Category What Up?

State of Twinsanity – August 2019 and Beyond

silverstar 1 Comment

OK, we haven’t done this in a while, but it’s high time to address the elephant in the room.

elephant-vector-clip-art-3279552

“Word!”

Lately there’s been very little going on here and a lot going on behind the scenes, and it’s time to address that, and what shape Twinsanity is going to be taking in the months to come.

As you may have noticed, neither of us have put up any blog posts in July, and this is the first one either of us have done in August. After returning from a self-imposed vacation early in the year, I thought I could resume blogging until we were ready to start video production (this past week we began comparing prices for green screens and back lights, and I we have to upgrade from the ‘starter’ camera we have to a more high-end one, just to keep you guys abreast of where we are on that), but no, I find that the longer I stay away from blogging, the harder it is to get back into it. I never want production here to lapse (Jason and I usually try to put up at least 1 post a month) but at the same time, the desire to move on to a different medium is just getting too hard to ignore. Not only do I no longer possess the desire to blog as of late, but I don’t even think in terms of blog posts anymore. I can’t force myself to do something that I really don’t want to do; when your enthusiasm isn’t there, your work reflects it, and I just have to face facts and be honest with not just you guys, but with myself: I don’t want to blog anymore. The spark just isn’t there.

This is not the end of Twinsanity, not by a long shot, but Twinsanity’s days of being a blog are indeed numbered. I can’t even pretend to want to continue making stuff in the blog format anymore. We started Twinsanity back in 2010, so we’ve been at this for nearly a decade. I still want to express myself creatively and share my ideas and opinions with others online, but I can’t do it this way anymore. After 9 years, I really feel like I’ve done all I can do on a blog; the blog format just doesn’t accommodate my visions and ideas anymore.

Jason and I have discussed this numerous times, and we agree that one of our biggest regrets this year was starting the Regular Show What the Funny and the Animal Jam Pop Dream, and it’s not because they’re bad, but we like to finish what we start and there are/were 6 entries planned for each of them. Right now I can’t imagine doing 1 more full-blown blog entry, let alone 5. We want to continue doing both of these miniseries, just not in blog form.

After our second or third year, we’ve wanted Twinsanity to be a visual experience, and now our desires have gotten too big for mere text with still pictures. I want to do stuff like this:

 

Or this:

 

Or this:

 

Or even this:

…And I just can’t do things like this on a blog. The format has become too confining and too limited.

The other reason we really want to move on from blogging is…

We want to be SEEN! From the get-go, Twinsanity has been manned by 2 people. It’s always been the 2 of us, Jason and myself. That’s why this site is called Twinsanity. From the day we first began posting stuff online, people have always suspected that we’re just one person; if they see us on-screen together, that’ll squash that notion once and for all. Going back to above videos I cited, Jason and I want to appear on screen together, we want to interact with one another, trade jokes, barbs, perform skits, etc., kind of like the Hudson Brothers (or the Lucas Brothers or the Sklar Brothers if you need a more modern reference), and again that just isn’t possible on a blog. On a blog it’s just the blogger talking to the readers. You can’t bounce lines and jokes off of another person on a blog. And as egotistical as it may sound, I want people to see me. I have a personality and a style that I’d like to share, and that just can’t be expressed with text on a page. I’m tired of being a faceless entity.

Finally, my desire to move to a more visual medium goes back to something we tried years ago. Back when we were still on Blogger, we had considered doing a fiction blog, but at the time we had nothing but the desire to do it. I have from time to time made some attempts at original fiction here, stuff like ‘Superhero City: A Visitor’s Guide’, ‘Hero: 108: Fast Forward’ and the Cyber City Nerdvanas,  and they can be seen as first attempts, but again, that’s something like, but not exactly like what I want to do on that front; I’d like to make original cartoons and artwork. In addition to writing, I also like to draw, though I’ve never posted any of my drawings online. As of right now, I don’t quite know how to post original artwork online or make digital drawings or art, but I’d like to learn. I no longer wish to just post random images on to the screen and force people to use their imaginations as to what they’re supposed to be looking at; I want to display my own artwork. At least now unlike before I have some ideas of what kind of stories and cartoons I could post. Over the past 2 years or so, Jason and I have been toying around with an idea for a cartoon show that’s been steadily growing over the past several months. I won’t go into huge detail, but the basic premise of the show is that it’s about these young twins who live with their family and their exotic talking pets on a tropical resort island in a fully automated mansion (did I mention that the family is crazy rich?), and adjacent to the mansion is this vast, savage untamed jungle land similar to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, only with Beastly Kingdom in it (’cause there are creatures like dinosaurs, dragons, unicorns, pegasi and sea monsters in it as well) that the kids sometimes play, explore and frolic in. Think The Loud House meets Lilo & Stitch meets Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse meets Johnny Test meets those early ’00’s Danimals ads meets Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs, if that makes any sense (and I know it doesn’t). If we do indeed opt to actually make a fiction blog/site, it’ll be its’ own separate site, as we don’t want this one to get too cluttered.

