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Happy 2019!

  • On January 16, 2019 ·
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I hope everybody had a good New Year, or at the least stayed out of trouble.

I’m back in the office organizing everything for the new year, new month, new week, etc. I try to avoid making resolutions. I’m sure most of us have fallen into that trap of thinking January 1st we’re going to be an entirely different person than we were on December 31st, only to beat ourselves over staying the same and concede defeat. Instead I prefer to set goals I want to achieve and figure out the steps I need to accomplish them. As somebody with ADHD it helps to have regular check-ins with myself to see how I’m doing, remind myself what my goals are, and occasionally realize I need to change direction. It’s very easy for me to get hyper focused on a particular task because I’m comfortable carrying it out or excited by what I find. Then I have to switch gears and do something else – something different, potentially new, or just something I’m unsure about doing properly – a thing most people don’t have trouble doing. Consider playing Super Mario Bros.:

Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 via GIPHY

Most of us are probably familiar with this game. You move Mario from one side of the screen to the other as the camera follows him, jumping across platforms, avoiding enemies and pitfalls, collecting coins and power-ups to help you along the way. You can see what’s coming and react accordingly. This is how most people perceive time and tasks for the day. They’re aware of their environment and can judge when they need to respond to things. Now consider Mario’s point of view:

First Person Mario via RocketJump

He has a vague idea of what’s in store for him after his next jump. Probably some blocks, some pipes, and a few enemies to watch out for. It feels disorienting not being able to see things pulled out, especially if you’re used to playing this level in the traditional view. How do you judge when the goomba is in the same place you’re going to land? Are you at the right distance to jump that pipe? It requires a level of awareness about your abilities. You have to internalize how high you can jump and from how far away. This is closer to how I see time, tasks, and appointments. I can zoom out and write dates down, sort them by their various properties, but when I’m in the thick of my day I have trouble concentrating on jumping the flagpole at the end because I’m preoccupied with the ledge underneath me in the moment.

It’s not necessarily that I’m forgetful. You can know all the steps to a dance but do them in the wrong order and it’s not the Macarena. Often times I’ll be carrying around too much in my head. In school I would use the fact that I couldn’t recall something as a reminder. That works well in the short term, like if you always forget one word on this week’s vocabulary list, for example. The problem comes with maintaining it in long term memory. I can memorize dates long enough to answer them on a test but keeping them straight by the end of a semester is another story.

Rote memorization isn’t always the best indicator of learning something. Boring repetition makes information difficult for me to absorb. I can repeat things back without actually thinking through what they mean. Ever read assembly instructions without illustrations to visualize what they mean? On the other hand, if it feels like I’m engaged in the conversation with an instructor, I can pick up on everything without notes. (I did this in Art History where it felt like we were gossiping about the lives of artists through the ages.)

Plans for 2019

1. Animate!

It’s what I love to do. So why don’t I do it more often? Mostly because I’m worried about spending too much time on the wrong projects. I try to make things perfect and spend months on something I should have shipped off and shared already. This year I want to focus on smaller projects and getting better at putting them out there.

2. Freelance!

I’ve dabbled in freelancing gigs but I get so apprehensive about finding new ones. I spend too much time trying to make new material to customize a demo reel to send out when I should really be building up relationships and getting what work I have ready in front of people. This year I need to be better at how I present myself.

3. Design More Cool Stuff!

I spend a lot of time looking over specs and requirements. What DPI does this file need to be at? What aspect ratios does this site want? There comes a point where you have to get out of the measuring phase and start to cut. This year I want to spend more time drawing, making things, and sharing them online to get feedback.

4. Get Out of My Own Head and Communicate!

This is the biggest hurdle for me. I’m terrified of seeming unprepared so I spend too much time researching and trying to guess what will come up. This year I need to share what I know and what I can do. That includes posting on this site more as well as Twitter, my Facebook Page, and adding content to my Instagram, IGTV channel, and my YouTube channel.

