Video(s): Three Of Them (Patreon)

So here's something new, or rather, three new things:

Li'l Guys ep 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kldj_NmR7oo

Li'l Guys ep 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2_X0FS2e4o

Checking out a Vaio C1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6257z3lui8

Okay, so, so, let me explain. It's complicated.

First, a technical note: These are not final drafts, because I'm going to be releasing them publicly over such a large timespan that the patron credits would get badly out of date. So comments are disabled, and errors are expected, because I will absolutely be uploading new versions with credits before release.

Now, as for the Pivot I'm doing here:

I've wanted to produce lower effort work for years. Not lower-quality, of course, I don't want to make filler, but I'm sick of every single video eating up at least a week and often two, including days and days of scriptwriting which doesn't always result in a better experience. Sometimes it does, but other times I think "wow, all those rewrites weren't really necessary." And besides that, the fact that I'm presenting everything in a didactic way forces me to go with my best achievable standards, and make every single minor error stand out like a sore thumb, and... it's just exhausting, especially on things so unimportant that it should hardly matter if I'm 100% correct.

I wouldn't say I'm burning out, per se, but it's more like I can see how I would, eventually. More importantly though, I'm just running into so  many things that can't hold up to a scripted shoot. I have things to talk about and things to say about them, but they just aren't worth the pomp and circumstance of going to the studio and figuring out blocking and doing 20 takes and having to go back and find parking and do another take just because I said "windows vista" when I meant "windows 7." I have been struggling for years to figure out how to write about these things without so much overhead, and I think the answer is that I shouldn't write, I should just talk. So this is that.

What I've always wanted to do with my channel is an intel-style tick/tock approach, where I release a "big" video, then a "small" one, and repeat. And the ideal is that the small videos are so easy to produce that I can actually build up a backlog - which, as you see, I've done. I now have four finished and unreleased videos; I've never had a backlog like this before, at best it was one. I could actually carry my channel for the next month without shooting any new footage, which is a huge weight off my shoulders.

This is possible because I scripted nothing, looked things up on the fly while shooting, used a single tiny camera that shoots at much lower bitrate stuck on a manfrotto magic arm, and stopped caring whether the angles or lighting were perfect or if I got everything exactly right. It worked; I was able to shoot and edit each of these in a single day, and I think the result is still something I'm proud of.

I don't think pivoting entirely to this style of Content would be wise or desirable, either to the audience or me; I am proud of the production level of my usual stuff, and I think most of my work stands up to being scripted and properly lit and whatnot, but I'll tell you this: I am way, way more capable of delivering this kind of video on a regular basis, and I still think it's more engaging than most "vlog" style work, if I do say so myself.

I intend to start mixing these in to my release schedule (such as it is.) The question of course is when and how I should put them on Patreon. My inclination is to just post them the moment they're done, but that could end up being like, four separate patron releases in a week sometimes (like now.) A couple people have already said that seems intimidating, and I wouldn't want to overload you all with a backlog, so I'm not sure if I should space these out by at least a few days, or what. Thoughts and comments invited, and I hope you enjoy the new style.