The Forest - Update #3

Good morning everyone. Sorry I was meant to send out the update on Friday. But I ended up working over the weekend anyway just for the fun of it. Things are going well, I think.

So it's week 5 on this video-essay about The Forest (2014). And here's an update on progress:

• Week 1 - Assembling the broad structure of points
• Week 2 - Filling out the first half of the script.
• Week 3 - Filling out the second half of the script.
• Week 4 - Audio recording and assembling of segments 1 to 6 (of a total of 24).
• Week 5 - Making the visual component for segments 1 to 6. To provide something watchable for the first 30 minutes.

So this week I've been continuing the editing of the video-essay with a near complete script. I say near complete, because some areas clearly need some rework. 

At night, I've been recording my voice in Sony Sound Forge. Reading through the dialogue when there's not as much city traffic noise. And then during the day I've been hard-cutting and trimming in Adobe Premiere. Taking that dialogue making it much tighter and smoother flowing:

Periodic dog walks with the audio on my phone help me identify the areas where it might be a bit wonky. And thus far I've managed to create about 26 minutes of video-essay audio.

Now what I've done is I've chopped the script up into 24 segments. Not evenly in terms of word count, but merely where it seems appropriate (each segment is anywhere between 400 to 3500 words).

And I can report that segments 1 to 6 are nearly completely cut in terms of audio (admittedly I'm not sure about the introduction segment and rather fancy reworking it).

Since some people last week were apprehensive that this might be too big a project, here's my plan:

The audio cutting done so far helps me estimate what's remaining by simply considering segment word count. The result is a pretty chonky project, yeah.

So rather than do all the audio cutting in one gigantic phase, I'm spending week 5 and 6 making the first 30 minutes near-complete and watchable. Which I'll present you here for those interested.

After that I'll decide whether to continue the next piece right away. Or do something else for a break. But at least they'll be something for people to watch.

On that, things are going well. I've almost completed the visuals for about a third of it. And I'm rapidly moving onto the next. Though if you'll forgive me, some of the visuals may literally be "art to commission" or "animation to complete". Reliant on animations that I've not yet started.

Segment 1 to 6 concern the following topics:

• 01 - Introduction - Discussing how some survival games are adding stories. Sometimes many years after their early-access launch. And pondering that.
• 02 - Subnautica - A talk about how Subnautica. A game that launched in early access in 2014. But then added its story in 2017. Before it's January 2018 launch. And talking about how that felt.
• 03 - Tailspin - An introduction to the weirdness that is The Forest. Which, given my expectations with Subnautica, felt exceedingly strange by contrast.
• 04 - Supposition - The mystery genre - A talk about the purpose of this literary genre.
• 05 - The Forest walkthrough part 1 - A plane and a yacht - First part of the narrative walkthrough. Introducing the viewer to the gameplay. A gradual walkthrough of how it goes.
• 06 - Tangent - Weird logic - First major essay point. A deep delve into the (sometimes) inscrutable mechanical and thematic logic of The Forest. That makes it feel like "outsider art". The decision making sometimes so off-the-wall it becomes interesting to observe.

So far so good. I'll try to get you the first 30 minutes asap. Whilst continuing to record the rest every evening :)