Weekly Updates

Weekly Updates was a short-lived series of three videos uploaded to the Jadusable channel by Alex Hall from January 14 to January 21, 2017. The first video, though it did not contain a Q&A, served as an introduction, and the latter two answered questions submitted in the comments of each previous video.

1/14/17 - Ben Drowned Went Hollywood, Methods, and Katelyn Davis' Suicide

Description

Charting a course for 2017, we're going to be posting a lot more content related to Ben Drowned and Methods of Revolution (as well as a few new projects). As of now, we're playing with a weekly video format meant to provide updates with these projects as well as any other random tidbits of news that come up. A lot will be subject to change.

This Saturday, we cover:

Methods of Revolution's release schedule for 2017:
https://www.facebook.com/MethodsofRevolution

The Life & Death of the Ben Drowned Warner Brothers Film Adaptation:
https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/newfronts-2015-machinima-announces-robocop-clive-barker-series-1201486779/

Katelyn Davis' Suicide and Mental Health:
http://thedailyhaze.com/12-year-old-katelyn-nichole-davis-hang-livestream

No Q&A this time, feel free to leave a question below to be answered for next week.

The Katelyn Davis suicide hit home in a weird way for me, I was shown the news story by my girlfriend a few days prior to finding out that she actually was a big fan of the Ben Drowned story, and it was heartbreaking to read the abuse she suffered. As of this recording the details and just how much the parents were at fault was (and I'm sure still is) under a lot of speculation so I opted to omit them out altogether in favor of delivering a more generalized message about mental health.

Right now there are people of all ages just like Katelyn all around the country. While it is sadly too late to help Katelyn, her story can be used to help educate people on noticing the warning signs to be able to intervene and prevent tragedies such as this from occurring. Don't be afraid to reach out if you are struggling.

You can reach on me on social media at

http://www.twitter.com/AlexanderDHall
http://www.facebook.com/AlexanderDHall

Transcript

ey, what’s up guys? It’s Alex. This is kinda something I’ve wanted to do for a little while now. And it’s more of this weekly, sort-of check-in kind of thing with, uh, just these different videos that I will kind of explain some stuff that’s going on with Methods...uh, some stuff that’s going on with Ben Drowned...and, uh, little bits of surprises in between here and there.

Sorry, I’m still kinda getting over a little bit of, like, a flu-y thing, ah, so ignore the sniffs. Like that, and, ah… The format, what I’m envisioning right now- and, again, this is kind of gonna be, like, a work in progress sort of thing. I’ll have, like, a few things of, like, oh, ah, personal news or checkpoints or, y’know whatever to share with you guys in regards to those projects. And then any other news, things that pop in my head and I feel like are relevant...I guess. I won’t drone on too much, there’s other channels for that.

But, yeah, so. Going right forward. So as you may or may not know, Methods of Revolution is coming out in three parts this year. The first is gonna be released on the twenty-third of April and, uh, it’s gonna be the prologue to the story. And then the film proper is gonna come out during the summer and finally, during the wintertime in December, uh, the analogue version of that will come out. Very excited to finally be doing this. It’s been a fucking long time coming and, ah, the experience has been super humbling for me. It took me a while to do it, man. Like, I went through a pretty big discovery period of my life and, ah…

Y’know I, I’m not afraid to say it, like, d- uh I posted about this shit too but, like, y’know there was a time from twenty-two to twenty-four...it wasn’t coming along as fast as I wanted it to, it wasn’t being done as quickly as I wanted it to and...I was super bummed out about it, man. Like, I straight up, like I was depressed. Like, I was trying to just figure out how to get this movie off the ground and get it going. ‘Cause I knew what I wanted to say but I wasn’t sure on how to quite say it all the way, and I was, like, second-guessing myself, and, like, things were falling through...and I just, it was a bummer. Like, it was just a straight up bummer, and I’m not afraid to really talk about that. I wanted to be open and transparent about that sort of stuff, especially with, when it comes to mental health- and we’ll get into that a little bit later ‘cause there’s something else I wanted to talk about.

So that’s kind of the big first announcement, ah...the second announcement… I did post about this on my Facebook page, I’m not sure I posted it to the Ben Drowned page, that Ben Drowned was having a film adaptation made by Warner Brothers and, uh, Clive Barker. Which is like, if you recognize, like, Hellraiser, y’know the guy with all the nails sticking out of his...whatever, you fucking get it. I was super excited about it ‘cause, y’know, I kinda grew up watching some of his stuff and, like, I was like, well that’s cool. It’d be interesting to see what his take is on the story...ah, unfortunately...that’s kind of fallen through. So, I was informed by Clive Barker and his PR people that, ah, there was a restructuring effort in Machininma and...I guess in collaboration with Warner Bros, they kinda “switched gears” a little bit on some stuff and I guess a few people lost their jobs. The replacement team that came in decided not to pursue the uh, the project which is, y’know it’s too bad but...ah, well, then that, then that kind of opens the door for someone else to take a crack at it. Who knows. So that’s the second order of business.

