March FUNKe Update 4 (New Video This Month) (Patreon)

Some big developments since the last update- first and foremost, the 'concept' video I've been alluding to the past few months has grown in scope a lot, and it sort of reached a point where I've wanted to just make it independently of the Junji Ito video. 

Early on, I wanted to create a video where I drop Bomb Fella as well as Craig (the flying turtle) in the middle of an ito-esque mountain setting, and have them walk around using Ito's books to contextualize all the horrors they run into. So I started sketching out environments and creatures (I've actually filled out a full notebook with this kinda stuff), and eventually storyboards, but the further I iterated, the more I kinda wished I could explore all this as an original work without hinging everything on pulling out Ito's books and metareferentially explaining the inspiration. 

It's rather awkward, finding myself 200-something storyboard pages in, realizing that I want to expunge the essay elements from the video- and find a new use for them. I've wanted to talk about ito's books on the channel for a long time, but this 'Mountain' video was still hardly in range of the finish line and it's already been a while without uploading.

So: what's the plan? Well, most of my thoughts on ito's work are written out already, and making a FUNKtv-type beat is way simpler than trying to produce a pilot-level animation on my own, so what i've been doing lately is just that- a self-contained video discussing Junji Ito, more in line with my usual uploads. It's something I can be done with in 2-3 weeks, and it lets me isolate the other 'story' i've been working on into its own video so that it doesn't have to juggle two subjects at once (that being, both ito and my original ito-inspired stuff).

That's not to say this larger video will be out next- in fact, it's become an ongoing passion project of mine, and in hindsight I probably would've done things much differently if I had realized this direction with it much earlier. So I want to keep whittling at it,and meanwhile, keep this year busy with study-level videos dropping consistently until this bigger 'mountain' project is ready. I'm happy to go into more detail on what it is, but i'm 5 paragraphs in on this update and with the details of it changing due to this split in the video's contents, that will have to wait for a separate update- shortly after my next video is out in ~3 weeks. 

The good news is, I've got around like 11 study style videos planned already, and a good idea of how to format them. So those should be easier to plan throughout the year (hoping for one a month). I often get ambitious and want to elbow grease them more than I should, but i'll try and restrain myself so that there's a balance of timeliness with quality. 

TLDR- big video is getting split into separate videos, one of which is out this month. planning ahead for the year, working on the mountain video in the background of smaller projects.