Long story short: don’t expect another full-blown blog post with a ton of embedded images and clips from either of us anytime soon; I don’t want to neglect this site, but I can’t continue doing what I’ve been doing, at least not this way, the spark just isn’t there. I’ll try to keep you guys up to date on our progress, most likely via micro-blogs on Tumblr and site updates here (I’m not a social media person; I got tired of the endless bric-a-brac on message boards and I don’t go anywhere near Twitter or Facebook for a number of reasons, the least of which being how toxic the atmosphere is on those sites), but I can’t just go back to making blog posts, not even as we begin the process of overhauling things here. Not only do I just not want to continue the blog format, but while we have a lot of things planned, they either don’t accommodate the blogging format or we simply don’t wish to waste our best material on blog posts. As I said, we’ll keep you posted on what happens as it happens; you’ll know we’re ready to roll when you come here and notice Twinsanity sporting a new look and a new theme; we’ll be upgrading the site once the new format  and new material are presentable. The blog posts we’ve already made will be archived for those who want to revisit them.

I know how annoying this roller coaster trip has been, but I assure you, it’s going to be worth it; when Twinsanity returns in its’ new format, it will be bigger and better than it’s ever been.

Just a Little Somethin’-Somethin’

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First post of 2019! Yep.

First, let me give y’all an update on how things are progressing site-wise: We’re still writing up scripts and conceiving concepts for videos, and our deal with our brother wherein we begin editing for him and in turn he gives us the necessary editing software is still in place, BUUUUUUT our bro is a student with an active social life, and as such we have to get our schedules synced up so that we can actually begin working on that. I don’t fault him for having a life, but I was hoping to have started actual video production by now; I plan to give him a little more time to come through, but if there’s no change in the immediate future, I’ll just have to break down and purchase the editing software myself. Also, we need more and better lighting here; where we’re planning to shoot has an odd lighting effect, on my camera people look dark and shadowy in here, so I’m currently shopping around for LED lights and possibly back lights as of this writing.

In the meantime we’ve been hatching some ideas for new material; some of it big and detailed and other stuff short, little tidbits that will serve as filler between the bigger stuff. Bottom line: while video production is unfortunately taking a little longer than I anticipated, I don’t want this site to just sit here collecting dust while it’s under re-construction, so we might, repeat, might, put up some of the ‘mini’ episodes as old-style blog posts in the coming weeks, just to keep things going here and so our workload doesn’t pile any more than it already has. The ‘major’ works, i.e., What The Funny, Pop Dream, The Retro Bin, etc., will still be done as videos, as eventually everything will, but some of the shorter, simpler stuff can get posted now as appetizers, if you will.

Make no mistake, however; our plans to grow Twinsanity have not changed. We’re still moving to video production and we’re still going to update the look of this site; we’ve been wanting to upgrade this place for the longest time, no way we’re abandoning those plans now while we’re so close. I need to rant for a bit here: one reason we wish to change our medium from text to video is because we suspect that not a lot of folks are actually reading these posts; a lot of the searches we receive are mainly for certain images and/or links, and often the same ones each time. I’ve heard that Millenials ‘don’t have time to read’ and pay more attention to videos, and while we don’t do what we do just for the clicks, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to pour your heart and soul into a piece of work is it’s going to be largely ignored. We have fun stuff and opinions that we want to share with you guys, we plan for Twinsanity to be more, so much more than just that site people go to to see that Burger Castle sketch from Saturday Night Live or pictures of Dumb Donald from Fat Albert. BTW, I’m not knocking those of you who do actually read our stuff and follow our site; you guys are amazing and more power to you, but sometimes a person can feel a little disgruntled sometimes without a steady diet of feedback, which is another reason why we’re switching over to videos: to reach a wider audience. It’d be nice to not feel like we’re just shouting at the wind.

