𝓝𝓪𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓮 𝓦𝔂𝓷𝓷  💎

Once I choose which video I'm gonna produce next (often within a few days of the previous vid's release) the first thing I have to do is shopping. Shopping doesn't sound like work, but it is. That alone can take days. Think: my last vid had five outfits and three sets.

A lot of stuff I'll buy from artists on Etsy. That means I have to leave enough time for production and shipping. Some stuff I make myself and that means even more shopping. I made the cyberpunk wire wig for my last vid, but first I spent hours shopping for junk computer parts.

Once the (often 20+) orders are placed, I usually do research. The vid topic determines what that involves. If it's a more informational vid I'll sometimes read a couple books, or a couple dozen articles. If it's a more theatrical vid, that means character study.

Then, I'll assemble a loose outline. I'm not super organized so that's usually just about 800 words of thoughts, single lines of dialogue, and jokes. And then I start writing. I'm a horrible procrastinator when it comes to writing. I can't really be efficient until I'm panicking.

Even when I'm being efficient a script usually takes four full work days to complete. My scripts lately are around 5000 words. And they're full of jokes. Jokes take the longest to write because to actually be funny a joke usually has to be rewritten 4 or more times.

And yes I generally write the script after I've already bought the costume and set pieces. That means I have to write for the costumes rather than costume for the script. It's totally backwards, but I'm on a tight production schedule so we're stuck with it.

As I'm finishing the script I'll generally get in touch with @zoeblade or anyone who's working on music and tell them what I need. They then have to produce that in the same insane timeframe I'm on.

When the script is done I will go over it with a close friend or two, lately with Theryn, who's become a close creative adviser. She'll suggest word choice changes, extra jokes, the removal of boring or pointless passages.

When the script is done I start building sets. Hanging wallpaper, moving furniture around, hanging curtains and pictures, testing out different lighting. I'll also do remaining wardrobe work: styling wigs, making nails (fancy ones I'll have ordered earlier from @willowfinn).

On a day of shooting I'll generally wake up around noon, set up the camera, microphone, lights, do test footage. Then eat dinner and take a shower. In the evening I basically get into drag, which takes me 2+ hours because I'm bad at it. Usually I start filming around midnight.

I finish filming around 4 or 5 AM and go to bed. To film my last vid, I repeated that schedule six or seven days in a row. I do it totally alone, I have no help. It's all powered by crates of energy drinks and EDM megamixes. It gets lonely. But sometimes it's also very fun.

By the time filming is done, I've generally been working on the video for at least two weeks. Time to edit. That's usually about four consecutive 16 hour days. I do it almost all myself. (Theryn's a better audio editor than me, has started doing some of that)

By the time the video is almost done I'm on the threshold of madness. For 10 days my life has been a haze of caffeine, makeup, wigs, lights, editing software, punctuated by 5-hour sleeps & dreams about Premiere Pro. I tweet that the video will be released tomorrow. I'm wrong.

I always think of something else to add. For this last vid, it was the kabuki music for the freedom report. I'd had a vague idea about how to using kabuki earlier and had purchased a library of percussion samples.

At like 5AM one night I tried putting in one of those Nohkan (Japanese flute) samples. Instantly fell in love. Stayed up till 11am editing together little flute and drum pieces to add to the scene as punctuation. Sent it all to Theryn, who created the final audio arrangement.

At a certain point, I realize that if I don't render and upload the video soon, I'm going to spend the rest of the year on it. So it's never perfect. But good enough, I hope. Then obviously the render is flawed or YouTube fucks something up, so that delays things another day.

On release day I edit the thumbnail, write the video metadata, and write posts for all the social media platforms. I publish the vid and read the comments till I pass out. Then it's time to get to work on a new video. I basically have no life for three weeks of the month.