Random Gooseshittery - Update #1 (Patreon)

Good afternoon all, I hope you've had a lovely week.

I've been super busy over here. And have made a good start on what's to be the next Youtube project - Untitled Goose Game. Thank you for voting in the polls last week. I've been thrilled to sink my teeth into this.

On that front, my objective is to try and turn the two livestreams into a bullshittery formatted video.

The process for making this is a little different, since it's essentially a narrative-style. Or at least, it isn't a bunch of disjointed jokes/skits that I can sprinkle onto a timeline. Continuity has to be preserved, with many jokes necessitating earlier setup. Which I'll talk more about in a moment.

The first stage of this project was an "initial cutting sweep", in which I went through the whole project identifying anything funny/useful to me as an editor. Very much one of those "chip away any the parts of the marble that don't look like an elephant".

This left me with about 1 hour and 15 minutes of useful cuts, discarding the rest as completely useless.

From this, I was able to make certain high-level choices as an editor.

The first decision was to divide the video up into chapters. Identifying the puzzle areas of Untitled Goose Game and therefore making 6 distinct "nests" in Premiere. Within which all cuts are contained. These correspond to the various districts presented in the puzzle game. The lake, the garden, the shopfronts, the bickering neighbours, the pub and finally the bell.

Each chapter is expected to be between 4-6 minutes in duration, leading to a bullshittery of around half an hour ish. I hope.

The second major decision was deciding NOT to keyframe any text until I'm satisfied I can play the entire video back. Frontloading the phase 2 "cutting/refinement" at the start of the project, rather than mixing some of that into the final QA. Which is a bit of a drastic departure from my usual approach.

Normally I get 30-40 bullshittery jokes in rough order. Then I make sure it plays roughly. And then start making tighter refinements as I'm adding the animated text.

But the comedic DNA of Untitled Goose Game - a singleplayer game with lots of observational comedy - is drastically different. It's not 40 hours of DayZ footage in which maybe 6 guys make idle banter. But 4 hours of poking a tightly-designed world and giggling childishly as it pokes back. There are no jokes to be cut out of their original context.

Also I'm worried that if I enter keyframing too soon, without the structure finalised,  I run the risk of doing exhaustive motion-tracking on footage I may simply trim down later. Wasting considerable time.

So my plan - and my current goal - is phase 2 "cutting/refinement". Getting a smooth and watchable bullshittery before I even consider the process of keyframing. Which will, regrettably, probably take me about 1 week for every 5 minutes. A 6 week workload.

I am currently on chapter 4 of 6 of this "phase 2" cutting process. So I'm making good time for just the first week.

I also have something of a comedic tight-rope to be walking on. Because my objective is to present something that's easily accessible. Which is arguably the entire point of Youtube as a website. Rather than presenting 4 hours of unedited sandbox experimentation.

And whilst it needs to be trimmed down, it's entirely possible to go too far. Poking it so full of holes it's like swiss cheese. With unnecessary jump cuts that make it skittish and unpleasant to follow.

To counter this, I'll be doing my usual editing tricks. Things like continuity of eyeline scene-to-scene, stretching out shots to be slower, freezing unnecessary background motion. And generally tweaking the audio and visuals to be moving smoothly. All things I'll describe in a future post.

The final thing to mention is setup and payoff, as simple as that can be. Because there's lots of observational gags that will only work if setup before hand. And my initial scrubbing saw me making copious notes insofar as what needs to be preserved.

Why is there an empty plinth in the park? Well I joke that it's for my future statue. The bickering neighbour is making art? Well I mock her as "derivative" on running past her in the finale. Where did I get a carrot for a later gag? Well I need to show that vegetables are on sale in the shopfront.

Many notes have been taken.

For now though, please know that I've completed a "phase 1 cutting", trimming away the useless bits. And I'm currently in "phase 2 refinement cutting". On chapter 4 of 6. But I won't be starting the keyframing of the text until I'm certain it's solid.