B-Mask

Winners! (2012 College Film)

 Hey everyone- to ring out 2023, I wanted to throw in my now over a decade old film Winners, my first ever attempt at directing a project outside of my room at home. As you can tell this is absolutely the product of an 18/19 year old mind who didn't know what he was doing, but had I not made it, I wouldn't have gotten to direct my 2015 University/College film Screwball, which I am still immensely proud of. I've been thinking a lot about personal projects and opportunities this year going...

Commentary: The Sly Trilogy Retrospective (part 3)

 The last of the Sly Trilogy commentaries is finally here! This one as it turns out makes up for the lack of post-video writeup produced at the time, which allows me to expand on the idea of the video and the difficulties in trying to get this to come together in the drafting phase, coming up with a pretty mad solution to figure things out from there. Take a listen and enjoy the final trip through the Sly franchise- for now, at least!

 - B

October/November Update (End of year work)

 Hey everyone!

 I decided not to update until the end of this month because I wanted a couple of last month’s obligations dealt with- the Timeline tour ran a little over my planned schedule and I wanted the Q&A done after that, and now both are complete I feel better about moving forward with plans for the next couple videos. This month, being Christmas, isn’t going to see much action, certainly not for big content, but I’ll be worki...

Timeline Tour: A History of Frasier on Cheers

 A little belated, but once again we're back with another treat for Usher contributors and above- the Timeline Tour for the Frasier on Cheers video!

 Going a little further than the blog post detailing how the video came to be, this gets into the nuts and bolts of my thought process concerning my approach to more of the individual choices in the edit as well as showing some behind the scenes operations concerning writing, constructing and comp...

September Update (Patreon rewards and new projects)

 Hey everyone!

 First of all, thanks once again for your support as I was working on the Frasier video. I know the timeline got very skewed, and I really never mean to have months go by without videos, but both real life and the nature of the work just seems to get away from me when I least want. However, judging by the response I think we did okay! It was a long held hope to make this one possible and now that it’s finally realised I can at last tick that o...

Behind the Frasier Video

Hey gang!

Back with another behind the scenes overview on how the latest video came together. This time we’re looking at the extremely troubled production process on my two and a bit hour long Frasier video, which very nearly didn’t work at all. Very funny given I said this wouldn’t be as technical as the last video in my previous behind the scenes post. Ah well. Read on!

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A History of Frasier on Cheers

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A History of Frasier on Cheers

 All is revealed at last! I hadn't just been working on a video about Frasier Crane, but specifically one about Frasier's history on Cheers, and how it developed and informed one of my favourite shows ever. Apologies once more for the sheer amount of time it took to get this one together, I just hope you all feel it was worth it in the end. 

 Will be back soon with a write up on the video's process as well as with news about my next step ...

August Update (Video progress and rewards)

 As you can see, the Frasier video is very close to a completed timeline, but there's still quite a bit of work to do. I've spent an excruciating amount of time picking between clips, getting the variety and inclusion across the entire series to feel comprehensive while swapping bits around that worked better in other spots. It's helped me to identify some of the problems and w...

Commentary: The Sly Trilogy Retrospective (part 2)

 The second ASM commentary for the Sly Trilogy retrospective, this one covers the trials putting together a video that, of all the things i've made, i'm still extremely proud of. There's a lot of anecdotes in here about how the video was made and my general process but also on bits of trivia about the game and research I wasn't able to get into the video at the time. Hope this provides some extra insight and entertainment for the time being- my next step will be recording the commentary ...

July Update (Video progress)

 Sadly, no new video this month, but a lot of work has been goin' on here at B towers.

 Turns out the issues I was having with the script for the Frasier video persisted, even after the first re-write, and I decided to lay the entire thing out in the timeline and figure it out with the whole thing realised in front of me, using all the cutaways I wanted and such. I d...

June Update (video progress and new script completed)

Hey gang!

Fairly short update this time around as I crack on with the next couple projects. The Frasier video wasn’t quite coming together. I recorded and edited the audio, from an incredibly long script, and it just came across as boring, and I wasn’t sure if it was just me or if something was inherently wrong. Listening to it I was suddenly able to identify why that had happened and went back in and overhauled it paragraph by paragraph, ultimately cutting the scri...

