Noclip Blog #1: A Tough Few Months. (Patreon)

Hey folks!

So, it's been a tough few months.

I try not to get too negative on Noclip as that's not what you're here for, but it's probably been apparent from the amount of communication on my part that I've been feeling a bit off as of late. Winter was hard. Harder than I was expecting. Many of you probably know that I've had my battles with depression, and the winter months have always been that little bit tougher. Moving to Maryland right as the leaves were falling was probably not the brightest idea in retrospect! Being cooped up for weeks on end with few opportunities to make new friends was tough. I turned to work to keep myself busy, and then that ended up compounding the problem. I did a lot of things to try and turn my mental health around; I went to a therapist, quit alcohol for two months, exercised, but nothing seemed to help enough to get me over the hump.

At the end of 2017 I decided to cram in one more project as we flew to Amsterdam to film the Horizon Zero Dawn documentary. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and it's been incredibly successful in terms of views. But it was one more large project in an incredibly busy year. Once I got back from Christmas in Ireland my brain was mush. Jeremy edited the remaining Noclip Sessions, Esteban took over filming patron videos and I focused on planning new projects. The Warframe doc was a good fit as I knew the story wouldn't bury me and I could turn it into a bit of a road-trip. After coming back from that trip I started to feel a bit better, but it wasn't until recent weeks where I met up with friends at GDC and traveled home for a week where I started to feel like myself again. It's also nice that Spring is starting to appear in Maryland. Myself and my wife were travelling back from the airport a few days ago and we spotted the first blossoms in the trees in DC. We were about a mile from our house in Annapolis when I saw some of the same barren trees I've driven past for months finally showing color. I cried the last mile home. Seasonal affective disorder is a mother fucker.

The problem wasn't work, but my use of work as a crutch hasn't help. It's why I didn't work weekends. It's why I had such a hard time filming behind-the-scenes stuff. It's why the Google Hangouts didn't happen for months (my sincere apologies to everyone in the $20 tier for this). So as my mood gets better I'm putting thought into how I can work smarter as opposed to harder.

Noclip has grown incredibly well for the past 19 months and I am incredibly thankful to everyone one of you for making this happen. We're almost at 230k YouTube Subs, we've been holding steady with around 22k-25k of monthly funding for over a year. People stop me at events and talk to me about their favorite docs. It's incredibly gratifying to be the captain of this ship, and it's something I take with a great degree of responsibility.

It's been a hard few months, but I'm starting to feel a lot better. I'm losing weight, I'm laughing more, I'm excited about the future. My wonderful wife, family and friends have helped a lot - but so have you. Your constant support, messages and engagement with our work has helped in it's own way. So I want to thank you all for your continuing support - even during times where I feel I've left you down a bit.

What's the point of this blog?

I guess I just wanted to come clean about what it's been like. I guess I want to let you know there are some exciting changes coming to Noclip in the coming weeks and months. I guess one of those changes is an increase in communication from me (including blogging more), and new initiatives to help you all communicate with me and each other.

I realize the stupidity of making a post about how burned out I was while also signalling that we're going to do a bunch more cool stuff in the future - but I think I was too ashamed to talk about my problems without there being a silver lining. I am excited about the stuff we've got coming down the pipeline. I'm looking forward to posting more on our Patreon, creating new productions and growing what Noclip is. But I'm also aware, now more than ever, that the brighter a candle burns, the quicker it burns out. Especially when the candle moves to rural Maryland right as winter starts!

I'll leave it at that for now. Thanks so much to all of the people who support our work in whatever way they can. I hope you're all doing okay out there. If you're having a hard time yourself - seek help, talk to friends and family, do whatever you can. For me the changing of the seasons has helped a great deal, but others don't have it that easy.

Talk soon. I'm gonna go for a walk in the sun and smile at all the flowers. 

Danny

 (Photo from our Horizon documentary showing at GDC)