Click the window below to play an updated cut of season eight's premiere, with a second of black removed from between two sequences near the end of the video.
Some people thought I was kidding about re-uploading over such a small detail. The black was obviously unintentional -- a tiny gap missed in the length of the feature length Adobe Premiere sequence during the quality assurance phase of production preceding the final render.
People said they didn't even notice the black and that I shouldn't have bothered re-uploading. Tough fucking titties, I noticed it. It's precisely because it's trivial that I re-uploaded. I worked hard on this, I'm not gonna let something stupid permanently taint the only record of its existence on the web, that's stupid.
Thank you all for your comments, e-mails and additional pledges since the release of the premiere, the reaction has been exciting. Feels like old times. Not the view figures I used to have, but whatever. I like making the show. If I was out simply for the attention of as many eyeballs as possible, I'd murder a child in public or worse, work at BuzzFeed.
My belief is this -- the world's an exciting place right now with the rapid development of technology, networking capabilities and access to information. If I make the show good enough, people will find it, the quality will be recognized and the show will find a bigger audience eventaully.
I also don't have a clue how to market myself. I never have. My mind tends to naturally reject the business and marketing ends of media creation and distribution. I recognize that they've had to exist in order for media to exist, but they're not areas I feel comfortable in at all.
The idea of advertising myself as somebody who's a big deal makes me cringe, because I've never had a very high opinion of myself. I'd much rather have my work and fans speak for me.
So, I'm very much relying on word of mouth to help this season find an audience. If you hated the premiere, go ahead and dislike it, perhaps send me a death threat. If you liked it, please try to share it in some form.
Consider throwing in a pledge via Patreion if you haven't already, accessible through my site's support page. Even if it's just a buck, that would be wonderful, seriously. A patron account on Patreon is easy to create.
The support and patience from the fans thus far has been incredible and I can't thank my backers enough for keeping me afloat.
The unfortunate fact remains that the amount of pledges I currently have isn't quite enough to sustain me, and I mention it because it means being distracted from the required full-time work on the show to seek additional funds, such as exhausting production assistant gigs.
If a thousand of my followers who aren't currently backing me on Patreon suddenly decided to contribute a dollar I'd be set and I wouldn't have to worry about making ends meet anymore. It also means other backers currently donating shockingly large amounts can reduce their pledges without feeling like they're making a dent in my living.
Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I admit I've been taking it easy since cutting and putting the premiere out, that edit was pretty much non-stop as soon as the script was done and exhausting, excluding the several sixteen-hour back-to-back days spent rendering sequences, assuring quality and making adjustments.
Feeling good again, and episode two is underway.
I wrote earlier on Twitter that my next upload would be a second trailer for the season, but we'll see. Cutting a decent trailer together's a bit harder than I'd anticipated. It requires re-typing a lot of the toys' subtitles to make the video seem like a contemporary trailer with lots of overlapping cuts in dialogue and video.
I hate writing subtitles, it's annoying as shit. In fact, just about everything between early development and late post-production of each episode of this show is and always has been brutally tedious.
I might just call of or postpone the trailer to focus getting more episodes out for now, but I think I do need a video that sells the intensity and humor of the premiere in a few minutes to help with growing the show's audience.
Over an hour's just too long for most people on YouTube. Nowadays it seems over one minute is enough to put people to sleep.
I know I've yet to put out a commentary track for the premiere episode, which is listed as one of my Patreon backer rewards. I'm thinking of recording it over Twitch -- people can ask me whatever they want about the episode as I play it over my stream and watch it, mentioning things I think are interesting in between questions.
Anybody will be able to tune in to watch the stream on Twitch, but I'd make access to a later upload of the same stream available only to backers on Patreon pledging the required amount.
Might sound stupid, but I should be following these reward rules, right? Doesn't feel good suddenly changing up the rules after people have started pledging -- assuming backers take the rewards and their requisites seriously, which probably isn't the case and I'm over-analyzing as usual.
More posts will come. Thanks again for all your support, keep the comments and pledges coming if you can, and please share if you want the show to succeed.
Thank you!
Cheers,
Jon