Update Blog - 3/16/24 (Patreon)

Admittedly, I might have been a little side-tracked this week. I was expecting that I'd have more time to get ahead on the last part of Animation Lookback: The Muppets, but other things caught my attention where I had to shift my priority and take care of those before I get back to making progress on that big video. I'll admit that it was a lot that I had to do (some of which even took a bit of an emotional toll on me), but I'm glad I was able to get them done and done well so that nothing else can be in the way of my original plan. So let's have a rundown to what I did.

- Released my review of Kung Fu Panda 4: I'll give it that this didn't turn out to be terrible. I know many franchises crash and burn by the time they get into their fourth picture like Ice Age and Hotel Transylvania. With Kung Fu Panda, this turned out to be okay where it still has some great animation and awesome action scenes that can deliver on the fun of the previous three films. However, I cannot hide that I do find this to be the weakest Kung Fu Panda movie because the writing and even the directing made it lost a bit of its soul. What was once a set of fantastic features with engaging stories and meaningful characters have been reduced to the typical kids' flick with some of the same tropes to carry the film. Not to mention that it resorts to cheap nostalgia bait with the pointless return of the old villains and not bringing back the Furious Five just...because. I'll give it that it's a slight upgrade from Trolls Band Together where it doesn't feel like a complete corporately-manufactured mess, but this fourth film doesn't have that same strong impact as what the franchise is known for.

- Streamed 2 episodes of AniMat's Crazy Cartoon Cast: This turned out to be an unusual scenario, since I keep myself to just making one episode of the podcast per week. Why suddenly make 2? That's because I was put into a unique situation where I have to keep up an annual tradition and stay up to date with some of the latest animation news, and last week had some major ones. On top of making my Oscars special where I talk about the winners like The Boy and the Heron and the ceremony itself, I also need to do an extra episode after to discuss about the passing of Akira Toriyama, the trailers of Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot, and more. I can't just keep them on hold until next week. It's not every day where you get some significant animation stories happen in a short amount of time. That's why I had to also do that extra episode so that they don't feel stale by the time I talk about them. I will say now, however, that there is a good chance that I'll give myself a break next week and not to an episode to catch up on some videos. That and I'll need time to reload on more stories for the next episode, as well as gathering my energy for it.

- Created a new AniMat Watches: I'm not going to say what it is now, but there is a good chance that you may guess what it is based on what I've written here. There was a part of me that didn't want to do this, especially with how it has such an infamous reputation and already named one of the worst movies of the year. However, my YouTube channel is in a bit of a rough spot where the algorithm seems to hate my long-form videos, and I've had fans continuously asking me since it came out earlier this month, I might as well do something about it, and might as well bring back AniMat Watches for this occasion. All I will say for now about this is that I've never had a movie piss me off that much in a long time. The things people say about this is true and more. All I can hope for is that the painful experience will be worth it if people will enjoy my reactions to it and that it finds better success than the last few AWs I released. And it will be coming sooner than you think. Next week, you will know what I went through.

- Filming the Final Part of Animation Lookback: The Muppets: Once I was able to have all those projects out of the way, I was able to put myself back onto this video. As you can imagine, there wasn't as much advancements to its production, but I did do some pushes forward to get ahead and be ready for the next steps. The big ones I've done is some extra revisions on the script to add some extra trivia, along with polishing the voiceover so that it can be ready to use. I also did some filming, primarily with Puppet AniMat to do some of the last parts with him both in front of the green screen and out of that. This weekend, I'll be filming my parts where I'm in front of the camera, and then I'll have all the materials I'll need to enter into the next phase of production.

- My TikTok channel has over 10K followers: Other than the unexpected load of side projects I had to work on, the biggest highlight of my week was waking up  one day to discover that I have reached over 10K followers on TikTok! I knew it was going to happen (and it took longer than I expected), but I'm so glad to have finally crossed that finish line. What ultimately gave me that boost was an Animation Fact video about Hades from Disney's Hercules I released a few weeks back. It was a bit of a late bloomer, but it is now one of my most watched videos on that platform. The bonus that I got is that now I was able to make playlists and I immediately set those up to put each video in their own individual categories. At the same time, I also made a couple of extra Animation Fact videos based on some recent big animation news, including The Boy and the Heron being this year's animated Oscar winner, and another based on an insane idea that Kung Fu Panda 4 was original gonna go with. I know that was a freaky week regarding TikTok, especially with the US government rushing their way to probably ban the platform, but I am happy to see that I'm doing very well on the platform and that I get to continue this. Let's keep this rowing and have that happen on my other platforms too!

- REMINDER FOR PATRONS $50+/MONTH: This month's Discord Chat will be happening on Tuesday the 19th at 8pm EST. Let me know if you're not available for either so I'll organize a quick chat at a different time.

And that was my loaded week of spontaneous side projects. For now, next week doesn't look that bad in terms of what videos or errands need to be worked on and I'll have a lot more time to work on AL: The Muppets. It feels nice to have a more clear schedule, but my life has so far been filled with surprises, so we'll see what happens next. So, until next time...

See ya later, dudes!