Want to be in a PMI video? How about three?! (Patreon)

Hello! I'm very excited to invite you to be a part of not one, but three PMI videos!!!

1. A new Patreon video
2. A how-to video to help folks download, sync, and enjoy our tracks
3. A celebration of 10 Years of Pretty Much It

Whether you want to be a part of just one or all three, please read to the end of the post for a full breakdown of each video, as well as how to submit your videos to us and a quick Patreon update.

New Patreon Video

The easiest way to describe this one is "Patreon video" because folks know what that means, but we specifically want to focus on which commentary track(s) convinced you to sign up! This video will be on the landing page of our Patreon and its purpose is to convince anyone on the fence that it's worth signing up for our weekly commentary tracks. Sure, we could try and convince em ourselves, but we're biased because we're the ones making the tracks! Since you know why you signed up in the first place, and have stuck around to keep getting new tracks, we'd love for you to explain why to newcomers!

There will be three segments to this video, so please make sure you include all or at least one of the following:

1. "The [MOVIE/SERIES TITLE] track(s)." Choose whichever track(s) convinced you to sign up, plug it into that brief sentence (fragment), and then we'll cut to a quick clip from that track/video and move on to the next person. After that, you can say something like "That's what convinced me I needed more tracks" or "That's the first track I listened to and I've been signed up ever since" or whatever you want! There's no script for that part but, hopefully you get the idea.

To be clear, this goes for any commentary track we've released since 2013! If you've been a patron since before 2016 and didn't specifically sign up for commentary tracks, feel free to just pick a favorite track from around the time you joined, or just say whatever you'd like and I'll find a place to fit it into the video! For example, if you signed up for our old podcast but stuck around for weekly tracks, you could say that. Obviously commentary tracks are the main content we produce now, so as long as it ties back to the tracks then it will make sense. If you signed up because you just liked our banter or the overall PMI vibe, we'd love to include that as well. Certainly don't want to limit you if you've got something you'd like to say about PMI!

2. Tell us how your experience signed-up for weekly tracks has been! Do you listen to the audio tracks or watch the Watch Us Watch? Do you listen alone or with friends? Did you only sign up for one specific track and then find yourself binging a hundred of them? Did you sign up for audio tracks and eventually upgrade to Watch Us Watch? We want folks to get a firsthand account of what they can expect when they sign up. There's no script to this part either; once again those are just some example ideas in case ya need em.

3. Why do you think someone should sign up? If you watched all our videos on YouTube and then wondered if it was worth it to get the full tracks, we want you to explain what made you decide to sign up. If you bought a few tracks from our website before committing to signing up for weekly tracks, we'd love to hear about that too. We certainly feel we produce content that's worth paying for, and we hopefully make it clear that you can save money by signing up for weekly tracks rather than buying them individually on our website, but we think that would mean a whole lot more coming from you. No script for this either; however you want to explain it is up to you! Really looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this because it's the one thing we truly can't explain better than you, so feel free to be as detailed as you'd like.

Outside of those three things, say whatever the heck you want! Keep in mind whether or not what you have to say may be better suited for the 10 Years video (details below), but if you think it makes sense for the Patreon video then by all means!

Oh, and make sure to end it by saying "and that's pretty much it!"

One important note: In that original Patreon video linked above, the words "support" and "donation" are used a lot because when Patreon first launched it was all about supporting creators, and while lots of creators still use it for support, you may have noticed over the years that Patreon's mission has evolved into what we use it for now: membership! As you know, we use Patreon to run our commentary track subscription service. We don't want to confuse anyone into thinking we need or accept donations, so please try to avoid using those words. If your primary reason for signing up is to support us, we greatly appreciate that but just know that we're providing you with our products in exchange for your moolah!

While we're on that topic... as we did with the $1 tier earlier this year, we will be doing away with the $5 tier at the end of August because it doesn't really offer anything tangible and our focus is on a subscription service for our commentary tracks. Getting videos early is something our Patreon launched with back when it was about supporting the show, but that's no longer what we use Patreon for. If you're in the $5 tier, there's nothing you have to do! We'll close that tier at the end of the month and you won't be charged on the 1st.

How-To Video

As much as I think we explain pretty well how to sync up our tracks with the movies and shows we're watching, we still get questions from time to time and it has dawned on me that there's nobody better to explain it than YOU. You're the ones doing it every week, so you've probably mastered it by this point and can offer better advice to newcomers than we could.

This will not be a Patreon-specific video, so no need to mention signing up or where you get your tracks. This is just to explain to anyone with a commentary track how to properly sync it up. You can even feel free to show off your set-up for watching movies/shows along with our tracks. There's no "script" for this one, as I'm not sure how I'm going to edit it together just yet, so just do whatever you'd like and have fun with it!

Once again, don't forget to end it by saying "and that's pretty much it!"

And finally, the video I'm most excited about...

10 Years of Pretty Much It

Can you believe it's been ten years?

I officially launched Pretty Much It on September 20th, 2010 with this video (ignore the publish date - YouTube adjusted it when it was unlisted and re-published years later). As you can see, PMI started out as a place for me and my friends to talk about the latest news in movies, TV, music, etc and transitioned into more of a comedy-focused brand as my interests changed over the years. From 2010 to 2017 we produced reviews, from 2012 to 2015 we had some weekly shows/podcasts running, and of course from 2013 through today we've been producing commentary tracks.

So let's freakin celebrate!!!

We want to put together a video with all of you sharing your favorite PMI moments from over the years, whether you've been following PMI since before it even launched (Erick With No K, anyone?) or you just discovered PMI this week.

This one is going to be most similar in tone and structure to our old Patreon video linked above. If you'd like to be a part of it, please start your video with the following:

"My name is [NAME] and I've been following Pretty Much It since..." and then either the year, what grade you were in, the first video you remember seeing, or whatever your earliest PMI memory is.

I know I definitely want to include all ten years (and even further back if you've been following since pre-2010!) so while it's not required that you specify a year, I am hoping enough people say the year they started following PMI so that I have every year covered while editing. That said, for some of you perhaps the year is irrelevant and it's more important to say what grade you were in, the friend or family member that first showed you a PMI video, a tweet you saw that led you to us, etc. Whatever you want to say is totally fine!

I've gotten lots of very nice messages over the years about PMI being a big part of some folks' lives, and if you're one of those people then feel free to get as real about it as you'd like. Your video does not need to be funny if you have something serious to say. And of course if you want to make your video silly, make it silly! If you watch our previous Patreon video then you should get a good idea of what I'm going for with the mixture of genuine and silly responses.

And of course the most important thing is to end it by saying "and that's pretty much it!"

How To Submit

The absolute easiest way to submit your videos to us is by uploading unlisted to YouTube and sending us the link via Patreon message. If you're able to, please also include in your message links and timestamps to any moments from our videos or tracks that you mention, especially if it's for the 10 Years video, so that I can more easily find those clips to edit in along with your thoughts.

If you can get your video in by the end of this month, that would be great! If you really want to be involved but need a little more time, just let me know.

I think that's it! Hopefully I didn't forget anything, but please feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments on this post and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Can't wait to see all of your videos! Thank you!!!

- Eric