Back In The Driver's Seat! (Patreon)

Hey gang! Urgh, it's been a lot lately. Following the previously mentioned conventions, I've been super ill (possibly covid?) and it's really bogged me down. Apologies for the lack of updates over here, I really wanted to come back strong with something substantial. Perhaps I should stop fretting and not be afraid to give smaller updates! Incidentally, I'm in our Patreon Discord server practically every day (and weekly games!) so you should join us there if you haven't already! Anyway, enough self-pity and self-loathing and onto UPDATES! What have I been up to for the past month?

In my previous update, I shared a script that I'd been working on for about a month & a half that I now suddenly lacked confidence in. The comments confirmed my own fears with it. It needed more cooking.

So my plan was to shelve it. My heart was more in a different idea, a Christmassy video about novelty songs. I've been sitting on for years. But there was a problem. It was November. For me to do it the way I envision it, with interviews and deep dives, I needed to have started much sooner, October or even September. Either I compromised on my original vision for this video or I try something else. So I shelved that idea too! It was back to brainstorming!

Fortunately, Tom was away in Toronto for Buffer Festival (where he previewed a new TomSka sketch, The Confession 4). He assigned me a project to begin doing my research and deep diving on (won't say what just yet but it involves furries!) but it also allowed me more freedom to come up with some brand new ideas. I got to work, looking for inspiration, digging deep, seeking out curiosities etc. The result was a bunch of brand new video ideas I'm really excited to tackle.

I love these, but the problem remained. It was November! I realistically only have a couple of weeks before we're into December. I normally take a break for December, for personal family stuff, but also in my experience videos in December tend to perform badly - perhaps because people have Christmas stuff on their minds! If I wanted to make a video within November, I needed either a much smaller idea - or revisit an old one! So the Pizza Planet Truck came back off the shelf!

The issue I had with the previous version of this script was it lacked a proper hook. Something exciting and worth the journey of the video. It didn't have to be an earth-shattering revelation, but some sort of build up to a satisfying conclusion. I had a rethink and found a better angle to take this premise. Instead of this kind of "History Of" approach, I focussed on The Incredibles. It's the only Pixar movie to NOT have the Pizza Planet Truck, although in an interview Brad Bird said it's possible an animator could have snuck one in. And over the years, I've seen a LOT of theories about where this truck could be. Is it THIS car? Is it THAT car? So I would turn my original idea now into an investigation. Can I find the truck? I look at every theory out there, debunk it with evidence and propose some interesting ideas I've discovered. The Search For The Missing Pizza Planet Truck! THAT'S the hook!

Once I took that approach, the video practically wrote itself, and that's a good sign! The original script has been super-duper trimmed down and now occupies the opening chapter, the backstory of the truck, before we get to the meat and potatoes of the video which is going full detective mode! 

I've shared this updated version of the script. Obviously it's a bit tricky because a lot of "is it THIS vehicle?" relies on the visual element, so you know what I'm talking about. But as a script, it's going to lack that context. So I've provided a bunch of screencaps to hopefully help. It's not perfect, but that's where obviously the video will be the primary way of conveying that information. 

But either way, after a lot of to-and-froing, the video is FINALLY in production. Ironically, we might still be too late to hit November (maybe juuuuuuuuust about get it done in time for Dec 1st). But I want at least one more video this year, and it's this.

I feel bad because even with this video, that's six videos on Eddache this year instead of the regular ten-to-eleven. That's something I'll evaluate when I come to making my annual review of the channel. It may simply be with the changes happening in my life, maybe the future is bi-monthly instead of monthly? Or maybe I shouldn't pressure myself to some fixed schedule and make it "it's ready when it's ready"? Thoughts to explore later on. For now, the focus is on making this video.

Let's hurry! The pizza's getting cold!