So if some new (albeit shorter and less complicated) ‘old-style’ blog posts start popping up here soon, you’ll know why. We haven’t dropped our plans to expand, these will just stuff to tide you guys (and us) over until the overhaul takes place. We’re both determined to bring Twinsanity back to life in 2019.

Yearly Wrap-Up 2018

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2019

Regular followers of Twinsanity know the drill here: this is the last blog post of the year, wherein we give a summation of what the year’s been like for us, and give you guys a brief update of what to expect from Twinsanity in the upcoming year. December 2nd is admittedly pretty early to be doing the annual wrap-up, but if you’ve been following us you know why this in all likelihood will be the final blog post we’re going to make in 2018, and possibly beyond aside from news and site updates (hey, like this one!).

First, the unpleasant stuff: some unexpected life events from late 2017 (none of which relate directly to the site so I’d prefer to not disclose them here, hope you understand) spilled over into 2018, which made putting up content challenging, to put it mildly. I’m not going to lie, 2018 was not a very good year for me overall; things got so chaotic for us that we both felt it was necessary to take a temporary break from blogging until things chilled out for us in real life. It was an emotional roller coaster nightmare.

While we were on hiatus, one of the things that got me through this rough patch…

deadmau5-blue

Aside from my newfound love of Electronic Dance Music…

..was watching videos from my favorite content creators. Big ups to Phelan Porteous, Allison Pregler, Tony Goldmark, Andre Meadows, Trent Troop & Greg Sepelak, Charlie and Hailey Callahan, Bob Chipman, Doug and Rob Walker,  Lewis Lovhaug, James Rolfe, Chris Stuckmann and DigiValentine. You guys don’t know me, but you all helped me get through a difficult period in my life. Not only that, but you also helped to re-ignite my creative spirit. Thanks for that.

When things finally calmed down, we thought we could just go back to blogging and everything would be business as usual; we posted some blog posts, even started a new segment (Brain Candy) and started new What The Funny and Pop Dream segments, only to discover that we’d been bitten by the video bug and were no longer interested in continuing the standard text format. We had been planning to upgrade this site and its’ content for some time, and our lack of enthusiasm for blogging has only served to reinforce that notion. 2019 will the year that Twinsanity makes the jump from text to video.

I’m not going to elaborate on what we’re planning to do video-wise since we’ve already covered this in the last 2 posts. I will however, give you the latest news on how all that is going: the good news is that our brother Chaz, himself a YouTuber (his channel can be found here–please check him out, like, share, subscribe and all that good stuff) has graciously offered to assist us in our venture, showing us how to edit and so forth, and in return we’ll be helping him out, as he wants to put up more content and additional editors will definitely benefit him in that regard. The bad news is that with the ebb and flow of schedules and funds being what they are, compounded by these freaking holidays on top of that, you definitely won’t be seeing any of the new stuff until next year, but it’s not like we haven’t been doing any work during this period, we most certainly have; new Twinsanity material is coming, we promise. Just be patient.

As stated elsewhere previously, when Twinsanity returns and the videos start coming out, we’ll also be changing the theme (as in appearance, not content) of the site; it turns out that the theme we’re currently using (Shaan) has been retired, so it’s fortunate that we were planning to change the theme anyway.

To sum up, once again thank you to all who have stuck with us and our craziness. We really appreciate your viewership, patience, comments and input. My hope is for 2019 to be a much better, more stable and more productive year for us and the Twinsanity, and if all goes well, we’ll realize our dream of making Twinsanity bigger and better than it’s ever been before. So since we likely won’t be posting anything new until after January, we hope you all have a happy holiday season and a safe and prosperous new year.

Marshmello

Keep on groovin’.

What We’re Working On

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Howdy, y’all.

Just wanted to keep you guys abreast of where we are in the big Twinsanity makeover, and give you a little hint on what to expect when Twinsanity re-emerges as a vlog/video channel.

To start with, in our time off from blogging I’ve been starting to draw again (I used to draw a lot, but my time/life schedule hasn’t always been accommodating) and we have some non-Twinsanity related writing projects on the back burner which we’re starting to get done. That’s a good thing.

