Box Peek October Update (Patreon)

I guess it seems a bit silly to write one of these right in the middle of season one, but I promised monthly updates and I intend to deliver monthly updates!

Firstly, as always, thank you for your patience. It meant a lot to me to finally announce a release date and make a trailer for that release date and hit that release date with almost everything going okay.

Production Stuff
I had forgotten this, but the final edit of Episode 5 wasn't even finished at the beginning of this month. As I assumed in last month's post, I finished the edit by the end of the week without any big snags. Episode 5 is pretty cool.
Then, the Season 1 Trailer took a little while. Since I was pretty sure I'd only be using shots and dialogue from the first two episodes, the absolute hardest part was finding a song. (Really a lot of Box Peek post-production is spent looking for the perfect music) Eventually I abandoned the cool tracks I was checking out to go with a dramatic, explosive track that contrasted well with the silly paper puppets. It feels huge and momentous but from what you're seeing and hearing it isn't too serious. From there everything fell into place pretty swiftly. I sent it to the group (ending on the Box Peek logo reveal was Jones's idea) and was able to premiere it during a group stream. If you want to watch the trailer, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEl41cRo9To

Meanwhile, I was also working with my friend Noah, of Fangamer, to make a new shirt. After our first two designs sold well on their site, Noah was like, "We gotta do that Box Peek shirt next" and obviously I was down in a heartbeat. That process is so cool--sending art to Fangamer, seeing what their in-house artists have done with it, making sure the colors on the actual printed shirt are perfect. There were a couple of guys at their office who have zero familiarity with Box Peek but wanted some dino shirts just because they like the design, which warmed my heart (and my ego). So far Jordy's shirt has sold pretty well, and that's exciting not for monetary reasons but because it means we might get to make more stuff. The shirts come with a bonus sticker that was also fun to produce but we can't talk about it too much since it's an Episode 3 reference. If you haven't seen the shirt, you can check it out here: https://www.fangamer.com/products/easy-allies-jordy-s-dino-shirt

Finally, Episodes 1 and 2 premiered on time on the 26th and 29th. Re-premiering Episode 1 was frankly not thrilling for me since it was mostly unchanged and I think it's generally pretty ugly, but doing the live Q&A on Twitch turned out to be a blast. (The YouTube Premiere system was fun to experiment with but ultimately it seems like Easy Allies isn't ready to commit to it yet) I expected the Q&As to go 20 minutes, basically a few "How did you do the part where they peek out of the boxes?" and wrap it up, but both have stretched to over an hour without at least yours truly getting bored. It's also great to see people react to new episodes in real time. I imagine it's not ideal to ingest narrative media while listening and watching and typing your comments and reading other comments all at the same time, but I think that's what humanity is about at this point. If you missed them, Episode 1 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQz6WYtkMSs and Episode 2 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvNGi1m0wNo

I spend the night or two before a premiere tinkering with the episodes, changing shots and dialogue in ways that probably aren't necessary. In both Episodes 1 and 2 this has led to grave typographical errors that I will regret forever, so next time I'm going to get Bloodworth to do a sneak peek at a nearly-final export.

Production on Episode 6 has not yet begun. I thought about doing the audio edit during this time tonight but honestly I'm pretty sick and feel like trash, so I figured I could write this now at least. Because of the inevitable busy business of November and December, Realistic Producer Kyle believes that I will be lucky to get just Episode 6 done before the end of 2018. That gives us four episodes to produce in 2019. I'd love to say it'll just take four months, but realistically (or pessimistically at least) I'm assuming six to eight. Each of the next five episodes will be uniquely challenging, and I still look forward to making each of them.

Lastly, Episode 3 premieres this Monday! (remember to check easyallies.com for local listings) If you find the time to join us live on twitch.tv/easyallies , please do. If not, each episode is of course on youtube.com/easyallies

Behind-the-Scenes Thoughts
Now is probably a good time to acknowledge a clear fact that I haven't seen a lot of discussion about but is probably running through a lot of minds: Box Peek's YouTube views are dumpy.
The very thought that something that takes this much time and effort would be viewed by fewer people than our weekly podcast should be frustrating, and I think months ago it surely would have driven me nuts.
To be open and honest with you, I believe our YouTube channel is badly designed. We put a lot of stuff on there that gets wildly different views. If the channel was optimized, it would have fewer shows that are all more or less exclusively focused on video games. To my understanding, our 190,000 subscribers mean nothing if YouTube doesn't believe they'll be interested in what we're uploading. You'll see things like Ian's No Redemption musical and Don's Broken Trifecta get relatively low views when I'm certain there is a much larger audience for them out there. And also you'll see "Kyle Reviews Every Spider-Man Costume" get 250k views, where half of the audience absolutely hates everything I'm saying.
With all this said, Easy Allies isn't just a YouTube channel. We're a highly successful Patreon channel, a decent Twitch channel, and a pretty OK YouTube channel. (Abysmal Twitter account) Whether it was Damiani's pep talk or months of isolated self-reflection, I'm in an unusually contented state of mind about Box Peek. It truly does not bother me that neither episode has broken 15k views yet. I'll admit that ten times those views would be cool, but the response in the comments and live reactions and twitter and everything has been more rewarding than anything I've felt with Easy Allies or maybe GameTrailers or maybe any project? Top Five for sure. I'm good with Box Peek simply being Box Peek.
I also realize the low views could be disappointing to a lot of the people reading this, who are concerned about Easy Allies' growth and popularity. From pitch to publishing, I've tried to make it clear that the purpose of Box Peek was not to make Easy Allies more money. Memes are clearly where we make our dough. In seriousness, since its beginning Easy Allies has always been about managing the weird balance between What We Want to Do and What Will Make Us Money. I admit the Box Peek is as far as it goes on the Want to Do scale. If you were holding onto big expectations for the show despite my low estimates, we can either accept this one as a high-profile loss-leader like Starz executives, or hope still that Box Peek will explode when PewDiePie makes fun of Episode 4. Either way, you feel assured that I'm feeling surprisingly good.

That's it for now! I'll be back at the end of November to update you on Episode 6's progress. I mean this sincerely--thank you for your patience and support.

Love & Respect,
Kyle