Earlier in august i was invited to join the Status Update collab, hosted by Brando and a couple of days ago it was uploaded, here i'll go more in depth on my entry and inspirations
i'm really happy with how the collab turned out, and even happier to have been invited at all. i'm still new to ytpmv, and Brando is someone i respected before i'd even made my first video, so getting the invite was a delightful surprise. it's a strange feeling to be sitting next to people whose work you were watching as a fan not that long ago.
This was an interesting concept for a collab, it was my first time finding out about the 'eastern' version of this collab concept, and i think it's a genuinely lovely concept. Each participant makes a small piece about where they are right now, and you get to see how people whose videos you find incredibly cool are doing in their actual lives. The collab did end up leaning a bit on the depressing side, however.. i don't think that's a flaw, honestly. when you hand a bunch of creative people an open-ended "how are you doing" prompt, a lot of them will tell you the truth, and the truth is often a little heavy
I wrote quite a lot for my part, mostly because i had a lot on my mind but also i wanted to make sure i had material to work with (Haha), in the video it goes by ridiculously fast because of the text size, so here's the full text of my blog section, the way i wrote it:
"Status Update Collab Entry
Funnily enough, the most recent chapter of my life is YTPMV. I've been a fan of the videos for years and finally decided to make my first video a couple of months ago, it was really surprising to see all the support and positive reactions to a video that i now feel very negatively towards, 5 months later. Though, that's something i suffer with in every medium, i reach a goal (Finishing a video) and i immediately notice hundreds of mistakes and as soon as it's uploaded i don't like it anymore. I would say i have a big problem with scope and perfectionism in my work. Recently i've been suffering a lot with stressing about goals and projects, i have a lot of things i want to do and then i end up doing nothing for big periods of time and feel horrible about it. I have a musical background, i'm a pianist, but making YTPMVs really helped me learn how to use DAWs and structure compositions, and even more apparent - i've become better at video editing and compositing. And that's cool and all but i still fail to be satisfied in the long term with the things i make.
Even though i'm passionate about YTPMV, music, art, etc. I've always been science oriented, and spent the majority of my life learning programming, game developent and general STEM subjects. I feel like my expectations and thoughts on YTPMV and game design are very concurrent. I used to be able to play very long, high budget games as a kid, now i kinda suffer with getting through a game that'll take more than 3 nights to complete. Around 2026 is when i started really appreciating more shorter games, i've always favored independent works but only recently did i start being more of a fan of shorter experiences, short but can still relay the message it wants to.
And i respect the casual box visual, especially if the audio side is fairly good. However, i really like people who innovate in YTPMV, experimentation with audio and visual styles is something that i always love to see, the infrequent original compositions make up some of my favorite works ever, and even though i'm new to the medium i'd love to head in a more progressive and experimental direction with the medium. The issues i mentioned don't complement well with my academic interests, where i feel like in the upcoming school year i have to choose between working on music or focusing on doing good at school. Of course, i'm still a high schooler and often i recognize that life really begins during university years but i still want to leave a creative mark during my pre-adult years, and i feel like i haven't achieved that yet. It's a sort of battle with my creative drive where i want to make original things for myself and yet i'm dependent on feedback. A big influence in what i want to do with my work in the future is akin to Jane Removers 'Dariacore' and the general hyperflip approach, and incorporating more artistic visuals.
Besides YTPMV being the first time i've tried to do 'art' with video specifically, i've been doing 2D art for years, however i have started water color painting earlier this year for the first time, especially getting into it recently these last couple of days, there's just something very relaxing and freeing about just guiding your hand and painting with those soft water colors.
The game that really opened my eyes to the 'short but meaningful' "genre" i was talking about is The Beginner's Guide, which is about a multitude of things, but if i had to pinpoint one thing it really is a metaphor for the issues i've described here. Other games i've been absolutely obsessed with (which go hand in hand) are definetly Yume Nikki and LSD Dream Emulator, with the former being heavily inspired by the latter. Lately i've found myself going back to both of them constantly, replaying and poking around wikis and fan theories at like 2am instead of actually working on anything, which is probably its own little symptom of the exact same thing i've been rambling about this whole time. Wrestling with a game and trying to squeeze out as much meaning isn't the most productive thing, especially not in these games (I'd argue), and that sort of presentation is really appealing to me. Besides LSD, another Playstation 1 game has become very near and dear to me this year, Vib-Ribbon, i appreciate the visual style and it was incredibly innovative for its time, i've used it in one of my earliest videos, as my first ever entry for the Re:sample video jam. On that note, recently i've also been on a huge Persona 3 OST obsession, i've heard great things about the game and its soundtrack and i haven't been able to stop listening to it since, but i still haven't actually played the game, which feels kind of ridiculous considering how obsessed i am with the music at this point, it's just the same procrastination thing i already brought up mixed with the fact that it's a genuinely long game, and i know myself well enough by now to know i probably wouldn't see it through, so for now it just exists in my head as a soundtrack i love with no game actually attached to it.
I usually don't watch shows by myself, thanks to my best friend for inviting me to watch anime with him i've been introduced to FLCL (Fooly Cooly) and that's an incredible show i've been absolutely in love with since watching the first episode, the whole thing is about being stuck in this weird transitional headspace between still being a kid and having to actually figure out who you are, which is basically the kind of thing i resonate with. it's also just an incredibly experimental show, visually it throws so much at you, and music is such a central theme to it, i would wrestle with my brain a bit more but i just can't really get to the core of what makes me so attracted to this show, well it's also short, six episodes and it says everything it needs to say without padding."
The sources i used in my video are Vib Ribbon, LSD Dream Emulator, FLCL, some autosources - 2 from me a vocal chop and my electric piano, and one is my partner's guitar, Persona 3 OST stem and a Yume Nikki animation. The song is my original arrangement of Chocolate Matter by Sweet Trip. The bass is vib-ribbon, the guitar chords are a layering of the FL CL sample and my partner's guitar, with the visual being my watercolor painting of him playing the guitar. LSD Dream Emulator sources are used for the percussion, so is the Yume Nikki source.
I do think i went a little overboard with the writing, just a little, but the thing specifically about YTPMV philosophy is something i really love to talk about. And as i said, i really don't disrespect box visuals, all my videos have boxes and i don't want to act like "My boxes are better than yours", even if i did i'd be disrespecting a lot of my friends in the process because they make those kinds of visuals. It's just my personal preference where i want to "Push the envelope" in my work with every new video and i find it a lot more impactful to see people experimenting with new styles in the genre and i do somewhat think the focus on minimal visuals did set us back a bit (Comparing the ytpmv to otomad scene)
you can disregard all that philosophy for this specific entry though, because the honest truth is that i sat on the audio for about 7/8ths of the collab's length. i felt it wasn't ready yet, and i was also just generally procrastinating on starting the visuals (see: everything i wrote above). so the visuals were made in one night. that made the whole thing very improvisational and in the moment. it's basically whatever i thought 'looked cool' right then and there. it's a strange way to make a video, but there's something honest about it, especially for a collab that's literally about where your head is at right now. However Quiksave by Meltdrum was a conscious inspiration for the visualization of the vibri bass in the bottom of the first half.
If i had to sum up my status update in one line, it would be that i love making things, i'm bad at being satisfied with them, and i'm slowly trying to be okay with that. this entry was proof that a deadline plus one night of improvisation can produce something i actually like, even if part of me is still nitpicking it.
Thanks to Brando for hosting and inviting me, thanks to everyone else in the collab for being so honest with theirs, i appreciate it more than i probably let on and i'm happy to be getting into the ytpmv scene