RETURN OF A YOUTUBE CHANNEL: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Damn you, 2020. You were the Year of Covid, and gave birth to the other Year of Covid – 2021. I had other things to deal with and I dealt with them. Meaning what, exactly? I took a ten-month break from making weekly gaming videos.
   Boardgaming and roleplaying videos.
   Yes, board gaming is a thing. It isn’t a thing as a hashtag on the Twitter Machine, however. So it is boardgaming when I talk or write about it. Just to write #boardgaming on the Twitter Machine, I learn one word covers the description.
   It is boardgaming when I talk about it. Why? Scripting. I almost always script my gaming videos. Find a topic. Write about it for, oh, the same length as this blog. That many words. A minimum of 1,500 – if I feel like having a minimum.
   Not every blog post is 1,500 words long.
   Length of script is important. It sets the pace for footage I’ll film, or matches the pace of footage already filmed. The idea comes thundering in. I might then film many game products or props to shape the story. After that, I trot out at least 1,500 words. Good enough for a ten-minute video.
   Idea. Footage. Script. Read the script aloud and edit the audio. Match audio to footage. Edit like a maniac. Check for errors. Just publish the damned thing.
   Or.
   Idea. Script. Footage. Then follow the same broad process.
   I like to film still scenes that require minimal preparation. For safety, I film for twelve seconds, even if I only need a shot that lasts two seconds. I can extend a still shot beyond its normal twelve-second reach if I have a lot to say about a particular item. There’s a stretch tool.
   These miniature movies I stitch together by means of simple wipe sequences. I try to avoid the fancy stuff. So there I am, week on week, writing up a narrative based on film I’ve shot…or filming pieces to match the script that’s ready…
   Either way, it’s time-consuming. I can do a video in one day, at best. Usually, a video is constructed over a few days. In sequences requiring movement, I wear gloves to present items. This is purely for continuity if I’ve filmed over several days. Oh, look, I’ve trimmed my nails and then untrimmed them in this sequence. There’s a sudden slash across a finger that vanishes in the next scene. Gloves, as serial killers won’t tell you, cover a multitude of crimes.
   If they tell you, chances are that you’re the next victim.
   The topic could be anything gaming-ish. I don’t cover regular news items. There are many channels devoted to that area, and I leave them to it. The topic doesn’t exist in its own dimension. I absorb gaming videos. Parcels arrive, and I have topics in front of me. Something happens in a game, and I feel like discussing it.
   Anyway…
   It is time-consuming, even though I soon developed routines that saved time. Y’know. All thanks to that pesky learning thing we do. The Plague Year interfered with my video production. Never feel that you must put a video out every week, on the dot.
   I awkwardly let the channel go near the end of a video series, part of the way through editing one video. Not a great notion. Returning to the channel was akin to walking through a dusty factory stopped in its tracks by a natural disaster.
   Look at the state of this place.
   It took time to bring the factory up to a decent standard again. I did that by gutting the studio and upgrading equipment. There was no instant crash back into the room, clicking switches with furious abandon.
   One eternity later, and now the channel is back. I’m concluding the abandoned series as I type. As far as I can miscalculate, I’ve fixed two audio problems, two camera glitches…oh, and a whole bunch of gremlins bought the farm. Somehow, I’ve inherited a long-forgotten camera glitch that doesn’t affect the final product. But I am closing in on that problem.
   Editing is a little easier. Here and there I’ve thrown in an extra effect. But I still don’t go daft with that sort of thing. I am busier than ever, but the pressure of Covid has receded somewhat on a personal level…so I can squeeze video production back into the scheme of things.
   This year, I don’t have to queue for toilet-related essentials.
   My blog post is an exercise in writing – an effort to cover that return to movie-making without duplicating my video scripts on the subject. You run the factory. The factory does not run you.
   If the world ends when you don’t put a video out, are we now living in that post-disaster world? We’re living in a post-disaster world anyway, and that particular disaster is far from over. The Covid world is a pre-post-disaster world. With the possibility of a booster fix later, no less.