Scripts and concepts for the videos are currently being written and developed. Many of the stuff we have planned are some of the things we’ve previously done as blog posts but in video form (indeed, a lot of what we’ve published in the past few years were originally conceived as videos, but had to be modified to fit the text format; this is one reason for the change, we’re not thinking and conceiving concepts in the blog format anymore. Several of the blog posts that we’ve made will be remade as videos, as they were initially conceived), while others are things that we simply don’t want to do or can’t be done as text posts.

As Jason has noted previously, when we start producing videos regularly, we will also be upgrading the site’s look and theme, something I’ve been wanting to do for some time, however the site’s URL will remain the same; unlike before when we moved from Blogger to WordPress, you guys won’t have to memorize a new address. We’ll still be at twinsanity.co.

Here’s a brief run-through of what to expect from the core video segments. Keep in mind that everything is in an early stage right now, so names and things are still being decided; these concepts could undergo a dozen changes before reaching their final forms:

  • For some time now, we’ve wanted to do a video series reminiscent of Allison Pregler’s Movie Nights or Bob Chipman’s In Bob We Trust/The Big Picture or Brad Jones’ DVD-R Hell. This segment will most likely be Cartoon Country. The transitioning of Reviews on the Run (remember that?) to Cartoon Country was very similar to Allison’s revamping of Obscurus Lupa Presents to Movie Nights; like before, Cartoon Country will not be formal, scene-by-scene, blow-by-blow reviews, but rather more laid back and casual, like a couple of friends just kicking it and talking about their favorite cartoons. As before, Cartoon Country need not always be an overview of an entire series, it can just be about a single episode of a show or even just one scene from an episode.
  • The other animation-centric segments, such as Talkin’ Nerdy, Beyond the Background, The Retro Bin, The Cartoon Couch, TV Special Showdown, Unpopular Opinions et al, will remain basically the same, they’ll just be done in video format. Regarding TV Special Showdown: one thing in particular that we’d like to do with that is do more Saturday Morning preview specials. Kind of a tricky thing because few of them exist online, but nonetheless it’s something we’d like to do.
  • Regarding What The Funny, Pop Dream and Brain Candy: I regret pulling the latest installments of these out so early. Our original plan was that we were going to continue blogging through the remainder of the year, but in short order even that became questionable. If we had known that the Blog Burnout was going to occur so soon, we wouldn’t have busted out with these this year. I feel sorry for Brain Candy; it’s a good idea, but it had the unfortunate timing to be born at a time when the blog format was really starting to run dry. We have other Brain Candies in the works, and they will be presented, but all the subsequent Brain Candies will be done as videos rather than text posts. Same deal with the Regular Show What The Funny and the Animal Jam Pop Dream: we did the first installments of each in text form, and we do plan to continue each, but the remainders of those will be videos. Also, when Pop Dream and What The Funny make the transition to video form, we won’t be numbering them any longer.
  • No offense to Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic), Lewis Lovhaug (Linkara) or Eric Rodriguez (The Blockbuster Buster), but we won’t be incorporating stories, sagas or ongoing narratives in our “reviews” (I put this in quotes because I don’t consider what we do to be reviews in the conventional sense, what we do isn’t so much reviewing something as it’s just us goofing around, geeking out, nitpicking, cracking wise and making jokes, but we call them “reviews” because that’s the language people use; I don’t know if there is a proper term for what we do); those guys are good at what they do and it’s cool that they’re doing what they want, but our videos don’t need to be mini-movies nor do we need or want to be intergalactic superheroes saving the internet from the multiverse or whatever. If we want to do fiction or stories, we’ll do them as their own separate thing. Indeed, we considered doing original comedy sketches and miscellaneous skits, which would be the new format of 2 Funny.
  • We will also be continuing with Toon Adjacent, which was inspired by (and will be a sort of hybrid of) Phelan Porteous’ Bootleg Zone/Miraculous Merchandise Zone and Tony Goldmark’s Some Jerk with a Camera and State of the Parks. Like before, on Toon Adjacent we’ll be spotlighting toys, collectibles, merchandise, theme park attractions, stage shows etc. which are based on cartoons. Jason and I used to buy collectibles and action figures a lot, and have been thinking about starting up that hobby again, so why not make a video series out of it?
  • Videots will also be transitioned into video format. There may be some entries reminiscent of Ryan Molina’s Awesome Video Game Memories, but they will mainly be video versions of the later Videots installments focusing on video game aesthetics such as Favorite Stages, Favorite Levels, Favorite Power-Ups, Favorite Game Music, etc., as I’m particularly proud of those. One new video game theme segment we have planned was inspired by a pilot that Bob Chipman made called Game Watch; Bob (so far) uploaded 2 of these, and I don’t know if he has any plans to do more, but we like the idea and plan to do something similar. In it, we watch a playthrough of a game, during which we joke, comment and display trivial facts about said game and other stuff. We’re calling this segment Geeks on Games. A new (sort of) video game themed segment I have in the planning is something I’m calling Engrish Lit. Inspired a segment of the late series X-Play called Shocking! with Shad Grimgravy, on Engrish Lit I will be reading Engrish mis-translations of game cinemas, street signs etc. as though they were Shakespearean monologues. I want to emphasize that I am no way trying to make fun of Japanese people with this segment, I’m poking fun at the Engrish being lost in translation, the segment is not meant to be a knock against Asians. Engrish Lit will be short, filler videos to tide folks over while we work on the bigger stuff. Another possible filler segment I have planned is me reading Rufus quotes from Street Fighter 4, similar to the Videots I did years ago called The Wit an’ Wisdom o’ Rufus, but unlike that, I won’t be reading them all at once, as that would just get boring, instead I’ll read one quote per installment. (Ironically, that post was one of the first signs to me that maybe the blog format wasn’t the way for us to go; I never felt that came off properly as a text post.)
  • A new segment we’re working on is a riff segment, though it won’t be presented in the traditional MST3K style, with the film playing and our voices heard over it; ours would be done similar to the openings of Mike Jeavons’ Infomercialism: show a clip of something, cut to us making a joke about it, cut back to another clip, cut back to us joking, repeat. Right now we’re calling this segment Laff Riot. Like with Nerdvana, The subjects of Laff Riot can be anything: a cartoon short, an episode of a TV show, a short film, a commercial, anything. The only thing I’d like to avoid riffing on is 50’s educational films, because everybody riffs on those.
  • We’re also kicking around the prospect of doing a segment inspired by the YouTube channels Defunctland and Restaurant Rewind, in which we look at retail chains, stores and ad campaigns of the past. We don’t have a name for this segment yet.
  • Another new segment idea is inspired by some of Andre Meadows (Black Nerd)’s videos, in which we go on location to a particular spot or attraction and engage with said spot. We’re tentatively calling this segment The Sweet Spot. (The only other name we have for it is Coolopolis.)
  • Finally, we plan to have partially unscripted vlogs called Beware the Bros, in which we just ramble and talk about stuff of interest. These are inspired by the Walker Brothers’ Sibling Rivalry and Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop’s Under the Table.

