 2022 was a rough one that challenged us in many ways, and we’re so thankful to have had your support as we fought through it. We have no idea what 2023 will bring — what games will trend, which channels will thrive — but we recognize how lucky we are to simply be a part of it. 😊

We’ll have new musical news ⚠️ for you soon. Enjoy the rest of your winter vacation and we’ll catch you Next Year! 😉

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Still Not at Home Alone 2: Stuck in New York

Travel troubles got us down, but we’re determined to finish the year strong (and pet our cats before December ends!) If we can, we’ll do one last REport wrap up for 2022 once we’re back. Thanks for sticking with us and we appreciate all your support! Happy holidays!

Beard Salute!
~AJ 

REport: London’t Mind Us

HeyJ, crew! Happy holidays from London Bridge (spoilers: it isn’t falling down). We’re in the midst of our Christmas vacation but didn’t like leaving everyone completely devoid of updates, so here’s a very brief clip to let you know we’re still thinking of you, even out of the country!

Stay tuned for a bit more news and progress after Christmas, and enjoy your season’s festivities!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

NO POST-MUSICAL DISCORD VOICE CHAT THIS MONTH

HeyJ, everyone! I'm sorry to report that I'll be busy (on vacation) (having fun) (not near a computer) this Friday and won't be joining Discord with our usual question session after the premiere. I hope you all still watch the musical and enjoy it (and feel free to make up your own weird question to pass around on Discord without me.

Happy holidays from the whole RE team! Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: A Wild Lamu Appears!

Behold the Lamu in all its glory! Or, you know, cower in fear at its horrifying existence...

Yesterday was a busy day for us, as we rose at the unspeakable hour of ~8AM to head out into the woods and film this terrifying beast's activities. But now that we've done that, it's time to try and finish the entire post-production process before we leave on vacation next week. It's gonna be a tight one, but you can look forward to HUNGRY LAMU gracing your eyeballs in just a few short weeks!

Beard Salute!

~Nate

REport: Our Thicc-est Costume Ever?

HeyJ, crew! I hope you’ve had a good week and are wrapping up the month strong! We’re moving our holiday musical forward little by little, and the newest costume piece to appear is… Uh… Interesting? Don’t worry, we’ll make a few tweaks and have it whipped into creepy shape before long. 😅 Stay tuned for further updates about our Hungry Llamu musical, which is set to film next week!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Fruits of our Labor

HeyJ, team! Here’s a little update for you all about what’s planned still for Random Encounters this year. 🙂 We should have more to share by the end of this week — sit tight!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Our Tiny Cemetery 🪦

HeyJ, team! Here’s your final behind-the-scenes snippet before Cult of the Lamb: The Musical drops tomorrow! I’ll be sending music out to music tiers shortly, and your trading cards have been packed for shipment as well. 😊 Stick around for the first news about our upcoming final musical of 2022!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: (CW: Chicken Feet)

HeyJ, team! This REport may squick a few of you out, so watch this one at your own discretion. On the other hand, some of you may be perfectly unfazed by this wondrous concoction, in which case, you’ll probably enjoy the entire buffet Gwen has artfully laid out for you. 😇 Thanks for funding our weirdness and prepare for a pretty crazy Cult of the Lamb music video!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Two Adorable Sheep! 😍

HeyJ, ya’ll! Who let the livestock into my kitchen??? Filming’s set to start tomorrow and this outfit’s looking amazing! Congratulations, you all chose a very cute Lamb for this project. 🥰 Stay tuned for some on-set updates next!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Storyboards are BACK!

HeyJ, team! Sorry for the long absence. I’m glad to share a few small things with you, and to assure you that our next project, CULT OF THE LAMB: THE MUSICAL, is on track to be filming late this week! We’ll have more progress to share shortly. 😊 Thank you for providing us with your support, especially when we’re a bit bogged down! 🥴

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Why's There a Hole in the Wall?

So yeah, this happened. Last night was a long (and tiring) night of filming THE MAN FROM THE WINDOW, but we managed to survive! The same can't be said for our wall, however...

AJ is getting ready to record the song with Gwen now and I'm going to spend the entire night cutting the project together. Our hope is that by tomorrow evening, the song will be completely done and we'll be ready to figure out what (if any) reshoots we need to do. It's going to be hectic and nobody's going to get much sleep, but the musical WILL come out this Friday... no matter what! With that said, it's time to get back to work!

Beard Salute!

~Nate

REport: Bye bye, Ball Pit

HeyJ, team! Some of our space is looking a little different today… On a side note, did you know that evacuating a ball pit is a PAIN IN THE BUTT AND TAKES FOREVER? 😵‍💫 Hopefully the musical really benefits from having the extra space!