   I was still absorbing information from the gaming universe, and buying things in for the channel. New lights, for a start. So I was involved. Just not making videos. Still gaming. Rolling dice. Laughing at the outcome.
   Well, that’s something.
   Things don’t change. Oh, the world transforms, I’ll grant you. Dice are still dice. Wood glue bonds crates designed to hold games. I potter around with ink and paint medium and tiny bottles and tinier miniatures.
   Filming that side of the hobby was something I abandoned. I spray paint everywhere – and I don’t mean by airbrush or spray-can. Just a regular brush. Protecting the camera lens from assorted industrial liquids is easy – when you don’t film.
   I also changed the layout in that part of the building, and a TV monitor, to ensue what I’m filming remains in focus, would now have to sit on the workbench itself instead of above it as before. Tricky.
   This is something I should revisit. At present, I construct model projects away from the film studio and then wheel them in for filming, at different stages of preparedness. Not ideal. But it keeps the cameras safe.
   Lighting received an upgrade. How long before I change over to better cameras? Oh, just in time for those shiny cameras to dull next to the latest innovations. You’ll see all the cardboard flakes in scintillating detail.
   The video studio table is the best place to set up a boardgame. By that I mean set it up inside its own box. I have to punch all the cardboard counters out of their flimsy frames. This generates cardboard snow, all over the table.
   I am reminded of Quentin Crisp’s view on cleaning. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse. I think there was a specific comment about not cleaning dishes until you reached the fish stage: the fish stage being after you’ve had fish for dinner. But I will not press on the exact details. Let us draw the veil of darkness across Mr Crisp’s dining equipment.
   There is no fish stage for the gaming table. However, there is the might monster vacuum which, when unleashed, devours the cardboard shoals. There are three cameras hovering over the area, and the cabling is occasionally worrisome. Vacuuming is not easy. If I stick to gaming on the floor, the carpet is a better bet for easy cleaning.
   When it comes to making videos on boardgames, I suppose there are rules. But there’s no rulebook. Yes, I make it all up as I go. That’s typing for you. What rules should there be? When it comes to watching the videos of others…
   There is no need to put your cat/dog/tiger in your boardgame video. I don’t put my pet unicorn in shot.
   Only barbarians play games on bare tables. Use a cloth. This goes doubly, trebly, for filming on a table. Dark cloth. No windows, computer screens or prison tower searchlights. Keep to a dark non-shiny non-reflective surface.
   Use a camera and not a telephone. As much as possible, use a fixed tripod or a camera on a slider. Rarely, I’ll go hand-held, but I don’t like to do that. I certainly don’t care to see shaky-cam in videos I watch.
   If there are ten boardgame video reviews and yours is the one with the shaky-cam and the cat that tap-dances across your mirror-sheen wooden table, then I’ll find another video to watch.
   This one really isn’t for everyone. Script your videos.
   No background music. The occasional background effect. But nothing to compete with the human voice.
   Take a break if you need to take a break.
   Recognise that you need to take a break.
   Dealing with Covid meant something had to go. Gaming videos. Not gaming. I have ludicrous fun gaming with people…online. Should I have sequestered myself in the gaming studio, and knocked out a video a day for a year? Of course not. I couldn’t manage it for a week at a time.
   Did the right thing. Had priorities. Stuck to those. Prepared for a return. And returned. I picked up mid-stride…and that first step back in was gargantuan. In slow-motion. Gradually, the machinery built up speed.
   And here I am, blogging about that, as it is the start of the month and time to blog. Once upon a time, I blogged weekly. And I stepped back from that to blog monthly. Ask yourself why you do what you do, how often you can sustain online chatter, and how you feel about keeping it going.
   I don’t need to be here monthly or there weekly. But I am here. And I feel that I am slowly easing back into it. All I have for the immediate future? Videos, endless videos, on building wooden boxes to hold game components in.
   Some glue was sprayed all over the place during the publication of this blog. Many gremlins died, as well. Humanely. Well, no, I bludgeoned them. No more gremlins. Good. I’m glad.