ascender
patreon
Update & Restructuring
🕑 Added 2019-12-25 09:13:05 +0000 UTCFirst of all, for those that celebrate it, Happy Christmas. Hope you're spending the day with friends and family or playing video games, eating good food and watching A Christmas Story thirty times.
Second, I seriously need to a take a moment to tell all 70 of you that I appreciate you more than anything. Really. Truly.
If you're throwing in $1, $10 or $50 you're the only reason we're able to make the videos we're making.
Really. In fact if we're being honest, I would likely be homeless if not for you.
I've had to taking every odd job I can just to afford the gear we have to make these videos and yet we don't even have a camera (the things I post online are borrowed).I'm constantly chasing rent, looking for a part time job to pay for the time to work on these projects which will eventually lead to bigger projects that actually pay. But I haven't had real work, behind or in front of the camera, in three years regardless of my efforts.
It's done a huge number on me.
I still hold out hope that I can create cool things that people like so that's my only goal now.
Even more it's difficult going from being in really awesome shows and movies, making a living. But a lot of the money I earned from the age of 11 to 22 was used up without my knowledge, leaving me genuinely penniless. Most weeks now I'm negative in my accounts and I have to pray I can sell something in my house on eBay. It sucks having to start all over but we do what we can right?
It's been a really stressful and arduous road for me, not just this year but for the past 3 years. There have been so many non-starters that have soaked up my time, for instance:
Remember when I was streaming on Facebook almost every day? Well, I put all my projects on hold to do that because I was up for a partnership with Facebook Gaming, they asked me to build my audience for 3 months (which turned into 6) and see if I could bring my following to the platform. Then finally half a year later they told me they weren't offering anymore partnerships.
So I stopped streaming and went back to the drawing board. H had to figure out what to do next. I wrote a comedy pilot, we filmed in almost a year ago to the day and planned to pitch it to Sony because we had a contact at the studio. But right before we pitched it, she left the company.
So, again, back to the drawing board. This time banking on the growth of the YouTube channel, taking that and throwing myself full force into the swing of production and doing what I do best creating cool stuff.
Since YouTube won't approve us for monetization, you're needed more than ever. I can't stress that enough.
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The roadmap:
Make YouTube series and shorts.
Use the series and shorts to prove my abilities as a filmmaker.
Taking the the content we've made, combine it with a pitch for my first feature Siege.
Use Siege to create a streaming series about gun running.
Use the experience to create bigger productions and build Ascender into a small studio.
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It's because of you that you'll make this possible.
Now, it's time to change up some things. I'm restructuring the Patreon a big as some people have asked for larger tiers and I'm simplifying things a bit for new Patreons.
If we make it to $1500 a month, I'll be able to make videos every other day so let's hope.
Have a wonderful Christmas.
Thank you for being in my life.
