A second post. This one concerning the current status of the project.
At time of typing it's the 12th of May. That's about 1 month and 1 day after I properly started. And in these 4 weeks, I've been able to sink my teeth back into this. What was once a stuck project is now unstuck and well into production.
But I am also acutely aware that 1 month is the approximate time I would normally devote to a bullshittery. Therefore any further time spent on this is time not spent elsewhere on other projects. What I need now is an opinion gauge from you all. My Patrons and Twitch subscribers.
Here are some estimates for video delivery.
There are, at minimum, 717 separate work items to complete. Though not at all in sequence. This is divided up amongst 152 compositions that collectively make up the 25 minute runtime. Some of them need a little work, some of them need a lot of work.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19tOipWj8X3P8nNhxRY9jWX5xB8hi-gK450FbOfdButo/edit?usp=sharing
In these last 4 weeks, with such drastic distractions such as creating art commissions considered, I have been able to clear a mere 121 of them. That's a clearance of only 16.88%.
Now as mentioned before, some of the items on this list are lies. Or nowhere near the same workload as the others. 152 of the rows are "audio" improvements. And another 152 are "final refinements". Tasks which are either doable in minutes or exist purely as final checks before rendering.
But even if we shrug those off as 1 weeks work and pretend that the total list is 413 items long and not 717, that's still only 29.3% progress.
Extrapolating from there, that's another 3 months of work. Let's throw in an additional month just in case there are any major challenges that are not yet foreseen. Or the consequences of burnout that need to be mitigated.
We're talking about 4 months until this sees completion.
Now, I'm personally feeling enthusiastic about the project and I'd like to continue. I'm feeling challenged and motivated and I hope in prior updates I've been able to communicate that. And I hope it's clear that progress is being made, even if it's slow.
But that's easy for me to say because I'm not the one making the pledges. You guys are.
3-4 months is still a big ask. Just like the Forest video-essay before hand, I dare not attempt it without a 'mandate from the masses'. An acknowledgement that I've not misread the desires of my audience. And if it turns out I have, I can take the necessary steps to change direction.
I cannot please everyone, of course. But at the same time I must not lose perspective.
Therefore a poll, if you have a moment. As a Patron, based on the updates so far, do you feel comfortable with me continuing to try and deliver Dungeons and Dragons? Or instead would you prefer I look in to the editing of other projects?
Either way, I'm extremely appreciative of you all folks. Thank you as always for your ongoing support. I'm forever grateful.