Commentary: The Sly Trilogy Retrospective (part 1)

 Back again with another commentary for all you ASM's- this time concerning my Sly Trilogy Retrospective. Here you'll get some insights into my thought process behind putting this video together, how i felt about the games at the time and how I feel about things I did I may or may not have done differently. Has been good practice doing these as well as remembering what it was like to make these- I'll be getting onto the second one real soon. Enjoy!

- B

Link to full playlist-<...

After I played Tears of the Kingdom

 Part 2 of my Zelda Journey, this time covering my experience with the newly released Tears of the Kingdom. Apologies again for this coming out a little later than planned, wanted to clean up some thoughts I hadn't fully articulated in the video the way I wanted and get some extra footage. Was a blast to get to this point and I hope you enjoy the follow up thoughts that came from it. Perhaps, later down the line, we'll get to talk about this series again...

Commentary: Cortex N Chums

Commentary: Cortex N Chums

So, if you just saw the B-vault post, you'll have seen that I reuploaded a video featuring all episodes of my old animated series I made as a kid, Cortex N Chums. As ASM patrons you get a chance to hear the thoughts that went behind making this as well as how I feel about it now, especially given everything the series has been through. There's still more I could probably say or add about plans I made for this, and maybe that will still be told...

B-Vault: Cortex N Chums

 As promised, this is a very rare release of my old animated show from when I was a teenager, Cortex N Chums. I've debated for ages whether or not I should make this public again or what I should do to preserve it, and that could still change- for now, I'd rather have it available for those interested in my work and who may want to know more about where I started out on here. There's a few edits to save some people's identities and some words about the project at the sta...

May Update (Video progress + Rewards)

 Hey everyone! Apologies again for the silence this month, classic case of me doing a lot to try and release something before the month is out and instead delaying everything else in the process, so we’ll go through what’s up bit by bit.

 Real talk- Tears of the Kingdom sucked me in and took WAY more of my time than I planned, even knowing it was going to be a fa...

April Update (Next major video and beyond)

 Hey everyone!

 Apologies for the slightly delayed update. Last week was my 30th Birthday and I celebrated in a way that you actually might see as a short video. As a result I'm briefly in London where I'll be seeing friends and family while working on some scripts before heading back to the suite to get serious with my next video.

 And what would that video be? I hinted at it before, but I'm now happy to reveal that it's about something I've always...

Before I play Tears of the Kingdom

 A quick new video discussing my thoughts on the upcoming Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and the Zelda series as a whole. The hope is that after I'm done with the game I'll come back and do another short video discussing the experience- though it could turn into yet another big essay. I doubt it right now, but it was nice to finally cover one of my favourites.

 There'll be an update at the end of the month and some more Patreon rewards in the nea...

Commentary: Old Video Essay (Portal 2)

 Heya ASM's! 

 As promised, you guys get the extra reward promised in the recent updates, commentaries over my old material, as well as a video from the B Mask vault.

 This is a reupload and commentary of my old video on Portal 2, called 'Why GLaDOS is Beautiful', discussing my feelings towards how the characters were presented. The commentary goes into how I feel abou...

Timeline Tour: Remembering Jak

 Hey everyone, and welcome to the first of the new Patreon bonus features for Usher contributors and above- the Timeline Tour! 

 In these videos, I essentially go through the timeline of whatever recently completed project I've made and discuss all the various details and decisions that came about while putting it all together. You'll have already read a rundown of how the project came to be and where it ended up, but this gets into more detail about the ...

March Update (Behind the Jak video)

Hey hey hey!

Welcome back folks, for another update to clock out the month. I took a little break after finishing the Jak video and then got back to work on a bunch of other stuff, including some Patreon rewards you’ll be seeing shortly. Next month is going to be a little busy, so I can’t guarantee the next big video will be done in that time, but it’s coming together fairly well and is a lot less technical, so hopefully won’t go through quite as extreme a proce...

Remembering Jak

 Guys, I can't tell you how wild it is to finally have this done. 

 After years of telling myself I'd make this, then putting it off, then finally committing and telling my patrons, then stumbling due to issues beyond my control, then getting nervous about a full edit and constantly having to tell people it's happening while scrambling to try and make it better, finally, here it is- a video covering the entire Jak series with an ending I came up ...