BTS - HawktoberO2 (141-146) (Patreon)

G'day Tony Hawk's Pro Fanboys, welcome to the Making-of: Hawktober 2020 which is just a blog this year. Usually there is also a video episode to document this stuff but there is really no need for it this year. That said, there is still PLENTY to cover so let's drop into it!

----------------------------------------

How did HawktoberO2 come to be?
This channel event was always only going to be a 3-Year deal to cover the rise, demise and portable experience, ending with the ELR in 2019! While I still wanted to do something each year just to commemorate the occasion, I wanted everything scaled back to simplicity and no pressure. But given the scale of the project, it tends to consume much of June - October for me each year and honestly... I feel like given I was quite unsure of myself going into 2020. NOT having such a large chunk of the year planned ahead of time was quite scary and so in retrospect, I just reverted back into the normal pattern out of fear of the unknown

Although that is only part of the reason I decided to continue as normal. I've obviously had a lot of time to think about potential content for the Hawktober event that over the years, I had a lot more I wanted to cover. A big one was the impact THPS had on the gaming industry i.e. all the knockoffs over the years. But it made sense to cover Activision's official clones first so that's what I set out to cover.

Changing the Process:
Due to the sheer amount of work that needs to be completed, my process for getting everything completed has always remained the same each year:

• Play ALL of the games back to back
• Write ALL of the scripts back to back
• Film EVERYTHING
• Edit the videos all within a mere 2-3 WEEKS!

However knowing that I have not been in a good place for quite some time now, I really needed to look after myself for a change. I just needed something more in the moment and relaxable that I could attempt to work around, so instead of the robotic format. In 2020, I worked through playing only ONE game, then immediately writing the script. This meant everything was fresh in my mind which I feel helped me to formulate my genuine 'while playing' opinions much better, which really helped the entertaining moments (like the glitches in the Pro BMX video). However because I knew that I had to also cover the handheld titles within the main reviews this year, I made sure to keep the actual scripts as short and to the point as possible!

This was a magic trick! It really helped me to reduce the length of the videos, ultimately making them more simple to produce. But it focussed my writing so much down to the core features in each game and meant there was no over explaining or super extensive coverage on anything in particular. I've developed a really bad habit of doing that over the years so I was really happy to finally make an escape. Something that bled through into the Apocalypse and THPS 1+2 episodes too!

Early concepts & scrapped plans:
Getting on a board and messing around at the skatepark has become quite a tired gimmick for me over the years. I did everything I'm capable of in the first Hawktober back in 2017. But introducing some new sports, I originally wanted each episode to include some kind of live action skit, even if it was super simple, doing each of the sports. 

Cut segment from the Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX episode!

For Pro BMX, I was going to get a pink sparkle, little kids bike and ride it at the skatepark (I can actually ride down ramps on a bike so it would have been funny). For snowboarding, I was going to revisit the cancelled plans from the Tony Hawk SHRED episode in 2018 that never happened, where I'd go up a mountain and ride the controller in the snow. For surfing and wakeboarding, maybe film at the beach or on a boat and for MTX, I was going to ride around on a dirt bike. But like I already mentioned; knowing I was not in the best mental condition going into the project, I decided to simplify the entire thing and just forget about it. The pink girls bike at the skatepark was the easiest to achieve and I did consider only doing that. But I felt like that would build an unrealistic expectation for the week of content that I just couldn't deliver. I also considered including my snowboard footage from a rare snow day in my town earlier in 2020, but again, it felt incredibly out of place on it's own.

Some questioned why the Apocalypse and THPS 1+2 reviews were included in the Hawktober O2 playlist being uploaded in August and September. The original plans for the special was to cover Apocalypse the week prior to the special, then begin with the remake and then Activision O2 picks up after THPS2, so it would flow perfectly. However the announcement of Crash 4: It's About Time really got in the way, so those 2 videos were dropped immediately instead.

Originally Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure was slotted in as the final episode of the special, thinking that Activision O2 wasn't popular enough to perform well on it's own. However I discovered a bunch of games I'd like to cover alongside that game so I decided it was better to wait and save it, because it really deserves it's own spotlight instead of just being done for the sake of YouTube numbers... sorry guys! 😉

Logo stuff:
My custom Square Eyed Jak logos started in early 2017 after covering the Sly Cooper trilogy, but didn't actually kickoff into a legit thing until the first Hawktober later that year, which is when my confidence and ability really grew to a high standard. So it was always a really scary thing to try and attain that same level of quality each year. Thankfully all of the O2 logos are incredibly simple and literal clones of work I've already done. It was simply a matter of changing colours and a few words and... that was it. So being lazy, I left all of these until the very last moment and made all of them in the space of a couple hours one morning.

The only logo I'm not happy with is the only one that is different, for MTX: Mototrax. It was just simply a difficult design that doesn't work with my channel name. But it's about as good as it good possibly look so whatever. And for Wakeboarding Unleashed, again, it just didn't work with my channel name. So I opted to use the original logo before it was changed, as an intro for the episode and use the Wakeboarding Unleashed logo to transform a joke I'd already written, just to give it something a bit extra.

Video Performance & Thoughts:
Like I mentioned above, I was worried about the video performance given O2 is something of an obscure topic. There is very little even in the way of gameplay walkthroughs and essentially no reviews. So I was quite shocked when the special very quickly launched off and BROKE RECORDS for the channel. Hawktober was designed as a way to kick the algorithm up the arse and get things working and it always makes me so proud that I was correct with my actions regarding that. I had a lot of criticism over the years ever since 2017 from both viewers and fellow creators who told me I made all of the wrong moves and that I wasted my time. Well... all of that wasted time continues to raise the bar for the channel's performance each and every year, so thank you for supporting that!

By Day Three which was the Pro BMX 2 episode, the channel surpassed the record for 'Most Views in a Single Day across the channel' which was epic for me. Only more epic was Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer breaking the record AGAIN the following day! FUCKING MENTAL! If you had told me of all the topics: Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, THPS, Every Level ranked, that KELLY SLATER was capable of breaking that record... I would have lost that bet. Insane stuff people.

You can see on this graph of daily views in 2020, just how strong the channel has performed compared to January and previous years averages. But also THAT DEATH SPIKE that is HawktoberO2!

The special outperformed my expectations which is always something to be thankful for. Though for me... it just doesn't feel as deserved this year. Considering my change in methods, the work was SO MUCH more simple to get done this year and admittedly, I really struggled to get it done even despite designing the special to be as achievable as possible. Compared to 2019 when I made twice the amount of content AND a 2.5 hour ELR and made it in 1/3 of the timeframe... just makes me feel a bit shit. But trying not to beat myself up over a bit of imposter syndrome, I'm still very happy. The only thing I would change is how every episode ended with a 'quick bonus look at the a portable game' that really wasn't all that special. The formula could have been mixed up a bit more but what can you do? 😅

----------------------------------------

That's a WRAP!
Well people, that's Hawktober 2020: 4 years in a row and what I'm feeling could be a few more yet to come! I hope you all enjoyed the special and I just wanna say thank you all so much for the continued support over the years. I say it every year but Hawktober is only possible thanks to Patreon and it's grown to be my most successful creation. It's something I'm really proud of, something even my family make comments about so I'm glad to continue with it moving forward, in whatever capacity it's made.

So thank you all so much, if you've got further questions, don't be shy! Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great fucking day, cheers guys! 🛹🤘