Moving House

  • On January 29, 2018 ·
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My home studio has been a real asset to me over the years. Having designated space for projects has helped keep home and work life somewhat separated. When marathoning sessions and crunching to get things finished it’s nice to be able to stay in pajamas. Next month, however, I’m moving most of my equipment to a new location where I’ll be sharing office space. I’ll keep a bare bones setup here but I’m looking forward to the new opportunities that will open up. There’s an energy you get from having others around. After college the closest I’ve come to capturing that sort of environment was my yearly trip to Calgary for the QuickDraw Animation Lockdown. “Networking” and “making connections” are buzzwords I’d like to abstain from but I am hoping to get to know new people, maybe make a few friends. That might result in future collaborations, finding somebody who can make use of what I bring to the table, or perhaps I’ll find someone who can help me out somehow.

via GIPHY

In my previous post I said I wanted to blog on Monday, Wednesday, Friday leaving Tuesday and Thursday for posting videos on my YouTube channel. I was hoping announcing plans would kick my butt into gear. Like all New Years mistakes it was overly hopeful, presupposing I was actually ready to start sharing content regularly. Since we’re nearing the end of January it’s time for a check in to see where I’m at and where things are headed based on what’s actually in front of me and not, like, holiday season fairy dust and magic, or whatever causes us all to expect ourselves to be somebody different after midnight.

YouTube Ad-Pocalypse: Partner Program Edition

For those not keeping score, YouTube have recently changed requirements for membership of their Partner Program. In order to be a monetized partner channels must now have 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers by February 20th. This means a lot of smaller channels, such as mine, are going to lose the ability to monetize through YouTube’s AdSense system. I’m not exactly heart broken over this news as even the most successful channels cite AdSense as their lowest source of revenue. Ads only really make serious revenue with large audiences, being on the Internet causes ads to be worth significantly less than they are on traditional media, and honestly I’m conflicted about advertising in general.

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7M7yyRDHGc” /]

Advertising is a reality of life and business. In order for cool things to run creators need to get paid. This usually means running ads. Except ads today are a pain. They take us away from the content we came to see. Advertisers that pay the best often have the most generic ads aimed at the widest audience possible which results in a race to the middle. It also leaves creators beholden to their advertisers. YouTube’s ad money is very fickle. Back in 2012 Reply Girls exploited the algorithm and YouTube moved from favoring views to favoring watch time, making animators’ channels plummet in revenue. There’s also the broken content ID system, false flags, and a myriad of other problems with the platform. Still the fact remains the site is too big to leave.

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8hvVUIKkPw” /]

I agree with Hank Green that no real competition for YouTube currently exists. If it did it would be dealing with the same issues any site of that size would. Services like Patreon and the recently relaunched Drip are going to be crucial if creators are ever going to move away from relying on ads for revenue.

Circling the conversation back, the partner changes impact me personally again in relation to Multichannel Networks, specifically my MCN the Channel Frederator Network. CFN found out about the changes at the same time the rest of us did. This left them scrambling to get things sorted for all of their members. If I’m unable to monetize my channel by the 20th, what’s my status with CFN and the tools/community it provides?

We are extremely proud to announce that although YouTube is disabling their partnership with some of you, we here at Channel Frederator consider you members in good standing. You will not be disabled from your partnership with us, you will still have access to our tools/platforms, and opportunities for growth to reach that threshold for monetization. This was decided on day one of this big change, a unanimous decision from all levels of management here at Frederator. We just needed to do some tweaking under the hood, and make sure that our dreams of still having you all with us can come true.

Below are some important notes we want to mention:

All members affected by Youtube’s new policy will still have access to the forums, all our tools, and opportunities while you’re still in contract with us.

After your contract ends, we will limit some of the services we offer until you’re able to monetize again.

For those who are interested, we’re dedicated to continue to help you reach the required 1K subs and 4K threshold. Then you’re more than welcome to be fully linked with us, and have access to everything!

I might not be the most active member of the community but I full-heartedly appreciate when they prove that “Frederator Loves You!” is more than a marketing slogan. I’ll be going into more details about plans and projects in future posts but I really want to take a moment and commend Channel Frederator on this. I planned on using their resources as I relaunch my channel with more regular content in 2018 and CFN have made me very proud to be partnered with them.