Turn of the Year Projects (Patreon)

Hi patrons! James here.

I meant to write another text update like this over the weekend, but got a bit busy so I hope today will suffice.

There's always a lot going on in Dead Meat world and I like sharing updates with you all through these posts. Truthfully, they've been a sort of practice run for me to get more used to writing and to establish this style of regularly checking in. Soon (very soon?) we'll be changing the platform, though - we'll be sending out weekly updates on the official Dead Meat Newsletter (which will hopefully have a cooler name when it launches).

We're deep in discussions with Beehive to set that up, but in the meantime you can make sure you'll be included by going to our website www.deadmeat.rip and adding your email address at the bottom where it says "Newsletter". Looking forward to having that as a good way to reach our fans, since everyone's currently so spread out across all the different social media platforms (which I've been trying to limit myself on lately anyway).

Lately we've been focusing on three projects outside of the usual Kill Count and Podcast releases. We're really excited for all of them, and the energy I feel working on them reenforces my decision to have a reduced Kill Count schedule in 2025. I'm still scared of how it may impact our company financially, but I'm trying to be optimistic because working on these other things feels refreshing and, frankly, necessary.

Anyway, the first is something brand new: a Dead Meat Holiday Live Show here in LA! We don't have the date 100% confirmed right now but it looks like it will be on December 22nd. This will be an in-person 2 hour show at a theater with games, audience participation, and special guests. What's great is that non-LA folks can tune in by buying a ticket to a livestream. We've got a lot of fun things planned for this, including appearances from Dead Meat team members and a sock drive for the homeless. When tickets become available to purchase, my plan is to post it to Patreon one day before posting it publicly. I think you all should have the chance to get tickets before the in-person ones sell out. Because you're our best supporters!

The other two projects are my two favorite things we do at Dead Meat, back for their 3rd and 4th years.

In January we'll have the third Horror Royal Rumble where Chelsea's homemade horror characters duke it out in the latest WWE game. She's already made more than half the contestants, though we also have to decide if we want any of them to have managers accompany them to the ring.

There are so many reasons I love doing this every year - everyone gets to see how incredible Chelsea is at character creation; we get to have a blast editing their entrances between their actions, the pyro, and the music; and I get to live out a dream by being a pro wrestling commentator while I watch the action unfold. Plus, we're hoping to get videos from WWE wrestlers again picking their winners, and that's always fun to see. Hope you're all as excited for it as we are.

And finally we're already hard at work on the Dead Meat Horror Awards. We normally wouldn't have to start work on them quite this early, but this year we want to add something new in the form of acceptance videos from the winners. I think that'll make it much more satisfying, to see the recipients with their trophies giving a few words.

Problem is, that means we have to get those videos filmed before the awards come out... which means we have to have the trophy placards made early, so we can ship them out... which means we have to have the winners determined early.... which means we have to assemble our voting panel early.... which means we have to pick all the nominees early. That's a lot of early stuff.

Doesn't help that this was another banner year for horror, and that Chelsea and I still have a lot to see. We're gonna have to get on that soon, I just don't know when we're gonna find the time to watch 10+ movies. I'm still confident we'll pull it off, but if you see me posting here, asking for nominee suggestions in certain categories, it'll be so we can narrow down our viewings a bit better with the limited time we have. Oh shit and we've gotta contact and nail down presenters, and film them too. Man a lot of work goes into this thing. And it's worth every minute, IMO.

Those are the main things, the top-of-brain things, for Dead Meat at the moment. We're working on getting more merch available, with some new items, before the Christmas season. I'll keep you posted on that. I've also been trying to stay on top of Patreon rewards and spent the weekend filming a bunch of the cameo requests for top-tier patrons. If you're at that level and made a request but didn't get a video yet, let me know (preferably through email or DM here). And if you're at that level but haven't made a request yet, feel free to do so - you're entitled to it! You paid for it!

In personal news it looks like I may have gotten a small part in a horror short being made by some cool people. I can't speak too much about it yet because they're going to do a public announcement, but I'm hoping I can keep stacking up credits and material for a reel so I can get cast in bigger things down the line. It's weird to realize I've aged out of a lot of roles that I always wanted to play - it's too late for me to be an annoying college bro or a young slasher victim, for instance. But maybe I can wind up like a Ty Burrell and play a young-ish goofy dad or something. I'll always be sad I wasn't able to act in my earlier years, but to be fair, I was busy building something pretty cool here.

I'll try to update you all again over the weekend, but just know there's a lot going on here and we're all excited for it. Let me know if there's any way we can make your Patreon experience better. As always, thanks so much for your support. It really means a lot to us.