When will these videos come out? I can’t say for certain, but ideally I’d like to for them to be ready for viewing by 2019, first quarter 2019 preferably.

How often will we be uploading videos? Again, can’t say for certain, but ideally I’d like to put up a minimum of 1 video a month or at least every 2 months. I realize that videos take longer to produce, as they have to be written, recorded, edited and uploaded, but I’m going to try to not get locked into the whole YouTube algorithm thing. I’ve even considered creating a Patreon account.

Bear with us, folks. I know it’s annoying just slogging through these text posts; I know you’re wondering “When are they going to post something entertaining, with visuals, jokes and stuff?”. When we upgrade the site, we plan to have a blog section, which we’ll use to archive all the stuff we’ve done up to now for those who wish to revisit those, but going forward the funny stuff with jokes and images and clips will be videos and vlogs, not text blog posts. Future blog posts will mainly just be stuff like this, site news and updates. This is where Twinsanity’s headed. It’s work, I know, but the blog format just isn’t doing it for us anymore. We both feel like we’ve hit a wall with the blog format; it’s become too limiting and restrictive for what we want to do creatively, and although we tried to bounce back after returning from our self-imposed hiatus, we can no longer escape the feeling that we want to express ourselves in a different, more vibrant way. Twinsanity as just a blog has run its’ course; neither of us wish to stop working on Twinsanity, we just want to continue doing it in a different medium.

If I tried to do an ‘old-style’ blog post now, it wouldn’t be very good ’cause I’m just not feeling it, the enthusiasm just isn’t there anymore, and I’m not going to phone in that kind of blog post just for the sake of putting something up here. We have to do what we want to do creatively. It’s like JG Quintel said, you have to make the stuff you want to see, not what you think other people want to see. It’s way too much work making something you’re not even into.