Dan Olson

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 17:18 UTC

Overwhelmingly I think people Get It and it's gone where I wanted (or at least anticipated) it would. There's been a few surprising reactions, some unexpected conclusions (positive and negative), and the term "hit piece" has lost all meaning, but for the most part I feel like its a success.

0 replies 0 reposts 30 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 17:16 UTC

Seven months, give or take. Since I normally keep a short beard it's hard to remember exactly when I'd last trimmed before I decided to grow it out.

0 replies 0 reposts 25 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 17:07 UTC

But I thought that process, that series of realizations that maybe took a few minutes in reality, was interesting enough to be worth exploring in its own right, and it would be both funny and emotionally poignant to imply it took long enough to work through that my beard grew ragged and wild.

2 replies 0 reposts 98 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 17:02 UTC

In reality I worked very quickly from "why does it look like it was built with random junk he had laying around?" to "because it was made with random convenient junk, you're still draping a ragged scrap of fleece over a mic stand instead of buying a flag kit, who TF are you to talk trash?"

2 replies 0 reposts 79 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 16:56 UTC

By the sheer reality of production the *actual* realization almost certainly happened off-camera, very suddenly, days/weeks/months/years before the delivered video existed, maybe before the video was even A Project

2 replies 0 reposts 83 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 16:54 UTC

Smarter every Day has talked about this a lot because it's the backbone of that channel: almost any sort of realization in a structured YouTube video is a kind of fiction, a recreation for the the benefit of the audience, for the needs of the story, an emotional truth rather than a literal one.

1 replies 2 reposts 92 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 16:52 UTC

I think the one thing I will address, because it's kinda funny (this is not a response to Jack) is "did it really take Dan that long to figure out the low hat is just made with junk James happened to have on hand?"

2 replies 0 reposts 65 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 16:34 UTC

Anyway Jack Saint put out a really insightful hit piece on notorious lolcow Dan Olson and his latest cringe and I think it's worth watching for what it adds to the conversation.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar2L...

8 replies 3 reposts 139 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 16:31 UTC

Normally I'll sit here expanding on ideas and subjects from the video, explaining things that maybe we did a mediocre job of laying out or adding additional information that fell outside the scope, but that feels almost inappropriate in this situation.

4 replies 0 reposts 109 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 16:28 UTC

The fact that the piece leans really heavily on metaphor and visual narrative to try and grapple with paradoxical feelings has aggressively changed that relationship. More than any other video I've made it's a loosed arrow: I set the trajectory but now I'm just an observer watching it fly.

7 replies 0 reposts 137 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 16:24 UTC

I don't know how to talk about responses to IDKJR. My relationship with the video has shifted very quickly, I can usually distance myself after a time, but the catharsis of release this time was so quick and overwhelming that I feel almost like audience myself.

5 replies 0 reposts 204 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 20:12 UTC

Also Are You Jimmy Ray? because it's always funny to reference Are You Jimmy Ray?

2 replies 0 reposts 44 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 20:12 UTC

It's a mix of songs and music videos that directly influenced the video and ones I just happened to listen to a whole lot while making it.

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 19:50 UTC

Clear shot of the mixtape for those who asked

8 replies 2 reposts 154 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 17:31 UTC

Best of luck!

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 28, 2024 at 22:06 UTC

Weed legalization breaks things in very funny ways, since you get massive over-competition followed by consolidation, buyouts, and mergers, leading to upscale buildings with style requirements housing a Value Buds

5 replies 10 reposts 173 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 19:29 UTC

2.3 TB cut down into a 11.7 GB export compressed by YouTube down to probably less than a gig, I'd need to jump through some hoops to check.

2 replies 0 reposts 8 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 18:56 UTC

My thing that other YouTubers learn about and are horrified by is my data consumption. The raw video for IDKJR is over 2.3TB. I have very successful peers whose entire decade + careers don't take up 2TB. I thought of this as I casually copied 60GB of video for what will be an 8 minute patron video.

17 replies 12 reposts 228 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 18:03 UTC

A) $20/day * 8 crew days = $160 B) n/a everyone's staying at home C) $330 * 2 crew days (I'm not paying myself yet) + $30 * 6 (I still need to eat daily) = $840 D) $1500 per week * 3 = $4500 E) I'm editing it myself to save money so "free" up front = $5500 * 1.15 = $6325

1 replies 0 reposts 19 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 17:48 UTC

So hypothetical local artist takes 12 days to draw an issue, we're going to shadow them for a third of those with a pre and post interview. For the shadow days I can work solo and just follow, but for the interviews I want an extra pair of hands. I'm renting a FX6 + Sennheiser wireless + Amran 60D

1 replies 0 reposts 9 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 17:38 UTC

Oh, sorry, then the Apx. Budget should be multiplied by 0.15 for contingency.