Speaking of which, stay tuned for footage of the costumes and actors filming on set!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Our New Kangaroo! 🦘

HeyJ, everyone! We’ve got a bit of an update for our next project (and I guess the one after, too!) Hop on in here and check out what’s coming kangasoon! 🤓

(If you’ve been thinking of cancelling your pledge, I’ll understand if that joke pushed you over the edge.)

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Castlevania’s Last Ditch Effort

HeyJ, team! Some sad news today: Castlevania’s numbers are in, and they’re pretty ugly. We were prepared for a hit, but nothing quite this extreme, and it’s been a dark, eye-opening first week of October. Despite our best efforts, it seems time to surrender to YouTube’s preferences and base our next year of projects around the algorithm. We’ve pulled a set of about five trending games to pursue and will tell you more about them shortly.

Thank you for truly being a rock for this channel and giving us the chance to go hard (and fail spectacularly at times!) We will be adjusting our 2023 budget to continue RE as responsibly — but still with as much quality — as possible until we can hopefully get Random Encounters re-aligned within YouTube’s system.

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Introducing Your NEW LEADER!👑

HeyJ, loyal members and faithful acolytes! We have some important news to share about an upcoming project… and yeah, that other one you’ve been watching us work on for a month is coming along as well. 😅 Next update will involve FNAF and probably the poll results for You Know What! Thank you for supporting RE! 🙂

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: The Sound Design Dungeon (aka "Nate's Office")

AKA Nate's bedroom. 😂

HeyJ, everyone! It's not a lot, but here's a quick update about our upcoming musical for October. If you wanted to catch a glimpse of our actors on-set and in costume (and not sitting on the floor eating/touching a wall chicken), then this will help set the stage for what's to come.

Speaking of what's to come, there's some test music underway for another potential musical that I think several of you may appreciate. :) We also owe you an update on FNAF, so we'll circle back around on those topics very soon. Thanks for supporting this channel and the crazy stuff we're doing with it!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Shaving the Day!

HeyJ, everyone! Yeah, this is a weird one: the kind of behind-the-scenes no one expected to be watching, but here we are. 🥴 At least I can report that the pick-up shots we grabbed turned out pretty cool, so it was worth going to this trouble. Thanks for backing RE and stay tuned!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Who’s Here for Dinner?

HeyJ, everybody. I’m gonna let this REport speak for itself for once. Thank you all for contributing to something so cool and I hope you’re looking forward to this musical!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: WHO STOLE OUR FURNITURE?!

Just kidding, it was us. 😅 Welcome to what will eventually be the set of our next musical! It doesn’t look like much yet, but maybe that will make it more fun to see as it evolves? And plus, we worked really hard doing even this much, so we wanted it documented what a pain even covering our white ceiling was (even badly.) 😛

Thanks for backing the channel and stay tuned for the next update!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Not to Scale

HeyJ, pals! We’re back with another REport… and apparently some fancy new boots! Here’s some of what’s been arriving lately in preparation for our Castlevania musical, and stay tuned for some set building action that’s right around the corner!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: Danceylvania!

HeyJ, everyone! Thanks for bearing with us in between updates. Today, we're looking over a couple smaller props that arrived for our upcoming, seasonally-relevant horror project, CASTLEVANIA: THE MUSICAL!

I've wanted to do this video for literally years, but each Halloween, we wrote it off as A) too expensive, and B) not popular enough to merit making. But after a decade of RE, we've realized this channel can't last forever and some of these "one day" projects are well overdue. So let's stop stalling and MAKE THIS!

There's a brief comment about FNAF toward the end that I promise we'll clarify eventually. You guys are all part of the production process, so despite my burning desire to keep everything top secret, I feel guilty having left you in the dark as long as we have about some of our delays. We'll probably come clean next month with a few specifics that should explain a lot (and hopefully still leave you jazzed to see how it plays out!)

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: THE FACE OF EVIL!

HeyJ, team! I told you we’d show off some animations in progress… and we finally did! Here’s a look at some of what’s under construction on RE. Thanks for backing the channel!

Beard Salute!
~AJ

REport: GWEN KILLED HIM

Sadly, the rumors are true. I married a murderer. :( F's in the chat for our longboi -- he was a joy to work with over the years and a real inspiration to young cookware everywhere.

Don't worry. A bit of duct tape (helpfully paid for by Patreon!) will have him back to life in no time. Which is good, because no doubt you'll be seeing him more later this year, assuming we can schedule his co-stars okay. ^^ In case you haven't been getting the sense, our goal is to spend most of the second half of 2022 doing nonstop FNAF, with a sprinkling of other musicals mixed in. And yes, you heard us right near the end -- "Web of Lies 2" DOES have a name finally! You'll find out more soon. ^^

Thank you for your support and I'll see some of you on Discord shortly after the premiere tomorrow to chat about FNAF!

Beard Salute!
~AJ