january 2021 update (Patreon)

hey folks!! just wanted to pop by and tell you that Things are happening. the big one is the Knives Out Director's Cut on VHS, which you can see some test stills from up above. once that's out i plan to do a big breakdown post explaining my workflow, but the short version is that i got a VCR for christmas and found a way to turn it into a second monitor on my pc, so i'm now able to record videos onto VHS tapes, then play those tapes back and record them on that selfsame pc! the result is a genuine analog aesthetic that no plugin or luma-keyed glitch reel could ever hope to reproduce, not to mention the live performance aspect inherent to the process itself!! but you'll have to wait a while to find out exactly what i mean by that.

now, obviously the Knives Out video already exists in multiple forms. i'm going to record an interstitial or two plus a new outro for this "Director's Cut," but that's still only gonna amount to maybe ten minutes of new material at most. So, what gives?

well, i have two answers.

1. the Knives Out vid was rendered in 4:3 because i've had in my head since at least july that i wanted to do some kind of lofi analog "essential" version, which i initially imagined as a camera recording the video playing back on a CRT television. i really like the idea of an objectively worse version of the video being the "Director's Cut" that faces public audiences. the VCR changed my plans and i think this is a much more authentic, interesting, and most importantly watchable direction to take. actually watchability isn't all that important to me, but that's a me problem isn't it? point is, this is me bringing that ironic pan-and-scan aesthetic home to roost.

2. i can't say much about this without showing my cards, but i'll just say that this "Director's Cut" is, besides a fun experiment, also a proof of concept both for a radically new workflow on my end and for a type of video presentation that i fully intend to go much, much harder on down the line. using a video that already exists makes figuring out logistics like the VHS color space (GREEN) and the vagaries of this workflow a lot easier and low-stakes. this is great news for those of you who love weird analog aesthetics, but maybe less so for those of you who just want me to hurry up and talk about Twin Peaks some more. but then again... maybe not? ;)

(and i'll go ahead and say it since i'm sure several of you are already wondering: yes, i'm considering the possibility of a limited run of this or another video on VHS. don't expect this any time soon, but it's on my radar as a possibility. let me know in the comments if that's something you'd be interested in!)

anyway, besides all this VHS crap i'm also gonna do some plain-jane video essays in the meantime, the first of which will be about The Matrix. depending on how well i can get my shit together, that'll happen either end of this month or beginning of next. it hurts me to switch up the style in the Wachowski series so drastically from live action unscripted to just voice over and scripted, but i just don't have the setup to do live videos like i used to right now. someday...

as always, a million other things are in the works that may or may not see the light of day. i'll leave those to your imagination for now and just say that i really appreciate your support despite everything going on in the world. i hope that my work can continue to provide some relief or comfort in these ludicrous times. y'all are the reason i have the leeway to experiment and try new things, so again, thank you.

take care of yourselves.