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 17:37 UTC

E can be significantly lower than a time factor of 2 for lower standards or a more experienced editor (though experience raises the hourly) but assuming 2 hours total work per finished minute is a safe ballpark.

1 replies 0 reposts 10 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 17:36 UTC

If D * [# of eps] > [Cost of Purchase] then it's worth considering buying the kit outright if the cash and commitment is there.

1 replies 0 reposts 11 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 17:32 UTC

Figuring out the budget per-episode would be: A) Travel cost x Crew B) Lodging cost x Crew x Time C) Per diem x Crew x Time D) Kit rental x Time E) Editor hourly x 2 x Finished run time in minutes A+B+C+D+E = apx. budget

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 25, 2024 at 21:11 UTC

Thanks man! And thank you for the kind words about the video.

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 25, 2024 at 21:11 UTC

🧡

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 25, 2024 at 19:53 UTC

Finished one of my most ambitious videos ever, finally saw Los Campesinos! in concert (on my birthday no less), already off to a great start on the next project, I've got Shadow of the Erdtree and Oxygen Not Included expansions to play, and a kitty is snoring in my lap. Been a pretty good week.

24 replies 7 reposts 476 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 20:49 UTC

Yeah, the spiritual successors to the genre are Braid, Limbo, Thomas Was Alone, and their ilk, but that branch has also evolved which would lead to the question: are Hollow Knight and Celeste cinematic platformers?

1 replies 1 reposts 6 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 18:43 UTC

Way too many. The sound of a compressor turning in made it into IDKJR because I couldn’t isolate it and was too exhausted to rebuild the setup.

0 replies 0 reposts 12 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 15:25 UTC

Would have been a phone.

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 15:12 UTC

The laundry/furnace/storage room in the basement. The odds of a piece of gear being packed up and stowed is inverse to how often I use it or how heavy it is. The 600 gram Amrans get stowed regularly, the 10 kilo Novas stay where I last left them.

1 replies 0 reposts 12 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 14:50 UTC

It’s true, I did

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 08:05 UTC

IRL I got stuck here and after a few minutes of button mashing figured I was never going to guess the correct answer made a note of the experience then looked up a scan of the manual

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 08:01 UTC

It’s not that the game hasn’t taught you, you were expected to read manuals at the time, it’s that you’re never finding a copy with the manual in 2024 and you’re not going to intuit the controls from experience.

3 replies 2 reposts 36 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 02:17 UTC

"Okay, so Conrad actually has two different long jumps. If you press up while running he jumps forward, but if you let go of the d-pad and let Satan take the wheel then Conrad will jump up and grab platforms above his head [joke about up jumping forward not up, jump by not jumping]"

3 replies 0 reposts 81 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 02:13 UTC

Also if you feel the prose wasn't purple enough, here's a cut line "that man does not dissolve into luminiferous aether when we stop observing him, but that is the James we can never truly know. We can only receive James by observation, a sub-atomic particle measured and tainted by our instruments"

2 replies 5 reposts 93 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 01:59 UTC

The mirror was vital for both metaphorical reasons and to physically extend the distance I could move the camera back from the iPad, so this really grungy transition between the two was just the cost of the shot without spending $$$ on shipping a large optical grade first-surface mirror.

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 01:53 UTC

Since the actual reflective surface of the mirror is at the back of a sheet of glass, and since the lens is *so close* to front of that glass at a nearly 45° angle the refraction difference from the front of the glass to the back becomes a really serious problem.

1 replies 0 reposts 35 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 01:50 UTC

So I have the camera set up and it's shuffling backwards with each cut, but then it needs to turn the corner, and the first shot is, like, a couple inches away from the surface of a regular ass household mirror from an old vanity.

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 01:48 UTC

The first 4-6 setups were all directly in front of the iPad because I don't have a zoom lens long enough to frame the iPad full screen while looking through the mirror, which was about 8 feet away from the iPad (also the move in Wavelength isn't actually a zoom, the camera is being moved)

1 replies 0 reposts 41 likes

Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 01:41 UTC

Okay, wait, so, I can explain the iPad and the problem. It's geometry.
bsky.app/profile/tire...

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Dan Olson @foldablehuman.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 22, 2024 at 22:58 UTC

So, how y’all feel about the video?

151 replies 3 reposts 480 likes