March has arrived and hopefully with it some cooler weather.
The important stuff first - the first and final drafts of the script are done. Voice recording begins shortly, then video editing not long after. The script weighs in at 30 pages and may be a little longer once I retype the changes for the final draft. It's double the 45 minute goal I set myself. I'm resigned to the reality that scripts will be as long as they need to be, and I've also recognised that I have no desire to change that.
There's been a little less time for channel work this month as I'm studying for my IRL job (aka. The Breadwinner). Study will be ongoing for a number of months so I'm carving out extra time where I can to fit in more channel work while balancing family life, the 9 to 5, and fitness. This is the reality of a 'hobbyist' Youtuber. I'd love to make it a fulltime gig, but dreams don't pay the bills and everything is a juggling act. I've learned the hard way that sacrificing sleep makes everything worse so it's all about small efficiencies and making the most of every available moment, no matter what I'm doing.
I expect the video to be finished before the end of March. There's some IRL disruptions coming soon which I have no control over and may force me to sacrifice channel time. We're moving house sometime next year and need to put our current house on the market soon. It's going to be disruptive and painful for a while (particularly because it's prolonged, we can't just rip the Band-Aid off and move). I'll keep you updated on any significant interruptions, watch this space.
What's Blondie playin'?
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 dropped early in February, and I've been playing that a bit. I did stop briefly to try the Gothic 1 Remake demo. Lots of thoughts on that. I hope that it was made from an older build...
Ambitions
It's been so busy this month that all the original ambitions are still there:
- Create a playlist for the videos my Youtube buddies create so that I can catch up on their work. A long time overdue.
- Fix Patreon alerts so that I get notified when other people I follow post something. Another long-overdue task which has slipped under the radar.
- Add recommendations to my Patreon. There are some great creators (some of you are already here ;) ) who produce great videos. Go check 'em out!
- Streamline responding to video comments. I'm not immune to doomscrolling on Twatter, that needs to stop and I need to focus on the things which matter - you lot!
Here's some personal ambitions:
- Finish the current study course.
- Remain consistent in my training for a 5 minute per kilometre run. Still a ways to go but the average time is slowly coming down.
- Reduce portion sizes at meals, increase protein and single-ingredient food intake.
Thank you all for the support, you're fantastic and I don't deserve you.
Until next month, pardners.
Hey Folks, the video is finally done. Apologies for the late release, a few things came up near the end of the month which delayed release. I hope you enjoy it!
G'day, chaps and chapettes. July down, progress made.
The Doom/Quake horror video is now at 1hr 36mins. I had hoped to be closer to the 2hr mark by now but stumbled across more supporting material, and viewing/cutting it has taken longer than expected. I'm also making an effort to use footage which supports talking points, and because the script is loaded with talking points (and because the Doom 3 playthrough spans 18 long video files), finding footage to support even a single paragraph of the script has sometimes taken 30mins or longer. There was also another body of work I needed to complete for the Blondefire channel which was delayed by last month's IRL work, so July was very much a catch-up month all around.
The good news is that July was free of IRL distractions so I've made big progress on the video. I normally add the backing track after the footage and voice over is laid, but this time I've added it as I go. This means that the next (and final) pass only requires QA checks and audio ...
G'day, chaps and chapettes. What a crazy month it's been.
So. The video production is coming along nicely. There are a tonne of images, sounds, B-roll videos, interview footage and other miscellaneous stuff required, and sourcing it for a video this long and detailed is taking time. This is no different to other videos I've made, though it is compounded by having to cover a lot more games.
I've also hit an issue I've not had in previous projects. Well, I sort of had, but not to this degree. This video uses 4.6TB of recorded game footage. Terabytes, not a typo. Davinci Resolve, my video editing software, doesn't like loading lots of 2k videos into a project, and it has hung and crashed numerous times. I briefly had this issue with the Marathon and Jedi Knight videos - they're the longest ones on the channel so far - but only when the production timeline approached the 2 hour mark. This project struggles to copy even small clips into the timeline, and it would have been impossible to continue.
The fix? Proxy ...