This was brought to my attention on my Twitter by one of you guys that, uh, there was a girl named, uh, Katelyn Davis who ended up committing suicide, uh...and she hung herself on a livestream. She apparently was a fan of Ben Drowned, and she was talking about the character Ben Drowned as it was this, like...this, this personified human entity and...to be honest, like, y’know, like I wrote the original story, I created it. Y’know there was, like, some offshoots of fanfiction about the character that make him way more sympathetic and, like, a troubled teen or a troubled child or whatnot. I think that there is a real problem in the United States- and I think in the world, really, uh, about...how we view mental health, and kind of how we address it.

And...I’ve always tried to be as open and honest as I can because, I just don’t give a shit. I mean, we’re all human beings anyway. I openly kind of talk about that period in my life where I was, y’know, I wasn’t writing, I wasn’t creating. I was, y’know, not happy, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I ballooned up to, like, y’know, super heavy. Like, I gained, probably like, sixty pounds. Sixty-seventy pounds. Over the course of two years, so it’s not like it happened overnight. But, like, y’know, when you’re kind of in that funk it’s easy to kind of make excuses to yourself. But I dipped my toes in that proverbial pond enough to know that how fucking miserable it is, and...that I never wanna go back there, right? Uh, and I’m not afraid to talk about it.

I want to have more of an open dialogue with that kind of stuff, because I think it’s important. I think that...if you treat these people like, fucking, like, pariahs, or whatever, that it’s only going to make them worse, and then it’s going to dissuade other people from coming forward with that kind of shit. Because, we’re all fucking human beings, and all this shit fucking happens to everyone. Everyone. Like, if someone tells you in their heart-of-hearts that they’re like, y’know, twenty-five or twenty-six years old and they’ve never had a bad time in life, they’ve never had, like, a period of months where they were just kind of, fucking, y’know, just bummed out. They weren’t doing what they should be doing, they’re trying to find themselves, they’ve suffered a loss in the family, they...y’know, yadda yadda yadda, bing bang boom. I wouldn’t trust those people, because they’re probably fucking sociopaths, like...it happens.

We all go through this kind of shit and, y’know, some people go through it worse than others, some people have it way worse than others, some people have it better than others, y’know. Like, some people recover from it and some people don’t. Like, I, I think that...shying away from talking about this kind of stuff is disastrous, y’know, to, like, the concept of getting better and kind of opening that up. ‘Cause I think that we’re making progress in the mental health field, but we’re still so...kind of far behind. That’s kind of what I’m trying to help with this film, to kind of, y’know, get out there and sort of start...y’know...doing my own small part and showing other kids, other people, y’know, that shit happens...you get sick every now and then, you know? You don’t have the flu for the rest of your life.

And this would be the part of the video where I would start answering questions anyone left in the comments section, or any other things that you guys wanted me to talk about, I guess. Just to kind of get that dialogue back and forth a little bit. If you have any questions about Ben Drowned or, y’know, Methods- I don’t really want to talk about that too much until it’s out, so it’s kind of a touchy area but I’ll answer what I can, um- this would kind of be the point, y’know. So, we don’t have that, so, moving that along, I guess.

We’re gonna probably workshop this a little bit and see what this comes forward...but, um, yeah. I wanna keep doing these, so I think I will. And just to kind of keep you guys afloat and kind of, what’s going on with my projects and what’s going on with, y’know, Ben Drowned, and what’s going on with, uh, y’know anything else that comes into my head. So, if you like it, watch it, if you don’t, don’t.

Thanks for watching. I’m not gonna tell you to like and subscribe ‘cause I don’t give a shit, and I will see you guys next week.

Jadusable Answers: How did you come up with Ben Drowned? Breath of the Wild & more

Description

Because of the length of the Q&A, I decided to put divide these into two videos. The regular update video is also on it’s way, so if you're not interested in the Q&A feel free to skip this video.

The Weekly Update itself is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH6EOWCg2Ug

These are pretty quick and dirty and just involve me talking into a camera for ten minutes at a time about random things that I'm asked in the Weekly Update videos, so these are more for queuing up in a playlist in the background to listen to while you do something else.

Keep in mind I haven’t had a chance to get to all of your questions yet - so if your question wasn’t answered, don’t fret. Keep them coming and I’ll keep answering them!

http://www.facebook.com/AlexanderDHall
http://www.twitter.com/AlexanderDHall

Transcript

So now to go into the question-and-answer segment from last week, now that we actually have some questions to look at… Let’s see what we’ve got here…

Ryan asks, “My questions is ‘How would you think that some of your characters from Methods (w/o spoilers of course) would react in a situation to something like in the BEN DROWNED story? How about vice versa?”

