Grinding Into Gear

So I’ve managed to get my new computer up and running at “full capacity” for what I’ve needed it for this week. John from Baltimore PC Repair did a great job building my new tower and this week I put it to its full use…

For my disclosure on this or any of my posts or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.

My next talk at the Theosophical Society in Maryland is fast approaching at the end of this month and I continue to scramble to get things into a place where I can stop getting ahead on podcast releases and give these magick lectures my full attention.

It really is like switching gears, as (rather than choosing between them) I like the blend of magick and gaming (like we discuss in the upcoming Episode 12 of Adventure Hook: Stop the (Magical) Slave Trade, where I use both the Holy Hexagram and the Alphabet of Desire as a gaming resource, but show how it of course has much father reaching implications…

And viewership and subscribers on my Reliquum YouTube Channel continues to grow. While my first video now has over 9400 views (could it hit 10K before the end of the year?) the last video in the series only has around 300. Still if that means 300 people watched all my lectures all the way to the end and got something out of it… and if the 300+ subscribers want more (especially the over 70 folks who’ve “rung the bell” to get updates) then I really want to give it to them.

The new computer should also be able to handle editing video in Lightworks so much better than our old tower (which is the program I plan to tackle the new lecture edits with). As I plan for at least half of the class to be Q&A, I won’t have anything prepared for it, but can do cool slides and transitions with the new videos much easier than I ever could with the old (and now discontinued) Moviemaker program, which is what I used to make the first ones.

Jenny even ordered me a new lavalier lapel mic I can use to record audio during these talks right from my phone. I love my Snoball and ATR mics, but for a hands-free (and thus worry-free) recording option for these lectures I have to say its hard to beat. We even tried a short test recording with my iPhone 8 and honestly it sounded pretty darn great.

 

If I had my way this is how we’d actually record Blackspire from now on (with each player recording his or her own track with their own personal mic). At $12 a pop though, it’s not impossible to consider actually doing at some point… and it’d give us way better sound quality that we currently get sharing the omni-directional Snoball… but for now its use is going to be directed towards creating lectures.

But in order to get myself to a place where I feel I can “safely” switch gears I first needed to get ahead on my Blackspire edits, which I’d not really been able to do until I had the new computer up and working. But now that I have, I really threw myself into it and managed to finish up the entirety of Season 1 – Episode 12: A Homecoming Paved in Ashes (Pt 1). This episode is one I’ve really been looking forward to as it was a much more “Theater of the Mind” sort of gaming session, so is also the episode I’d first planned to use the music from the Cryo Chamber label on.

As it’s the first episode where I really start to introduce the themes of the Cthulhu Mythos as well, it was only appropriate I utilize the Cryo Chamber music specifically inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Of course synchronicity would be with me here as well, as while I did do a bit of cuts, edits, and overlap, it was at most a minute or two’s worth… but the way this music still lines up with the thematic beats of S1E12 is downright spooky.

Having this episode now in the can covers my bases through the last week of the month, which is also when my next talk at TS is scheduled. So that gets me through prep and presentation for that event, but as of that day I’ll still be past deadline for S1E13’s release… so I started on that this week as well.

And this one is giving me trouble.

And it’s not just that I’m mixing a lot more musical tracks and albums into this episode (which I definitely am) which is causing editing to take longer. We also have a number of challenging scenes. Some are merely just complicated SFX endeavors that take a lot of “engineering” time, some take a lot of work to get them to where they’re downright spooky… and perhaps one scene in particular might end up being too spooky… too edgy… too offensive… too real..? Not trying to hype it up here, but I told the original story… and I chose all the various SFX I used to illustrate the scene… and yet I still managed to somehow offend even myself with the current cut.

That’s probably a good benchmark to hit, right?

It’s not like it’s in my nature to want to censor anything, especially my own stuff, but regardless… this one should probably ruffle some feathers. From a storytelling/role-playing game standpoint, it’s probably one of the best games I’ve even run. I invited/authorized synchronicity and we ended up with some very interesting results, and the random elements we ended up with wove together with player choices to present the overall story in a beautiful (and thematically very sound) way.

It’s also enough of a stand-alone “one-shot” kind of adventure that hopefully it can even serve as a sort of “portfolio” piece. Like a “if you only listen to one episode of Blackspire, listen to S1E13” kind of thing. I’m very proud of the episode even though I’m only a little over 3/4 the way through actually editing it. Once I wrap it up that’ll get me caught up through 11/11 releases… at which point I can probably pause with the editing… well almost.

I do still want to start releasing the raw cuts of the Blackspire episodes well in advance to their final edits as Patreon exclusives (right now I’m thinking at the $5 level), which while in theory won’t take much “editing”, I still need to figure out where and when to start doing that. Perhaps episode 14’s raw cut should come out on 11/5 (same day as the edited S1E13) but as S1E14 is due out on Patreon the week after, things might be a bit tight. Doable, but tight…

Additionally Aaron and I did record an episode of Legend Lore where we brainstormed up the inception of the adventure which also made up the bulk of episodes 12 and 13. In theory they’ll make excellent companion pieces for Patreon supporters, but I have to actually edit that episode of LL first. It’s nothing compared to editing an episode of Blackspire, but it’s still something to wrap up in time for S1E12’s release on the 22nd of this month.

And Episode 11 released today of course. It was nice to bring this story arc to a (short term) close, but the fact that I only just finished editing it and already it’s live has gotten me a bit nervous…

A Third Eye Scowling: Pt 3 (S01E11)

Honestly, I know the magick talks are important, but I’ll be relieved when my second talk in December is finally over, and even more relieved when I’ve put the final touches on the YouTube videos I’ll create from them (sometime in 2019)… Once that’s finally done I’ll be able to give the podcasts my full attention once more… until then though… it’s going to be a bit of a juggling act…

And so, it was nice this week to be able to have an afternoon where I could just game for fun. The B.R.U.W. Crew met for for a session of Armastead this week, and it’s nice to just be a player character in a game that we just play. Of course, that game had been on the brain when it came time for us to create Episode 12 of Adventure Hook (which is live today on Patreon) and who knows… may even inspire future Armastead adventures as well…

And I happened to notice last week that Venus has drifted over into Scorpio, which is where she is in my birth chart as well (I’ve always liked the temptress). She’ll be there until Halloween actually (retrograde the entire time) and so I guess it’s appropriate she’ll be there for my birthday this year too.

Yep… next time we “talk” I’ll be 40.

Yikes…

 

Monday 10/8/18-

Sun: Libra–

Moon: Libra (NEW)

If you’d like to start from the “beginning” of all this… you can read from my first blog post.

For my disclosure on this or any of my posts or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.