Monthly Progress Update on the Video (Patreon)

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to give you a monthly update on how progress is going on the current project, and I have a lot to discuss as far as that is concerned. The script as of right now is reaching a hundred and thirty pages long, which I know is quite a lot. It will have a runtime of about five hours or so, probably a little longer, but it is actually good this time and I'm very proud of this one. I feel that I’ve put the time into this that I can comfortably say at this point that if this is not the best thing I’ve made, then it will hopefully be considered to be at least up there. I’m putting everything I’ve got into it, and I hope that shows on the screen. I’ve read five books, dozens upon dozens of articles and interviews spanning six decades, watched nearly twenty movies, and have tried to become as much of an expert on the subject as I possibly can in order to tell this story as well and as cohesive as I can. If I were to compare this project to any of my others, it would be similar to the Nic Cage video except almost twice as long and much more thoroughly/professionally researched. I still have a couple weeks on the script left to go, but I’m feeling really strong about it and can’t wait to share some of the video with you soon. 

I’m also building an actual set to film this video on that will be able to be repurposed and redecorated on the fly to match different theming for future projects, which should hopefully positively affect the feel of the videos from here on that I am physically in because I won’t have to use green screen so much every single time and will be able to use actual creative lighting and shot framing. I am building that at the end of the first week of August, and hope to be shooting very soon after that should everything go well.

I also have one last announcement that I would like to make, but I don’t know fully what form that this is going to fully take just yet so I don’t want to say too much, but I am starting a second channel for the overall In Praise of Shadows brand. Basically, as I said last time, I have decided to only focus on main videos on the main channel and only release them when they are 100% ready from now on. I’ve always seen my work as being of two types, main videos and filler videos that are done to buy me time to work on the main ones. And so from now on on the main channel I plan, for right now at least, on exclusively doing franchise videos and other longform videos in the style of the Courage one, history of monsters, history of horror comics, Lovecraft, or other more extensive deep dives on single subjects like I did with Marble Hornets, Nothing But Trouble, or Kenneth Anger. 

The second channel (theoretically) will be shorter form videos that will hopefully be 10-20 minutes each that I will do semi-weekly that will be much less labor intensive with me on camera the whole time with limited editing talking more off the cuff about movies, books, or other horror history related things that are still interesting in their own right, but normally might not justify a whole In Praise of Shadows video on their own.  This will hopefully be a best of both worlds type situation if I can work this out, because it will mean a lot more regular content from me on a wider range of topics than I normally cover that will hopefully be able to be used to build funds to carry me in those gaps between the larger flagship videos. If successful, this will also make it to where I never have to rush out a project again, which means the main channel videos will hopefully always be exceptional every single time. This second channel is going to launch the exact same day as this new video, and I will always put that content here early as I finish it. I will have to figure out a way to do this that is not overwhelming on me which is my primary concern here, which is why I’m worried about over-promising, but I think I have come up with a schedule that will make this somewhat manageable. Basically, I’m going to at first try and have a week every two months that I dedicate to exclusively working on the side channel where I will try to make eight videos for it and bank them, then release them one at a time so that I can then focus on the main videos for two uninterrupted months without having to be distracted by the side content. I’m going to have to play around a lot and feel out what works and what doesn’t with this, so in the early ones you’ll see a lot of exploration and experimentation on the form of these, and I’d love any feedback from you all on how you think I can do these better, because it will be a very new format for me that I will have to grow into.

I am also going to take the advice that some of yall have said and am going to open up a five dollar monthly tier on here to try and help make getting all this together a little easier to figure out. I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to subscribe to that if they don’t want to or don’t feel like they can, because I’ve always wanted to keep the Patreon at a dollar entry point per month. That was always important to me to maintain, but given the current situation it kind of feels necessary to at least offer that option at this moment to get all this off the ground. I do not know what I can offer extra for the additional tier, I’m not the most creative when it comes to that kind of thing, so I’m very open to suggestions there in the comments if anyone has any fun ideas. Sorry this post ended up being so long, I’ve just been working to try and successfully relaunch in early September with all of this and really want to do everything I can to make this work better than it was before. Thank you all again so much for sticking with me, as always it means a ton. I will share some pictures soon as I get the set together, and when I have the first chapter or two put together of this project I will upload them here. I hope you are all doing well and taking care of yourself. 

Thanks again,

-Zane