Because Methods is such a more grounded in reality movie, um… [laughs] I would say most of the characters would be absolutely terrified what happens in Ben Drowned. I think that the character, the main character of Ben Drowned… Oh, that’s interesting… Huh… I think that every character in Methods except for one would be absolutely terrified about what happened in Ben Drowned. That’s about all I’ll say about that.

Pancratius of Old asks, “Explain where you were at the time when you were wrote Ben Drowned. What was happening in your life and what exactly inspired the story of a possessed Majora’s Mask cartridge, the name Ben, the number 423…”

Yeah, so I think I might have said this before, but I was a sophomore in college, and I had read a few creepypasta stories before. I felt that they were very mysterious, and I was really interested in the way the games were doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing because, you know, everything is so programmed into video games, right? Because, you know, you have all these variables that are programmed right in there, and then when something goes against that it’s like extra creepy and extra weird because it’s like, you know, they weren’t meant to do that. These variables were not meant to be disobeyed and all of a sudden something is going crazily wrong that shouldn’t be going wrong. It was that, that aspect of storytelling that was always really fascinating to me. And just like that the creepy feeling, you know, that weird unsettling “this should not be happening” kind of feeling. “This is impossible for it to happen” kind of feeling. So, I- that kind of inspired me to try and take my own stab and that and just kind of see where it ended up, and see just kind of what happened. See if I could do a good job at it, if I could, you know, do a compelling story ‘cause I basically wrote it like it would be something I would like to read. And I say, “well-” you know, what I kind of envisioned, you know.. The idea of this creepypasta and saying to myself, “Well, what would make this the most intense and believable, you know, thing out there, right?” Like, “How can I make this creepypasta creepiest in the world?” And I figured it was like “Well, all these stories are really cool and great that I’ve read so far, but I think what would make it even more terrifying is, like, if you had some kind of ‘proof’ to it, right? That you would have these videos that would a. Kind of act as proof of what you’ve written down of the story, and b. Almost have a different narrative and tell a different kind of story.” And I think that relationship, that kind of symbiotic relationship, between the text and the film converging together to tell this one story, I think it’s super compelling because then you kind of have these, you know, unreliable narrators in a sense and you kind of have to start to figure out, well something is not quite adding up all the way here, and I love, I love that stuff. I love playing with the expectations about that kind of stuff.

As for the name “Ben”, I just had a conversation with him the other day. A really good friend of mine back in college, he lived in the same dorm room as me, and I was just thinking “Well, I’m gonna have this big plot reveal where it’s like, well, this character, his name is going to be revealed, so I wanted to make it a common name that it could really resonate with some people ad freak him out because he always, kind of wanted to get that little scare, I guess, you know? Like, “Oh my god, he’s- it’s my name! Ahhh!” Something- stuff like that, but… I, so yeah, I picked “Ben” because it was a common name and was name of my best friend and it was, uh, really funny because he was the first person I ever told that story to.

Ryuk52109 asks, “What is your opinion on the Ben Drowned fan-ARGs that popped up over the last 2-3 years, and by that, I mean the lostmemory ARG, John Is Dead, and (just finished) the youshouldnthavedonethat ARG?”

I always think they’re super interesting. I haven't’ really kept up with them, so I wouldn’t know too much about them and what they really consisted of, but I always do enjoy a good ARG, so, yeah, I mean, I had stuff- I’ll have to take a look at that kind of stuff. I just, I’ve been so far apart from the story for a while now that I haven’t really been keeping up with it too much, but I will look into it.

RISING SUN goes ahead and asks that, “Regarding Methods: Is it still the same movie that you envisioned back when you were collecting funds, or has it changed?”

It’s a great question, and it has changed quite considerably since then. A lot of that has to do with that period that I mentioned in the last video where I had a hard time getting it off the ground and my initial vision has evolved for way better, I would say, into something that is more complete, and I think we’d be able to reach more people. I think… I think now it’s way more… cohesive, and I think it’s- it’s way more complete in the sense that it covers some stuff with more reverence and understanding and empathy than I would have back when I was, you know, 22 or 23 and didn't really have much of an idea what it was like to really got through a, you know, period when you’re down on your luck in your life , and I, you know, I am grateful for that experience because I think it makes the film stronger, I think it makes it more impactful.

Brisk asks what my thoughts are on Breath of the Wild, and I think it’s really cool. I’m kind of hesitant about voice acting in Zelda, but it could be really, really neat. That trailer that came out, that like release date trailer, was incredible, and I hope the English dub is pretty good because I saw it when it first came out in Japanese and then, I don’t know about the- I think Zelda’s performance, English performance, was kind of- It either was like a bad take or something or I don’t know, but it just didn’t really seem as… emotional, I guess, as the Japanese performance, but that- I’ll reserve judgement ‘till that comes out. But yeah, I think that could be really cool.

So XaikuTMH, I think that’s how you pronounce it, sorry if it’s not: “Has Nintendo become aware of the ‘Ben Drowned’ story, or approached you about it in any way, legal or otherwise, and more importantly what are your thoughts on the 3DS remake of Majora’s Mask?”

As far as I know, to my knowledge, Nintendo hasn’t said one way or another about the story. I know a lot of Zelda fan sites have picked it up and run with it and it’s kind of, and it’s integrated itself into the Zeldapedia and, I guess, the extended lore, I guess, of Zelda. I think the closest they’ve ever come is with that Majora’s Mask 3DS trailer, in an official capacity anyway, and there was a brief like, freeze frame in the trailer ad it was of the Link statue, but it wasn’t on a switch because, I’m pretty sure, and it’s been a year since I played this game, but the statue only has any kind of relevance whenever you need to hold down a switch in the game. So, to have that statue just sitting by itself and… you know I think it was out in the middle of a- next to a house or something like that, like not on top of a switch doesn’t seem to make much sense, so I like to maybe think that was a little bit of a shout out, but, you know, who knows I guess. But I haven’t been reached out to an official capacity by that. Be fun, I’d love to do that kind of collaboration stuff.

So that’ll about wrap it up for today. I’ll hit you guys back up next week. I didn’t get to all the questions that you guys left on the first video, so just be patient, I’ll probably get to yours if you haven’t been answered yet. So yeah, thanks guys, I will see you guys next week.

1/21/17 - Ben Drowned 2, Looking for a Composer, Episodic Creepypasta?

Description

In this video we talk about the search for a composer for Methods and turning this channel into a story telling outlet for more creepypastas in the future. By that, I mean more creepypastas in the vein of Ben Drowned (text chapters with accompanying videos). They'd be much less elaborate than Ben Drowned (most likely self contained in the Youtube channel), but more bite-sized. Think something similar to Black Mirror episodes.

...And it won't be called Ben Drowned 2. Come on now.

Still playing around with the video format, and again a lot of this is subject to change as we workshop this. Ultimately, I didn’t want to tack on nine minutes of answering questions for those who weren’t interested in that portion, so that video is separated from this and you can find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF6yLbh3AGw

You can contact me at:

http://www.facebook.com/AlexanderDHall
http://www.twitter.com/AlexanderDHall

And lastly, any business inquiries at:

AlexanderDHall13@gmail.com

Audio References for the sound we're looking for for Methods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeaGUfZM5hs

https://audiojungle.net/item/abstract-emotions-pack/19257743

https://audiojungle.net/item/this-amazing-world/10631243

Transcript

Alright [clap].

Alright, guys, what’s up? It’s Alex. Today is Monday, January 23rd and let’s go ahead and dive right into it. So, we’re looking for a composer or someone to contribute a few songs to Methods of Revolution. The vein of these tracks will be a little bit more instrumental, a little bit more experimental, and if you’re looking for some, like, you know, reference points or whatnot, I would definitely look to Blackmill and then I’ll post a few in the description here that are familiar that will kind of give you a better idea of what we’re really looking for here. But, um… yeah! If you have some stuff go ahead and send it to me, I’ll put the email below and, you know, link me to, you know, your portfolio, your SoundCloud, whatever you do. Link me to that, and I would love to get you involved in some kind of way, so… If you work on a lot of music, if you are an up-and-coming artist or whatnot and want to contribute to this stuff, I think it’d be really great, I think it’d be really cool, to have someone on board with that. That’s something I’ve been trying to involve myself in a little bit more is I want this to be something of a bit of a collaboration between a lot of up-and-coming artists and seeing where that goes from there with that. I think that’d be really cool if we did that, so if you are, you know, if you have any stuff that you’re working on… Send me the SoundCloud, send me the link to it. If you have a portfolio, of course, I would love to see it. But, yeah, let me know.

The second order of business that I’m looking to talk about is: This is an idea I would like to kind of extend out there to you guys just because I have been curious about doing this for a little while and was wondering what you guys would think about this, but I was debating on turning this channel into almost like every, you know, month or two months or whatever how long it takes to make another creepypasta story for that. Like whether it’s a different video game, like a haunted game, like a haunted different Nintendo game or whatnot, um… to be able to do that kind of stuff. So, would you guys be interested in having like a flavor of the month, almost, horror story? Obviously, they wouldn’t have, you know, the same like… you know, everything is in-character kind of appeal that Ben Drowned has, but it’d be more like this, this channel you can subscribe to and then like, you know, every month or two months or whatever there would be a new, you know, like horror creepypasta that would come out. I think that’d be kind of cool, I think it’d be kind of fun to make those. Just kind of curious to see what you guys would think about that stuff, so yeah, feel free to let me know.